Stranger Things Have Happened

by Mulldragon

First published 10th of March, 2013

In which a lich gets stuck in Equestria. (D&D stuff and ponies with possible references to other things)

Greetings, I am Yetagain. I am a lich that travels the multiverse and tries to make everyone see that necromancy is not inherently evil. I have lived for thousands of years and have made this journal to catalog some of my more significant adventures in the hopes that others may learn from my past. Some of the things I have written here will seem ridiculous and may seem like outright lies but I assure you I have written nothing but the truth. When you find yourself doubting my words simply stop and say to yourself one of the phrases that has kept me sane throughout the years. Stranger things have happened.
(other tags and characters may be added over time, dark now guaranteed to happen eventually but NOT grimdark)

Journal of a multiverse traveller

The Spinner's Prison. That is what this place used to be called, back before Lolth decided that ramming the two worlds of "Eberron" and "The Forgotten Realms" together would be a good idea. This place is now nothing more than pieces of stone and dirt floating through an empty void connected together by massive, indestructible strands of spider webbing. This is what happens to the impact zone when two universes are forced together. All of this debris and webbing connects in a twisting maze but all leads back to one central location. This platform, once the holding place of the Spinner of Shadows, now lacks it's intended resident and instead holds dozens of the most renowned mages, artificers, and sorcerers in all of Stormreach, perhaps even all of Argonessen. All of these masters of the arcane are here because of one thing, the one and only prominent and sturdy feature of this void. A portal to another world.

It is in this void that we find arguably one of the most powerful wizards in Stormreach, but he is not a part of this gathering. No, for he is shunned by the majority of those others. He is persecuted, not for any evil actions on his part, but for what he is. What he was born with an inherent talent for. For you see, This man is not just your typical wizard that throws balls of fire and bolts of lightning. Now, don't get me wrong, he does these things too when the need arises but that is not what sets him apart. What sets him apart is that he was born with a natural attraction towards and talent with one particular school of magic, Necromancy. The magic of death and undeath. Magic meant to kill your foes with a wave of your hand and reanimate the dead to fight as your side. One of the most hated and darkest forms of magic in this world. But, contrary to popular belief, dark doesn't always mean evil.

"Who is this man?" you ask? This man is one who has chosen the path of adventure. He is one who has decided to devote his life to saving others and proving to the world that Necromancy can be used for good. This is a man who has been called a hero many times, but called monster so many more. Why is this man so hated and reviled? Because he gave up his life for this goal. I don't mean that he died, well not in the general sense. If I meant that then he wouldn't be found here now would he? No, I mean that he performed a necromantic ritual to exchange his mortal life for an eternal undeath. He has become a lich, an undead master of necromancy and among the kings of the living dead.

Now, why did this man do such a thing if it would bring him such hatred? Why is this man here in a desolate void where two worlds have collided? For what does he risk being so close to mages that have enough combined power to utterly destory him? The answer is the same for all of these questions, his goal. He realised rather quickly that his mortal life would end long before he could bring about the acceptance of necromancy in his world, so he sought out the lich ritual in order to survive long enough to see his goal completed. He is here because this is where he realized that his world was not the only one and that there were likely hundreds if not thousands more out there, and that his goal was far larger than he ever imagined. For he could never bring peace to the necromancers in one world while there are still more worlds where they face persecution and destruction. He comes to this place, where he could be blasted apart by the most reviered wielders of the arcane ever heard of, because he realized that even a lich can be killed too easily for him to survive long enough to bring acceptance in two worlds let alone thousands. So it is that he has theorized that if these worlds collided then there must have originally been something in between and if he can hide his phylactery there than it would likely never be found.

The only problem, is getting access to this space between worlds. That brings us to why he has come here in particular. He has chosen this place because if he were to find access to this space anywhere, it would be the one place where these worlds met, for whenever two things are smashed together there are likely to be cracks.

And so it is that we find this man wandering from floating island to floating island, constantly probing the fabric of reality in search of an opening. He is not a particularly muscular man, as is to be expected of any mage, but he is not frail by any stretch of the word. He stands at about six feet in height, around average for a male in Eberron, and has a rather slim appearance. By looking at his body build or seeing the way he carries himself you would believe him to be in his prime, no more than his 30s if anything. But if you get close enough to see his face and his pure white, shoulder length hair you can see how old he really was when he freed himself from the hands of time. His is the face of an old man, most would guess him at around mid-seventies based solely off of this and that would be as near to accurate as anyone could be any more. He is centuries old but necromancy and an existence filled with adventure and exertion have granted him the endurance and agility of a man in his prime. But even a lich has to rest eventually.

This man walked to what had to be the thousandth island of stone he had visited since his arrival, clad in a white robe inlaid with golden runes written in a lost version of the draconic language, known only by a handful of beings. He had a belt tied around his waist from which hung twelve small pouches: nine contained spell components, one contained his money, one held ritual components, and the final held everything else he may have need of. In his hand he held a large, wooden staff with runes tracing in a spiral pattern from the bottom to the top. When he neared the center of this floating rock he thumbed his staff against the ground, releasing a pulse of arcane energy. He waited a few seconds for the pulse to return and when it did he sat down with a disappointed sigh.

"So much of this place searched and still no cracks to be found." he mumbled to himself as he untied his miscellaneous items pouch. opening it he peered inside and reached all the way up to his elbow into the small bag that looked like it could hold no more than his hand and pulled out a perfectly preserved slice of meat "Thirty odd years researching and creating a ritual to hop worlds, and three more gathering the materials and it may all be for nothing unless I can find a location!"

The man sighed again and then set to eating his lunch. When that was finished with he began his search again, making sure to maintain his arcane map spell so as not to search the same place twice. Six hours of searching and one break later, he stepped onto another bridge of webbing on course for yet another desolate, boring rock, only for the webs to shift beneath him and cause him to fall over the edge!

Now, this would normally be no issue to him because if he isn't prepared to cast a feather fall spell on himself he has a ring that does the job just as well. In this instance however, there is a slight problem caused by this falling... the only surface beneath him was a small outcropping of rock far below him, just big enough for him to lie down on, and it was connected to others only through long webs too thin for him to climb. So it was that the man dejectedly fell slowly down to an isolated space and sat down with an annoyed sigh.

"Great, now I have to spend six hours sitting on a tiny rock to prepare a flight spell!" he hit the bottom of his staff against the ground in anger, inadvertently sending out another pulse of energy. "At this rate I'll never find a... WHAT?!" he was suddenly interrupted by the pulse coming back, and showing that there was just the thing he was
looking for one the very rock he was standing on! "This tiny, insignificant, isolated little stone held the thing I have spent the last three days looking for!?" He sat down hard and rested his head against his hands and after a brief few seconds began to chuckle, which eventually turned into full blown laughter "hahaha! The irony of fate never ceases to amaze! I haven't found something this far from expectation in years!"

With his initial rage gone and his laughter finally calmed down, the man wasted no more time in untieing his ritual puch and pulling out all of the various rare ingredients he needed, all the while a giant smile on his face. When the final ingredient had been place he found that the rock was the perfect size to fit the arrangement with himself inside, another coincidence that could only have been set up in the weave of fate.

"finally, after all these years I can finish this ritual, store my phylactery, and get back to work on my goal." he began the gestures and incantations required for the ritual and released a steady flow of arcane energy. He maintained this for close to an hour before finally he reached the final word and slammed his hands together on the ground. Nothing happened for a solid minute and the man began to wonder if his efforts were all for naught. But then, just as he was about to give up hope, the air around him began to rush towards a spot in front of him. He had to brace himself with a shielding spell to keep from being blown off the rock. Unfortunately, his ritual pouch was still on the ground and he was not fast enough to grab it. Just as the pouch was about to fall off of the edge, a split began to become visible in the air where the wind was gathering and the pouch disappeared within it. The man laughed into the gale force winds around him shouting to himself, barely audible over the winds.

"Finally! I have done it! I have opened a portal to the space between worlds. I have accessed the Aether!" With that, he threw himself forward into the portal.

He emerged to find himself floating in yet another void, his pouch nowhere to be found. He looked around him and realized that he was not in fact in an empty void, but was instead surrounded by what appeared to be giant moving orbs, about five times his size. His original theories about the Aether appeared to be wrong, He had originally theorized that the Aether would be a motionless expanse that held doorways to countless worlds. Instead what he got was a space that seemed to have no gravity and was filled with ever-moving orbs of color that he could only assume to be worlds. No, they weren't moving. He now realized that he felt HIMSELF moving, as if caught in a rapid stream. But, despite the apparent speeds the motion did not appear to be violent. in fact, he felt almost calmed by the steady motion and his course never veered closer to those orbs, always weaving perfectly between them.

"So, this is the great Aether. The space beyond the barriers that protect each universe and connects all worlds to each other." He could not really distinguish the orbs from each other but no matter, he simply had to find the two spheres pressed together to get back home. He tried to move but realized that there was obviously nothing for him to walk on. He had an idea come to mind. This was not the first void that a mage had found themselves floating in and from books written by them he decided to try their method of movement. Willing yourself to move.

Surprisingly enough this preposterous sounding idea worked. Any normal person would have taken a moment to wonder at this new form of movement but this man had seen far too many strange things to be amazed by this. Besides, He had a job to do and was already delayed far too much for his liking.

"well, this place seems safe enough. Constantly moving, no discernible signs of life, no apparent risk of collision or any obvious danger of any kind. Seems like just the kind of place I was looking for." He reached into his robes and pulled out what looked like a stone scroll case. This man was doing something that only the most idiotic or desperate of liches would do. Something so foolish that it is only done if absolutely necessary. He was carrying his Phylactery on his person.

He released his Phylactery and watched it get swept away as he willed himself to remain in place. He still had a back up in Eberron of course, it never hurts to play it safe, but as far as he could tell this would be the safest possible place for the very thing that maintains his existence.

"Now, My phylactery is safe, I have successfully accessed the Aether, and I now how to move within this void. All that is left now is to find my way home so I can continue my mission. First Eberron, then the Forgotten Realms, then after that I will just pick worlds at random until I have accomplished my goal in as many worlds as I can." With that, the necromancer set off through the void in search of his home world. Now, time is hard to measure in a void but after what the man guessed to be four hours of wandering, he had still not found his home. This seemed like it would be harder than he thought.

I won't bore you with the details of his search as it is about three weeks of pure monotony as he wanders with still no sign of his world. Throughout this time he does experiments as he moves, testing how the barriers react to certain things. About one in every ten objects he tossed towards a world would slip through the barrier while the rest would simply bounce off and return to the stream of the Aether. This rule seemed to have one exception, anything that had or used to have life would pass through without fail. Meat? Yes. Plants? Yes. Dragon scale? Surprisingly, yes. Throughout all of these tests however, he never once tried to enter a world himself, now knowing whether or not he would be able to escape.

The constant process of search, throw something, watch it, search some more, etc... was finally disrupted, but not in a way that the man expected and definitely one he did not want. On what seemed to be the third week of his search he sensed a wave of energy passing though the Aether and quickly shielded himself. The wave passed by and he released his shield. However, the wave hit the world directly behind him... and bounced off, catching him on it's return trip heading toward its' original source. The man saw himself rapidly approaching a world that shone brightly with many colors, all the colors of the rainbow in fact. His eyes widened and he attempted to escape the wave of force and when that didn't work he tried every spell he could think of to free himself but as he approached the chromatic ball of light at a faster and faster pace it became apparent that he would not be able to escape. Resigning himself to his fate, the man braced himself for impact and closed his eyes.

One moment he felt himself being forced towards the unknown world and the next he felt rough, cracked stone beneath him. He opened his eyes to see that he was facing the floor of a well lit room and was on his hands and knees.

"huh, that was anti-climactic." He said as he began to stand up, only to fall down as an inexplicable fatigue washed over him and he hit the floor hard, landing with his back hitting a wall equally rough and stony as the floor. "ow" he said weakly as he reached his hand up to rub the back of his head which also had a rather abrupt introduction to the wall. He looked up to observe the room he had apparently landed in and saw what looked like decrepit ruins of some sort, likely a keep or castle from the fact that everything was stone and the room was massive. He also was able to discern that he was not alone, he
could see moving shadows being cast from the other side of a pillar and he could hear voices. Many voices.

Having little other choice, having found out the hard way that moving would be quite difficult for the time being, he decided that hiding from unknown beings would just make him seem suspicious if they did find him. So, he attempted to call out to them, managing a moderate level speaking voice but getting more and more tired by the moment "Whoever you are, I really hope you are friendly cause I think i'm going to need some help getting out of here. Or moving at all for that matter."

He heard a collective gasp from the other side of the pillar and the sound of... hooves on stone? In the man's last few moments of consciousness he was able to see the silhouettes of some sort of of equine creatures, likely the mounts of his potential rescuers, before his vision faded to black and he slipped into unconsciousness.

Now, throughout this tale I have told you about this man and explained his goals, his powers, what he is, and even where he comes from. But, I have yet to answer the question of who he is or tell you who I am for that matter. Well, the answer is the same to both questions is the same, for I am that man. My name is Yetagain. You may know of me as "The Dark Redeemer" or some equally ridiculous title. I have compiled this journal to help explain to my potential successor (though I hope that I should never need one) my past, my mistakes, and my accomplishments in the hopes of helping him or her better achieve the goal I have started. I have chosen this event to be the introduction of this journal because this is the beginning of my first venture into the multiverse and one of my earliest adventures of any great significance. This is the tale of how I was sent into the world of Equestria.

Author's Notes:

This is the only chapter that will be written as a journal entry the wrest will be written as a first person perspective story.
This is my first thing written ever so please, if you have any advice feel free to give it.

colorful, talking ponies...

As consciousness slowly returned to me the first thing I noticed was that wherever I was, it was WAY too bright.

"someone turn off that damned light!" My voice came out weaker than I had hoped and I would have been lucky if someone right next to me had heard it.

I reached behind my head to raise the hood of my robe, only to find my second realization... someone had taken my robe. I raised my hand above my head to block out some of the light and opened my eyes. A quick glance down revealed a white wall, the foot of the bed I seemed to be on, and the fact that yes, I was naked. In fact I seemed to be missing ALL of my equipment!

"Great, I get tossed into this world and the first thing that happens is I get robbed." I kept my hand in place for a few minutes to allow my eyes to adjust to the excessive amount of light. "Well Yeta, time to sort out your situation."

I moved my hand and cast my gaze around the room. I found myself looking around a windowless room made of shining white marble. The room rather featureless: there was a strange looking white thing hanging off of a wall that if I had to guess was meant to hold water and had a small pipe and two small valves above it, next to that was what seemed to be a strange seat made of the same shiny material as the wall hanging, there was a mirror taking up the majority of one wall and a small table sitting in a corner of the room. The strangest thing about this room however was the fact that it had no visible way in or out. there were no windows, no doors, and basically nothing that looked like it could be used as a portal.

"Okay, so I entered the Aether, did what I went there to do, then got stuck floating for a while. After that I got pulled into a world by a pulse of energy and found myself weakened to the point of losing consciousness and asking unknown beings for help. Now I seem to be naked, in a bright room made of bright white materials everywhere I look, and on top of that seem to be in some kind of prison cell if the lack of exit is anything to go on." I let out a sigh and covered my eyes again "Sometimes, being so sensitive to light really sucks."

"First order of business, check current power status." I reached out into the arcane, searching through the lines of power, finding it oddly difficult to reach them. "Hmmm, that's odd, maybe i'm in a dampening field? Well, let's see if the lines are the same here. The line for Light magic seems to be especially strong here. The basic elements are about the same as back home, so I shouldn't have too much trouble with fire, cold, air, and acid spells. Everything seems to be normal except... no, that can't be right. Where is the dark line!?" I searched frantically through the weave of power around me, trying to find the power that makes up almost the entirety of my spell repertoire. Finally I found it, but it was small, tiny really. There was almost no power flowing through it. "Well... that's not gonna bode well for me. It explains why I passed out though, I'm so
used to having that power flowing through me that I don't realize just how much it supports the rest of my power."

I let out another sigh. "Well Yeta, you aren't going to get anything accomplished by lying in a bed all day, might as well look for a way out or to contact whoever put me here."

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and put me feet on the floor. My left foot hit something and I looked down. There was a tray at my feet, on it was an apple, a piece of bread, and... a small pile of hay.

"Hay? Why would they give me hay?" I shrugged to myself and reached down to grab the apple. It may not be necessary for undead to eat but food still provides energy. I stood up and walked slowly toward one of the walls, tossing the apple into the air and catching it along the way, occasionally catching the apple to take a bite. When I reached the wall I ran a hand along it, searching for any kind of mechanism that might reveal an opening.

While I was searching, I felt magic being used from the other side of the opposite wall. I spun around quickly and reached into the lines on pure instinct, grabbing the lines for fire and wind to create a ball of swirling fire in my hand... only getting an orb no larger than a marble. On a portion of the wall a rectangle began to trace itself and when it was complete the section of the wall slid away to reveal... a horse? I let go of my spell in confusion and the tiny fireball dispersed itself back into pure magic while I stared in confusion at the horse in front of me. No, not a horse, it had a horn so it must have been a unicorn. I had run across unicorns a few times in my studies. Creatures native to the Feywild that occasionally come to the natural world to protect forests and lakes and the like.

"What is a creature of the Fey doing here?" I asked in the language of the Fey, elven. It tilted it's head at me and I got a glimpse of it's back, it had wings. So, not a unicorn. Some kind of cross between a unicon and a pegasus perhaps?

While I was trying to puzzle out just what this creature was it opened it's mouth and spoke "Was that a language you just spoke? I don't believe I've heard that one before."

It was my turn to tilt my head in confusion "You can speak common yet you do not understand elven? Definately not a Fey then. Well, what you are can come later. For now could you show me where to find my equipment and the people that found me in that strange ruin I appeared in?"

"you are speaking to one of them right now, and as for your belongings, I felt the enchantments on them the moment I saw you and you won't be getting them back until we decide whether or not you are a threat to our ponies."

My eyebrows went up in confusion and I just stared at the pegacorn for a moment. She, at least the voice seemed feminine, was an alabaster white with what looked like golden jewelry on consisting of a large neck piece, hoof coverings, and a crown along. Along with all this her... mane? yes, mane consisted of many colors and was constantly billowing in an unseen wind and her tail seemed to be the same. "Ponies? why would I be a threat to ponies? and what's with the crown..." and then it clicked in his mind. The hay, the talking equine of unknown kind, the crown. "Are ponies..." I started only to get interrupted by her.

"Yes, ponies are a civilized race here and No you aren't the first human I've seen but you are the first to show up here."

"No human has ever been here and yet you've seen them before? How did you manage something like that?"

"My sister and I know that there are other worlds and we look into them from time to time."

"Well, that's odd. So there are no humans in this world? at all?" When she shook her head I sat down on the floor and put my hand to my chin, letting out a hum of thought "So, are there any other humanoid races here? Elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs?" She shook her head again. "Huh, seems I've wandered upon a very different world indeed."

"You seem to be taking this all quite well, from what I've seen I expected you to take things a lot more... aggressively."

"Well, when you've lived as long as I have you tend to see a lot of strange things, especially when you are an adventurer. Anyways, back to my equipment. Can I at least have my robe back? I can tell you all the enchantments on it if that would help ease your mind."

"I already know what enchantments are on them and you can have your things back." When she said this I began to stand up. "On one condition."

I sighed angrily "Of course there's a catch! There's always a catch!" I sat back down and stared at her "Well, what do you want?"

"You just have to let me read your mind again."

"Again?" I looked at her confused for a moment before it hit me. "You read my mind while I was unconscious?!"

"Yes, I did. So did my sister. We couldn't very well ask you why you were here and that seemed to be the easiest way of determining what to do with you."

"So you know why and how I'm here and who I am yet you still think I may be a threat?"

"We know that you are a necromancer and a lich. We also know that your name is Yetagain and that it isn't your real name, though even with you unconscious we couldn't find that, and that you came here by accident without any intention of harming us. And finally we know that under normal circumstances you wouldn't hurt us unless we tried to hurt you. What we don't know however, is how you will react to this new information. For all we know, you may just decide that attacking us is the best option now that you know more. However, if you let me read your mind I can find this out and if you truly mean us no harm then neither of us will have anything to worry about."

"There are things that I will not reveal, my true name among them, but those things have been long since protected by powerful enchantments." I closed my eyes and felt for the enchantments I had put upon myself so long ago. "Luckily those still seem to be in effect so if you have read my mind once then I have nothing left to hide from you, feel free. But, after I get dressed I have questions I want answers to."

"And I will see that they are answered. Now, this should only take a moment."

Her horn began to glow and she closed her eyes. I relaxed myself and closed my own eyes in turn. Within seconds I felt a presence pressing against my mind, asking to be let in. I did not resist and soon enough I felt that presence enter my mind. Images and thoughts flashed through my mind as she searched them. After a few minutes of this I felt the presence receed and I opened my eyes. The equine was turned to the side, talking to someone else. I heard the words "Yes your majesty" and the sound of a pony walking away from the door.

"A guard will be back with your things in a moment, until then I suppose I can start answering your questions."

"well, first off you know some of my darkest secrets yet I don't even know your name and that hardly seems fair."

"No, I suppose it doesn't" She smiled at me and walked into the room going over to the table in the corner opposite of me. "I am Princess Celestia, reagent of the sun and diarch of Equestria." She said as she sat down in one of the two chairs

"Reagent of the sun? Quite the flashy title you have there."

"It comes with the job of raising and lowering the sun each day."

"... What? You raise the sun?"

"Yes, and my sister, Luna, raises the moon."

"so, what happens if you die? does the sun just never move again?"

"My sister and I are immortal but if for some reason one of us can't fulfill our duties then the other can take over. And if that doesn't work a unicorn council used to do it and I am sure there are those that could learn to do it again."

"nothing is truly immortal, everything dies eventually. There is no escaping that."

As I said this a white stallion in golden armor entered the room with a stoic look on his face carrying my belongings on it's back "The items you requested, your majesty." he set them on the table and walked back out taking up a position beside the door.

I stood up and walked over to the table. I sorted through the items on the table seeing everything in place: white robe, black gloves, black boots, red belt with 11 pouches tied to it (the ritual pouch still presumably floating in the Aether.). I spent the next few moments putting my things back on and thinking of what my next question should be.

"So you obviously use magic, is it arcane, primal, or psionic?"

"From what I can tell our magic is comparable to your arcane."

"Good, that makes my next question easier. Why is the dark power line in this world so weak and the light so strong?"

"The dark thread is no weaker than it usually is as far as I know. However, Luna is the one to talk to about that, i'm afraid I can't use dark magic very well. As for why the light is so strong, that's because you are near me."

"I've heard of certain powers being stronger in places but never did I think they could be stronger around a certain entity. Anyways, it seems I need to meet this Luna at some point. When is the earliest time I can meet with her?"

"She is probably sleeping right now but she should be at dinner tonight if you would like to come and meet her then."

"That sounds like a good plan, about how long is it until then?"

"Dinner will be at seven tonight and it's two right now so it won't be too long."

"Okay then, I have three more questions for you. First, how long was I unconscious?"

"Two days"

"Second, how secretive have you been about my presence? I'd rather not have a crowd of reporters trying to interview the strange new creature tonight."

"Only Luna, the guards, the other six who found you, and myself know about you and i'm certain that none of them will go telling reporters about you."

"Okay, that's good. Now, final question. Why are you being so hospitable towards me?"

At this she grinned and stood up "Why not?" she asked as she walked towards the door. "There will be two guards stationed outside this room. If you want to leave simply knock on this section of the wall." And with that she walked out and the wall resealed itself behind her.

I went and sat back down on the bed with a sigh. "What have you gotten yourself into this time Yeta?"

The next five hours were spent going through my books and components, trying to research a way back home. So far, I had only learned one thing. Getting home was not going to be easy.

Author's Notes:

well, I am no great writer and I doubt this story will go anywhere but so long as at least one person enjoys this I have done my job

Preparation and Contemplation

After Celestia left I occupied myself with sorting through and taking stock of my possessions. The first and most obvious of these were my eleven bags of holding, my many-looped leather belt, my travelling boots, my gloves enchanted to resist heat, my staff layered with runes to reinforce it against all kinds of damage, and last but not least my most powerful piece of equipment, my robe, inlaid with draconic runes to enhance my physical and mental endurance along with granting a small resistance to magical attacks.

Aside from these visible items I also had an assorted stockpile of items held in my bags and sorted into categories: spell components separated into nine, gold in one, and anything I find in my journeys held in the final one. I opened each of these in turn to see just how much hard the trip through the Demonweb had hit my stock.

I started with my spell component bags and cleared a space to lay the components out on the floor. “This is a lot less than I had hoped I had left.” In total I had six vials of fine sand, each holding about fifty pinches for spells, and 200 eyelashes in gum arabic. These components, however, were not the ones I was worried about, I rarely used them. The components that had me worried occupied the other seven bags and were making pathetically small piles in comparison to the others. 43 tiny balls of bat guano and sulfur, 28 hearts of hens, 30 small crystal cones, 24 crushed black pearls, 50 powdered rubies, 18 bits of sunstone, and (most disappointing of all) 4 snakeskin gloves. “I hope I can find somewhere to restock here.” After making a mental note of my numbers I re-bagged the materials and set the pouches aside.

Next, I decided to count out my monetary holdings. I pulled out my coins and stacked them into assorted piles on the table in the corner. I counted them up and found a total of 3265 platinum coins, 1406 gold coins, 600 silver coins, and 192 copper coins. This was all in Stormreach issued coins made of about ⅓ of an ounce of metal. Back home in Eberron this would equate to a small fortune for any commoner and a decent bribe for any noble but for an adventurer, an adventurer would spend this in ten seconds flat at the auction house. I hoped that these metals would be of some value in this world otherwise It would be that much harder to restock in the future. With one last recount to make sure of the numbers I began putting the coins back into their bag.

I re-tied my component and money pouches to my belt and began to untie my loot pouch when the door to the room slid open and a guard walked in with a package on his back.

“Her majesty Princess Celestia requested that I deliver this to you.” He said as he reached his head around to grab the package in his teeth.

I quickly tightened the string on my remaining bag and walked over to the guard to grab the package from him. It was a simple brown paper package tied with string and it was light and malleable. If I had to guess it contained cloth of some sort.

When the string left the guard’s mouth he spoke again, “She also told me to give you this note with it.” As he said this he reached into a gap in his armor and pulled out a folded piece of paper. I reached out my hand and grabbed it, holding it up and inspecting it for a moment.

As I looked over the paper I asked the guard “So, you ponies even have a written language. Interesting, how do you even write without hands?” As i said this I set the paper on the package in my other hand and wiggled my fingers on my now free hand.

The guard looked at me like I had just asked what color the sky was. “Well, unicorns can use their magic and some pegasi learn to use their wings to hold the quill but most of us just use our mouths.”

I smiled a little at that and let out a small laugh “Heh, mouth writing.” I turned and sat the package on the table and when I heard the sound of hooves on stone I called a final question over my shoulder. “What time is it?”

“About six fifteen I believe.”

I turned around to face the guard again “Thank you for answering my questions sir, a good day to you.”

He turned his head and nodded to me “And a good day to you.” With that he walked out the door and it closed again.

When the wall was whole again I turned back to the package and mumbled to myself “Only forty-five minutes left? Wow, time sure flies when you are dealing with a large number of small objects.”

I picked the letter up off of the table and began unfolding it. as I did so I decided to test my recovery and conjure a mage hand to untie the package while I read. The letter was simple and only consisted of a few lines with no need for writing down the sender or recipient.

“While I looked into your mind and know you don’t mean anyone harm, I’m not entirely certain I want you to be near my sister. However, she has been quite adamant about speaking with you herself. So, in order to ensure that all three of us can be comfortable during this meal I have to ask you to leave behind all of your enchanted possessions and these ‘spell components’ that you use. Now, I know that your kind typically prefers to be clothed so I had someone examine your outfit while you were unconscious and make a new one for you to wear for this occasion.”

“Ah, there is the caution I was expecting.” I sat the letter down and looked down to see that my mage hand had already removed the string and unwrapped the paper. Inside the package was a simple looking white robe that seemed identical in size and cut to my current robe. It had no accents or designs but it’s simplicity was in sharp contrast to the quality of it’s material. It felt like it was made from a fine velvet.

“Leave all of my components and my enchanted items behind huh?” I gave a resigned sigh “I’m not really in a position to deny that request now am I?” With that I untied my belt and removed both my gloves and robe. I picked up the new robe and put it on. It fit perfectly, they must have had quite the skilled seamstress prepare this. I stepped over and looked at myself in the mirror. “It is definitely a fine robe but it is just too simple for my tastes.” I stroked my beard for a moment and then a smile spread across my face as an idea came to mind “I know just what I can do to make this better.”

I took the robe back off and laid it face down on the bed. Casting back through my memory I focused on the back of the robe and reached out for the ley line of light. I don’t usually use this line and even with the amount of power it held here I had a little trouble getting a hold on it but I managed to gather some power and channel it into a simple spell known as arcane mark. I waved my hand over the robe and as my hand passed an image began to form of a black book emblazoned with the word Morte in golden letters and surrounded by a snake biting its’ own tail. My personal arcane mark and calling card. I looked over my work with a grin and put the robe back on.

By this time I had guessed about 10 minutes had passed so I still had a little time before I needed to head out. I sat down on the bed and sorted through the information from the conversation. My mind kept going back to the fact that Celestia’s very presence amplified light magic and judging by the fact that it hasn't lessened any her presence covers this entire castle. Despite having said that I had never heard of the lines increasing around an entity I couldn't help but feel that it sounded familiar. I cast through my memory and finally, it hit me. “No, that can’t be right. There is no way that’s possible.” I sighed and shook my head “No, nothing is impossible it’s just not likely. Actually, taking into account that this pony raises the sun it isn't that unlikely. If this theory is correct then I may just have to be a bit more careful with what I do around these princesses.”

As I came to terms with this realization the door began to open again and a unicorn guard stepped into the room followed by two pegasi. The pegasi were white with golden armor like the others I had seen but the unicorn was different. His coat was still white but his mane was made up of stripes consisting of a few different shades of blue and his armor was purple with golden accents and a six pointed magenta star on the chest piece. His most unusual feature though was a mark on his flank that consisted of a shield bearing the same six pointed star underneath three normal stars. The unicorn turned towards me and spoke with a tone that spoke of authority and strength.

“I am Shining Armor, captain of the guard. The Princesses Celestia and Luna request your presence in their private dining hall.”

“They send a captain to escort me to dinner? Well Captain Armor lead the way, it is time for me to dine with the moon and sun.”

Author's Notes:

I was surprised this story got any attention at all let alone actually being liked. I am a new writer and I know there are issues with this story but thank you all for giving it a chance and if I haven't thanked you yet then thank all of you for favoriting it.
I won't be doing any kind of update schedule yet as it is just going to be written as the ideas come to me and I get the chances to write but I will try to keep it to at least one post a month and hopefully more.
you guys (and gals) are great and feel free to ask questions or give criticism in the comments.
also, i know this chapter is very short and I just want to warn you that just like the updates the chapter lengths will be quite erratic but hopefully they won't get any shorter than this.
Until next time, Stay brony my friends.

A Divine Dinner

As I followed Shining Armor out the door I went back to thinking over my situation. Celestia seemed to be showing a lot of caution with her sister. First off it seems this Luna had to ‘insist upon it’ in order to have this meeting with me. Second she has no problem being in the same room as me with my enchantments on but asks me to leave them behind to meet Luna. Finally, sending a not only three guards but one of them being captain just to escort me to dinner? No, I don’t think that is the full extent of their assignment. As we continued walking I took note of the guard’s positions. The captain was in front of me leading the way while the pegasi were on either side and slightly behind me. The guards behind me were obviously meant to keep an eye on me from behind and leap into action should I try anything while the Captain remains just outside of my reach so, were I not a mage, I would be unable to harm him without at least a moment’s notice for the guards behind me. I was willing to bet that was all they would need.

“So, I assume you three gentlemen will be staying through the dinner?” I asked with a small grin. Judging from the way the guards paused for a moment as I asked, no more than a fraction of a second but enough for a trained eye to see, I had guessed right.

Shining Armor spoke from in front of me without turning his head “And what makes you think that?”

“Well, for one the fact that three guards is a little much to escort anyone other than royalty Especially when one of them happens to be the captain.”

“We could just be worried that you are going to try to escape along the way.”

“Well, there’s also the fact that she seems to be taking great caution with her sister.”

“How so?” He actually cast a glance back at me and raised an eyebrow questioningly when he said this.

“Oh, where to start?” I asked with a dry laugh “First, she makes me leave behind all of my magic items when she knows exactly what each one does. I mean, sure the staff and robe might be best to leave but my gloves? my spell components? The gloves only resist heat and the components won’t do me much good when the magic of this effectively cuts me off from the power that supports all of my others.” I said with an increasing amount of agitation until all three guards stopped to glare at me. When I calmed down I continued “Second, there is the fact that her letter said that her sister had to insist she met me, implying that she didn’t want her meeting me in the first place and only does so reluctantly.” I sighed to myself as my first reason came back to mind with another reasoning behind it. “I also have a theory that makes me think all of this caution should be unnecessary for Celestia but I don’t know much about her sister. All in all this adds up to scream one of two things at me. Either this caution is unnecessary and Celestia is just an overprotective sister, or something has recently happened that makes these extra security measures warranted.”

Shining cast another questioning glance at me “What theory would this be now?”

“That is something you will have to wait and hear at the dinner.” I said with a mischievous grin.

“I never actually said we were going to be staying in there with you. What makes you so certain we are?”

As he asked this I we rounded a corner down a short hall that ended at a large double-door flanked by two unicorn guards. As we approached they recognized their captain and the doors began to glow along with their horns. As we got close and the doors began to swing open I finally answered Shining’s question

“You said could”

And while the guards stopped in confusion at my vague statement I continued on through the still opening door...

… and immediately stopped as I took in my surroundings. I had walked through the room came into view and the word ‘massive’ came to mind. This room was huge, obviously meant to hold large gatherings of ponies but both it and, now that I thought about it, the hallways seemed to be clear of all but guards. Speaking of guards, they were the second thing I noticed. There were a LOT of guards. the entire wall was lined with guards fully armored and carrying spears while pegasi guards sat perched on wall platforms ringing the room at a space of possibly thirty or so feet apart, each holding what appeared to be crossbows modified to be used by hoof. All in all this added up to approximately 70-80 guards all armed and looking ready for a fight.

My first thought was of a trap and I immediately reached out for the ley lines. Then I noticed that the guards on the ground held their spears vertically rather than at the ready and while the crossbows were loaded they weren't trained on me. Well, most of them weren’t, some ponies were suspicious of the new strange being and, despite the stoicism of the others, were obviously ready to shoot me down without a moment’s hesitation. However, these ponies were few and far between so i was able to settle down a little and release my hold on the energy I was preparing myself to throw at them.

Now that my initial reaction was out of the way I took a moment to really observe the room. It was indeed large, some kind of feast hall of some sort perhaps? This assumption was supported by the two long feast style tables in the center of the room. The walls held, aside from guards, various wall hangings and paintings while there were a few scattered decorative pillars along the wall as well. There were various stained glass windows depicting scenes of ponies eating, playing, and generally being merry. The room was well lit by a couple of chandeliers radiating light from above, obviously from an enchantment as there were no candles visible. One of the two tables sat empty while the other had various plant based foods lining about an eigth of it’s length. still easily a feast to the eyes of most. And at the head of this table sat two ponies. One of the ponies was Celestia looking just the same as she had before, right down to the flowing mane and tail and looking at me with an unreadable expression. The other pony I assumed to be the one I had come to speak with, Luna.

She was quite different from Celestia. For starters she was midnight blue as opposed to Celestia’s alabaster white. Second was the fact, while Celestia’s mane never seemed to sit still and had a variety of bright colors, Luna’s looked to be a normal, mostly straight mane colored powder blue. Third Luna seemed to be much smaller than Celestia. Finally, Luna was staring at me suspiciously. Both of them however, had wings and a horn and they both had a look about them that they were used to being listened to and that there was a very good reason about it. All of this combined with the possibility that my theory was correct and I was quite intimidated.

Despite this though, I never lost my composure. I walked out into the room from the doorway with my gaze straight pointed straight at the princesses and an even and leisurely pace. As I approached the table I heard the sound of some ponies walking into the room, likely the three that brought me here, and the large doors closing behind them. When I was only a few paces from the table I decided showing these ponies a bit of extra respect might not be a bad idea and I swept an elegant bow.

“Good evening princesses. I am Yetagain, currently displaced necromancer and adventurer from the world of Eberron.” I straightened from my bow and looked up at them, noticing that Luna’s expression had become slightly sullen when I mentioned necromancy. “Thank you for meeting with me.”

Celestia raised an eyebrow at my sudden politeness, “My, you’ve had quite the change in attitude.”

I gave her a deadpan stare “Well excuse me for thinking that a more official meeting in front of a small army of guards ready to shoot me down calls for a little more ceremony than being interrogated naked in a doorless room.” as if to emphasize my point, but more likely because they didn’t like my tone, a few of the guards raised their crossbows and took aim.

“That wasn’t an interrogation. That was a polite conversation.”

I grinned and pointed at her for a moment “Ah, but a smart interrogator knows when to use force and when to coax out the information with kindness.”

“... Point.” she lifted a glass of what I assumed was wine in her magic and took a drink then gestured to a chair on her side of the table, noticeably a good distance from Luna. “Please, have a seat and help yourself to some food.”

I took the offered seat and looked at the food spread out in front of me. It was quite the variety of choices and I was sure every last one of them was of fine quality. There was only one problem. Every last one of them was made with some kind of flower or grass product. Turning my attention away from the food I looked up at Luna to see why she had been so quiet and saw that she was still staring at me but her glare seemed to hold a bit of... curiosity. After a few seconds of this she spoke...

“ART THOU NOT GOING TO PARTAKE IN THE MEAL?” … in the most ear shattering, mountain moving voice I had ever heard, sending a few of the lighter dishes blowing across the room.

I ducked my head and threw my hands over my ears and I was just barely able to hear Celestia speak over that and the ringing “Lulu, there is no need for the royal Canterlot voice.”

Luna ducked her head a little sheepishly at her sister’s words “We apologize human, We have been... away for a thousand years. It is difficult to rid ourselves of old ways.”

I raised an eyebrow at this but chose to leave that alone for now. Knowing her past wouldn’t help me much if any. “It is quite alright. Old habits die hard. And please, call me Yeta. And as for your question, humans can’t eat most kinds of flowers.” I looked around the room, seeing the guards entirely unfazed by Luna’s outburst and finally asked the question that had been on my mind for a while now. “So, what’s with the... extra protection?”

Celestia opened her mouth to speak but Luna beat her to it. “Our sister appears to believe We cannot defend ourselves in Our current state.” She said this with an annoyed glance at the white princess.

“Now Lulu, it’s not that I don’t think you can handle yourself it’s just that I don’t want to take any chances so soon after getting you back.” She said while putting a hoof on her sister’s shoulder.

“We know sister. We just believe that this,” She gestured to the squad of protectors. “ is a little excessive.”

Celestia looked around the room as if just noticing exactly how many guards she had stationed here and then it was her turn to look sheepish “Perhaps this is a little... over the top.”

I gave a dismissive wave of my hand and tried to redirect the conversation towards a more useful topic. “It’s fine, no reason to dismiss them after they've already been stationed and I can’t honestly say I wouldn't do the same in your situation.” I leaned forward and steepled my fingers in front of me on the table “Now, if you would be so kind as to answer a few questions I may be able to find a quick way out of your hair and back to my home.” I raised an eyebrow at them “Unless, you happen to know a way to travel.”

Celestia was about to say something before she was, again, interrupted by Luna.

“THOU DOTH NOT KNOW’ST A WAY HOME?!”

I had to rub my ears again as she slipped back into her “old ways” but managed to hear Celestia’s next words

“If you don’t know a way to travel between worlds then how did you get here?” She asked, seemingly unfazed by the sudden increase in volume from the pony by her side.

“I know a method of travel, just not an easy or quick one.” I looked at them and was surprised to find that they were wearing confused expressions “I thought you read my mind, how do you not already know all of this?”

Celestia spoke this time, still seeming confused by this conversation “We were only able to find certain things about your adventures and various exploits, the rest we assumed to be behind those mental barriers you’ve set up.”

“Hmm, that’s odd I didn’t originally shield that much of my memory. I suppose the enchantment is just developing over time. I’d wager that in another few centuries my entire mind may be shielded beyond access. Quite interesting indeed.” I shook myself for a moment to refocus my mind on the matter at hand “Anyway, if you didn’t find it in your reading then I suppose I have to explain myself. I spent about thirty years developing a ritual to travel outside of my universe and managed to figure it out but required a weak point in the world’s barriers. I eventually managed to find this in a point where my world had collided with another, that’s a story for another time, and stepped through. However, I did not take into account the difficulty of traversing the Aether and was swept away from my world. Long story short I got lost and some strange pulse of energy polychromatic energy pulled me into this world.” At the mention of the energy the princesses cast a knowing look at eachother but I ignored this in favor of continuing my tale.

“Everything from that point on you know but while I was in the Aether I lost my bag containing my ritual components. This normally wouldn’t cause me any problems as I usually just carry the more common materials but the materials for the traveling were exceptionally rare and took me a few years to pull together. And on top of all of that, the ritual requires a good deal of power to perform, power that I seem unable to access at this time.” At this point I leaned back in my chair and took a sip from a wine glass that I had absentmindedly picked up throughout the conversation “In short, i know a way to leave your world but it requires materials that would take me years to gather, if they exist in this world, and power beyond me. And even if I can gather these things and get the power, I still need a weak point in the barrier and a way to navigate that great flowing void of energy known as the Aether.”

When I was finished the sisters looked at each other again and I contented myself with draining the last of the wine in my glass. While alcohol was unable to physically affect me, the ritual of sipping some wine has become something of a habit in times of stress for me and can sometimes help me take my mind off of my problems. While I was doing this Celestia leaned in to whisper something I couldn't hear to Luna. When she was finished Luna shook her head and told her “Even if that is correct, We can not let him leave yet.”

I leveled a cold stare at Luna as she said this “So, you intend to keep me from returning home? Well, you already know that you won’t be the first to try to confine me and you can see how well they did.”

Luna turned her and equally cold gaze at me “Art thou threatening us, necromancer?”

I leaned forward and laid one hand over the other on the table. I looked right at Luna with a smile that I know never reached my eyes “Oh heavens, no! I would never think of threatening hosts as hospitable as you have been.” I dropped all pretense of smiling and returned to a steely glare “I am merely giving you fair warning that if you threaten me then even your...” I took a quick glance around the room, thoroughly reassessing the situation in my mind “... 56 guards, 30 archers, and the pegasus hiding above me in the rafters may prove to be insufficient.”

A gasp echoed throughout the ranks of, to this point, stoic guards as I said the previously mentioned pegasus dropped down next to me with a look of utter shock on his face. Even the princesses seemed surprised at what I had said.

The pegasus was colored a slightly darker blue than Luna and wore what looked to be a lighter version of the armor the guards were wearing made out of a leather like material and not quite so lustrous appearance, perfect for stealth, and his mane was a lighter blue, still much darker than Luna’s mane, with one part of it having a silvery color. His tail was of a similar color with the silver at the end. He appeared to be wearing horseshoes with what looked like retractable claws on his forehooves and normal horseshoes on his rear hooves, or at I couldn't see any claws on them.

After a few seconds of stunned silence this pony all but shouted in my ear. “How in Celestia’s name did you know I was there!? I haven't been spotted while hiding since basic training, yet you just sit here and casually mention that you knew exactly where I was!” Using Celestia’s name like that, yet more proof for my theory and almost nothing to disprove it.

“It is quite simple.” I said as I reached for the ley lines and sent a tiny, precision aimed burst of force energy into each of his clawed horseshoes, activating the mechanism to retract the claws. I continued over his heightened shock “You are not the first assassin I have dealt with and you won’t be the last.” I kept a perfectly level expression throughout this statement and seemed on the outside to be calm and confident of the situation. On the inside however, I was terrified. Not only was there a ridiculous number of guards ready to leap into action at any moment but also I doubted I could do much more channeling after that little stunt with his claws. On top of this there was the fact that, if my theory was true, I was in the presence of two entities that could easily destroy me on a whim.

The pegasus’s next words were shouted as well but in a more challenging tone “Oh, I may not be the first but I can make sure I am the last!” With that his claws came out again and he got ready to take a step toward me when Celestia’s voice halted him.

“Lieutenant Nightshade Dust, restrain yourself!”

Dust immediately retracted his claws, turned towards Celestia, and went into a deep bow “My apologies your majesty. I let my shock and anger control me.”

“See that is doesn't happen again.” With that said she turned back to me. “As for you. Threats, even suggested ones, made against us won’t be taken kindly.”

“That is understood Princess, I was simply informing your sister that I feel the same way about being threatened.”

“We were not suggesting that we wish to contain you within our world, only that we are going to be restraining you to the castle until we are sure we can trust you.” Seeing that I was about to protest, Celestia continued “You can help speed that process along by answering our questions as we are answering yours.” She then turned to Luna and her expression softened “Sister, I know you just came back from a bad experience, but that doesn't mean that you should be so suspicious of Yetagain for his use of dark magic.”

“Fine” Luna and I both said in unison, though Luna spoke much more reluctantly.

“I propose that I explain parts of my past to you and you tell me about this incident you keep referring to.” At this Luna’s gaze fell and she closed her eyes as if remembering something painful. From what I had heard so far, she probably was. “And after that you can keep me in this castle for as long as you like so long as it doesn’t prevent me from getting home.”

The sisters looked at each other for a moment before nodding. “We can agree to this, so long as you continue to answer questions we may have throughout your stay and we will answer yours.” Celestia looked around the room before continuing “Though, let us discuss this somewhere a little more... private.” With that she and Luna stood up and Celestia turned two ponies on turn, calling their names as she did so “Shining Armor, Nightshade Dust, come with us please. And Captain Armor, select another guard to bring as well.”

The mentioned ponies snapped a salute before moving over to the princesses sides. Armor called out to another pony as he walked by “Lieutenant Brightblade, front and center.” A unicorn stepped out of the line of ponies at the wall and snapped a salute in front of Shining Armor. The unicorn looked no different from the other guards aside from the fact that he carried a greatsword rather than a spear.

I stood up and fell in line behind the five ponies as they began to walk towards a door on the back wall, opposite from the one I came in at. As we walked Celestia dismissed the rest of the guards in the room.

As we walked I turned toward Nightshade “So, an assassin with a rank huh? never thought i’d see the day.”

He kept his gaze directly ahead of him as he answered “Why are you so sure i’m an assassin and not just a stealth operative?”

“As I said, you aren't the first assassin I've dealt with.” I gave him a mischievous grin despite the fact that he wasn't looking at me “And there’s also the fact that you all but confirmed it in your little outburst.”

Shining Armor saw that Nightshade was starting to get a little aggravated already and stepped in before I sent him into another outburst. “His rank is just for show, he really only answers to me, the princesses, and his brother.”

I raised an eyebrow at this “Wow, your rather forthcoming with your information.”

“If I didn’t answer you then you would ask the princesses anyways so this just saves time.”

“I suppose that’s true.” I turned back to Nightshade “So, who is your brother to have as much authority as the captain of the guard and the princesses?”

“My brother, Sterling Dust, is kinda like the princess’s advisor, assistant, and spokespony. He advises the princesses and deals with minor incidents or events that the princesses can’t attend.”

“Then why isn’t he here? This seems like the kind of situation where an advisor would be called in.”

“He is out dealing with an issue in Manehatten.”

I would have commented on the name of the town but it was at this time that we arrived at our destination. We stood in front of an intricately designed door with gold and silver inlays at the end of a long hallway that lead to the feast hall we came from with a couple of simple wooden doors along the hall.

Princess Celestia’s horn glowed and the door opened revealing a room much smaller than the previous one though still quite large. It contained a few wall hangings similar to those in the feast hall and had a couple of simple windows to let in sunlight. There was a chandelier hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room with a few candles in it that seemingly lit on their own as we walked to brighten the room. Beneath the chandelier was a moderately sized wooden table polished to a shine with two chairs placed next to it. All in all the room was about as simple as you could get when dealing with royalty and contained little extravagance. I assumed this to be the personal dining chambers of the princesses.

Celestia’s horn glowed again and four more chairs appeared around the table. We all took a seat and the princesses prompted me to begin my tale.

I told them about my past, back when I was alive. I was born to a family of famous adventurers and followers of the Silver Flame, a deity that strongly opposes demons and opposes undead almost as strongly. I was born with an inherent knack for the arcane that my family took notice of and I began schooling to become a mage. During this training I developed my skills in all schools of magic but in secret I was fascinated with necromancy and had an especially strong talent for it. I hid this talent for years for fear of persecution but all things must end and my charade was no different.

One day I was put in a situation where my family was in danger and my other magics just weren’t strong enough to save them. I used my necromancy to save my family and was promptly disowned, shunned, and eventually hunted by others who couldn’t see past the type of magic I used. Despite this, my family never came after me, they seemed too torn between seeing me as their kin and seeing me as a monster.

Where most others would have been terrified of this persecution I was infuriated and motivated. I explained how and why I devoted my life to my goal and how this drove me to become a lich. I also explained how I had spent the last approximate six hundred years adventuring, sometimes alone and sometimes with a group, and solving problems for people and that I had even saved the worlds, both Eberron and the Forgotten Realms, multiple times, though that was never achieved alone. Finally, I told them about the realization of the existence of multiple worlds, my adventures in the Forgotten Realms in a little more detail, and my time researching, preparing, and performing the ritual that got me here. I even explained what a lich’s phylactery is and what I had done with mine in the hopes that it would help earn their trust.

In turn, the princesses began to explain the incident of Nightmare Moon. How Luna was always and still is a user of shadow magic just as Celestia uses light, though her weakened state meant that the ley lines did not bend around her as they did Celestia. But one thousand years ago she was overwhelmed with jealousy and embraced more shadow than she could handle. Now, dark magic is not inherently evil but like all things, moderation is required. Whether it was dark magic, light magic, or even an elemental magic, embracing more than you can handle can make you lose control. Magic has a mind of it’s own, it will normally remain neutral and let you do as you please but there are rare occasions where it will hinder or help you. This is how you get the unbelievable legends of a single mage turning back a massive army in a moment of desperation. However, in situations like Luna’s the magic will take control and use you for it’s own purposes.

The story went on through Nightmare Moon’s attempted takeover, her following banishment, and her eventual redemption through something called “The Elements of Harmony”.

Now, it was no small surprise to find that the day Luna was purged of the dark magic’s influence coincided perfectly with my arrival. In fact, I was found by them mere moments afterwards and taken to the castle here in their capitol city known as Canterlot.

“Those elements being reactivated after so much time is probably what pulled me into this world. if they can bring me in then they may be able to get me out. I already have a lead to follow, at this rate I may not be trapped here for so long after all!”

“We already came to the same assumption but we will not be letting you go to meet them so soon. While this conversation showed us you have a history of good, we like to judge pon... people for ourselves.”

“So you will be taking my suggestion of a... probationary period here within the castle before letting me leave?”

The two sisters looked at each other again, they seemed to be doing that a lot perhaps some kind of communication? They nodded and turned towards me again “That seems like a good plan. You will remain here in Canterlot under the supervision of Lieutenants Nightshade and Brightblade here for three weeks. After this time we will decide whether or not to let you meet the bearers of the Elements. Is this reasonable to you?”

I nodded my assent immediately “Yes, that is a fine amount of time, it will allow me to recover my power a little and test my limits in this world.”

“Good, then I believe that is enough questions for one night. The lieutenants will show you back to the room you awoke in and then escort you to one of the guest rooms in the castle, you will find one of those more comfortable I believe” With that said the princesses began to stand back up

“Actually, I have one more question I would like to ask tonight.” The sisters tilted their heads curiously but sat down nonetheless and gave me their undivided attention as they had throughout the meeting so far.

“When I said before that I had never heard of the ley lines changing in the presence of an entity that wasn't entirely true. I have seen it only twice before. Both times, I was meeting a divine being.”

Celestia and Luna took on a barely noticeable look of shock but it was not missed by me, it just added to the list of proof for my theory. “Now, I have been thinking about this since I met you Celestia and I have come to a theory that just keeps being more and more believable by the moment. So many things have led me to believe that it is true but now I ask directly of you and your sister...” I leaned forward and put my elbows on the table, intertwining my fingers in front of my face and placing my thumbs under my chin.

“... Are you deities? Am I in the presence of the goddesses of sun and moon?”

Author's Notes:

This was intended to be done Wednesday but I have been getting distracted so it got delayed. Hope you enjoyed and I will likely get at least one more chapter out over the next week. Sorry if the ending seems a bit rushed and sorry about the horrible way to end the chapter but I was typing it on G-docs and there were issues with my internet. The only offline thing I can type on is notepad and that caused some weird formatting issues last time. Anyways, the mane 6 tag is on this story and it shall soon be warranted. goodbye until then.

Dropping In

There was a moment of silence after my question. All five ponies around the table were wide-eyed with surprise at what I had just asked. Eventually this silence was broken by two ponies. Oddly enough, it was not a response from one of the princesses that broke the silence but a simultaneous outburst from Nightshade and Brightblade.

“Of course she’s a goddess!” They shouted in unison. This seemed to bring the other three back to their senses and Luna decided to speak up.

“Lieutenants, calm thyselves.” The soldiers seemed to realize their outburst and obeyed Luna’s words. She then turned to me “A rather bold query to pose to us necromancer. Did it occur to though that if we are deities then asking this may be dangerous?”

“Yeah but i’m willing to take that risk. Not knowing would really bug me. You see, I have a history with deities and it’s not a particularly good one.”

Celestia chose to take this as an opportunity to speak “Oh? And what would that history entail I wonder?”

“Mostly it consists of being hunted by their followers, having my every important move judged by them,...” I leaned back in my chair and pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to get rid of the headache that just thinking of all the divine problems i’ve had has caused “... and of course there are the handful of times when I have had to step in and do what one of these so called ‘all powerful’ gods could not. It is quite the annoying history I have and I’d like to know just how much of it will be repeated here.”

Celestia sighed looked toward her sister and then the three guards around the table before returning her gaze to me “In the past, thousands of years ago, it was common practice to view us as goddesses and worship us but over time we managed to change that. Now most ponies just see us as their rulers but there are still a few that follow the old ways, Nightshade and Brightblade chief among them. So yes, I suppose we would be considered deities, though we prefer just to be seen as princesses. As for your worries of history repeating itself, we will be keeping an eye on you but that is to be expected. We won’t have anyone ‘hunting’ you unless you do something to warrant it and even then we are more likely to handle it ourselves. And as for having to step in and ‘do what we can not’ I will not lie and say we will never ask you to do anything. There will likely be times when we request your assistance with some matters but Equestria is a peaceful place so they will not be frequent.”

“Great, so I am dealing with divinity again. At least you aren’t like the others I’ve met so far.” I sighed and leaned forward again in my chair’ folding my arms on the table “Why can’t anything that is supposed to be simple ever go as planned? I just wanted to stash my phylactery somewhere safe and then this happens.”

“Actually, that brings up a good question. If your phylactery is still outside of this world couldn’t you get out of here that way?”

I gave Celestia a deadpan stare “Well, first off you’re basically asking me to kill myself and that is never a reasonable thing to ask. Death may not be permanent for me but it is still a quite unpleasant experience.” I dropped my stare and put my head in my hands “On top of that, i’m not even sure that my phylactery would work with a world barrier in the way. This was just supposed to be a test. I was supposed to leave my phylactery outside of my world, go back home, and then wait till the next time I died. If I came back by my backup then I would need to keep researching and if I came back by the one I moved then I could move on and continue my work. For all I know I may be unable to reach my phylactery from here and my soul will just wander this world if I die. And besides, getting stuck in the Aether is what got me here in the first place, I don’t particularly want to go back until I have an idea on how to navigate it.”

“I see.” Celestia put her hoof to her chin in thought for a moment before setting it back down and looking back up “Anyways, If that is your last question for now I would rather like to go to bed. Nightshade and Brightblade will help you collect your things and escort you to one of the castle’s guest rooms.”

“And if I should need something for my research?”

“Research?”

“You don’t expect me to sit around for three weeks doing nothing do you? I have a lot of research to do if I want to get home.”

“You are allowed access to more than just your room. The guards can show you to the library if you need a book and anything else they will help you get, within reason.”

“Thank you, princesses. I will leave you to your rest now.” With that we all stood up and I motioned for the lieutenants to lead on. While we walked on I let my thoughts wander to what I may need for my work.

When we reached our first destination I had a rough list of basic supplies I thought might be useful and while I was gathering my things I spoke up.

“I’m going to need a quill, ink, parchment, and some chalk. All of mine are currently floating around in the Aether.”

The unicorn turned to the pegasus “Nightshade, you go get that for him. I’ll escort him to the room closest to the library, you can meet us there.”

“Why me? Why don’t you get that stuff?”

“Because you’re quicker.”

“Fine.”

With that, Nightshade left the room. Brightblade and I weren’t far behind but by the time we left he was already out of sight. Seems he really is quick.

The walk to the guest room was quiet and uneventful and we arrived only about a minute or two later. When we got there I stepped inside and took off my random items pouch, not even bothering to look at the room. I quickly got to work pulling out several books about multiverse theory and the research made when my two worlds merged. By the time Nightshade returned I was pulling out the last book and I quickly got up to get the materials I requested. The guards took up positions by the door and I got to work.

-----------------------------------------------------
One Week Later

I was interrupted in my work by a knock at the door. I glanced at the nearby clock and realized it was early morning, time for the lieutenants to change shifts. Brightblade simply turned to the door and opened it, stepping out and letting Nightshade in. Nightshade cast a quick glance around the room and shook his head as the door closed.

Over the week I had slowly shifted all of the furniture away from two of the walls as I repurposed them. One wall was covered entirely with written notes on everything from the natural order of this world to complex magical formulas and comparisons of ley line research between my world and this one. The other wall, and parts of the floor and ceiling, was where I made use of the chalk I had asked for. The area was covered in various complex runes and symbols, all of which ended with little to no success. In the corner was a large pile of broken quills, empty ink wells, and balled up pieces of parchment. Scattered around the room were so many open books that even I had trouble walking around, It must have been nigh impossible for a quadruped.

As Nightshade took up his position in one of the few clear spaces on the floor he spoke. “The princesses have asked me to deliver a message to you.”

I looked at him and when he said nothing I made a ‘go on’ gesture

“A small party for the nobility has been organized to be held tomorrow and you are requested to attend.”

“What?! They can’t possibly expect me to stop all of this...” I gestured to the chaotic mess of research that was the room “to meet a bunch of damned stuffy nobles!”

“You’re gonna have to be introduced to the public before you can travel anywhere and this is the best way to do it. Unless of course, you want to be mobbed by curious ponies and send others running screaming when you go to leave the castle.”

I hung my head in resignation “I would almost prefer that. But no matter how much I hate nobles, I see why I need to do it.” I looked back up and gave Nightshade a questioning look. “Anything else?”

“They also want you to wear the robe you were given and leave your bags behind.”

I let out an annoyed sigh “Of course they do. Well, I suppose I don’t have much reason to say no. What time do I need to be there?”

“The party will begin at seven tomorrow night.”

“Then it’s back to work for now.”

------------------------------------------------------------

I returned to my room the next night leaning slightly on my staff and massaging my temples. The moment I walked in I made a beeline for the bed and laid down. Dealing with nobles is an exhausting experience.

Nightshade followed in soon after “Well, for one who hates nobles you seemed to handle them pretty well. If I didn’t know better I’d think you were one yourself.”

“Pandering to those with power is something I picked up for survival’s sake. Still doesn't mean I like it.”

“Hey, at least things went well. Relatively speaking anyway. They don’t love you but at least they aren't terrified and their curiosity has been sated for now.”

“That’s not gonna last long. Hopefully though, this has helped my case during this probationary period. I’m getting nowhere with my research in this room.”

“It should, at least it made you not look like a monster to the public.”

“I’ll admit, you ponies have been far more accepting of this than humans would. If another species showed up wielding dark power, most humans would have them either dead or in a testing facility within minutes. If I was going to be stranded anywhere, at least it was here instead of somewhere more vicious.” I let out a long yawn “But, that can be pondered on later. Right now, I’m mentally drained and it’s time for me to get some sleep. Good night Mr. Dust.”

----------------------------------------------

The next two weeks went by rather uneventfully and when the agreed upon three weeks were up the princesses chose to let me leave with surprisingly little difficulty. There were only two conditions. The first was that Nightshade and Brightblade would accompany me to keep an eye on me. And the second was that I would be temporarily restricted to Ponyville and the Everfree Forest. Not much of a hitch in my plans seeing as I already wanted to go there anyways.

I was all packed up and the lieutenants were standing by my door with bags of their own ready to go. We were to catch a train in a few minutes and we decided to leave without further delay.

However, getting there wasn’t as easy as expected. It seems two guards aren’t enough to stop a veritable herd of curious ponies trying to get at the new creature. It seems that the nobles had made me look like a meek helpless little creature rather than a powerful, terrifying lich. I suppose that works out better for public opinion but it also made us miss our train.

“Well, that’s inconvenient. When does the next train show up?”

“The schedule says there won’t be another train to Ponyville for a couple of hours at least.” Brightblade adjusted his saddlebags and looked away from the list. “Looks like we have a while to wait.”

I looked out over the mountainside and my eyes locked on to a small village out in the distance with a light scattering of clouds over it. “Is that Ponyville out there?”

Nightshade followed my gaze to the town. “Yeah, that’s it. Why?”

“I think I can get us there a lot quicker than the train could anyway.” I rolled my shoulders and tightened my grip on my staff “It doesn't look to be too far away, I could probably just teleport us there.”

“You sure about that? didn’t you say the magic here was harder for you to use?”

“Yeah, it is but I’ve been resting for three weeks doing little in the way of complicated spells. I need to test my abilities eventually and the worst that can happen is that we only get part of the way there and I have to rest a bit before finishing the job.”

Brightblade cautiously walked over to my side “Well, if you’re sure.”

“I am absolutely certain that this will most likely work.” I said as Nightshade stepped closer to me.

“Wait, most likely? I’m not sure...” That was all he got to say before I had gathered the energy I needed and with a snap of my fingers released it while focusing on that town in the distance. One moment we were standing on the train platform in Canterlot...

… And the next we were suspended high in the sky, well above the clouds, with nothing but air below us. As we began falling I immediately reached into my belt pouch looking for my ring of feather falling. Only to find that it wasn’t there. Okay, this isn’t a problem I just need to cast the spell. Which requires a feather. And all of my feathers were in my ritual bag now in the Aether. Shit.

Just as I realized this a blur of dark blue appeared in the corner of my vision and I realized Nightshade was trying to catch Brightblade. Acting quickly, I shot my hand out towards the pegasus and plucked one of his feathers. He lost control of his flight and his mouth opened in an obvious shout from the sudden pain but the sound was lost to the wind and I could apologize when we were safe. I gripped the feather tightly and focused the power of the ley lines into an area around me. I channeled it through the feather which then disintegrated into a fine dust which spread out, despite the wind, and covered the three of us. Less than a second later I felt the spell take effect and our fall suddenly turned into a casual drift down to the ground. Sadly, said ground was still far, far below us. Looks like we’re in for a long fall.

The rush of wind was no longer in my ears but It was almost instantly replaced by the shouts of a pissed off pegasus. “What the buck was that for!? What reason could you possibly have for ripping out one of my bucking feathers?!”

“Saving Brightblade and myself from becoming stains on the ground, that’s what. I needed a feather to cast the spell and yours were the only ones I had available.” he opened his mouth to protest but I quickly interrupted him “And before you say anything, I highly doubt you could fly us both down. Even if you could get a grip on us I’m not exactly light.”

As I was saying this we passed through a cluster of clouds. Or we would have if we hadn’t landed on it.

“What in the hells? How am I... OOF” I was interrupted in my self questioning by two pairs of hooves hitting me in the stomach at the same time, knocking the wind out of me and sending me falling backwards. Luckily, the feather fall spell was still in effect so I didn’t fall to my death when the expected result of me getting launched off of the cloud happened. When i recovered from the shock of the sudden double buck I looked up to see that the lieutenants had also hopped off of the cloud and weren’t far above me.

I coughed a couple of times as i tried to get enough air back in my lungs to speak. I managed to do this around the time that I finally reached the ground.

“Okay, I suppose I deserved that, but it was the only choice that I could see that prevented an abrupt and painful meeting with the ground.” At this time the other two reached the ground, looking understandably angry. Luckily I was saved from further assault by a gasp behind me.

I turned around and saw that I had apparently teleported us to, or at least above, a park. There was a fountain surrounded by a circular path that had branches leading off in opposite directions. Down the far path I could barely see a pink pony following after what looked like a blue pegasus in the sky. More importantly though, was the purple unicorn on a bench almost immediately in front of me. It looked to be a mare and her coat was lavender while her mane was a dark purple with a stripe of pink and a stripe of lighter purple. On her flank was the image of a large six pointed purple star on top of a white one and surrounded by five smaller white ones. She was staring at me with a great deal of shock, confusion, and barely suppressed... excitement?

“You’re here early? You were supposed to be on the train that won’t show up for another ten minutes!”

While she started rambling about something involving a schedule I turned back toward my companions with a grin.

“See? I told you I could get us here faster.”

“And almost get the two of you killed in the process!” And Nightshade was still shouting. Great.

Brightblade looked at me with noticeably less anger and with a bit of curiosity as well. “What’s with that anyway? Why did we end up miles above the ground?”

I sighed and leaned against my staff, which I had luckily managed to hold on to throughout all of this. “‘Magic is a fickle thing. So full of hope and promise one minute, then everything goes pear shaped’ I’ve never known a more true saying. It seems the magic of this world doesn’t like me much and changed my spell around a little. Both of them actually, I’m betting my feather fall spell is what caused us to stand on the cloud instead of falling through. Though that may have been because I used a pegasus feather, I’m gonna have to research this further later.”

“I don’t give a flying feather about your research! I’m not going to be able to fly properly for at least a week.” He extended his wing and craned his head back to inspect the damage. “At least you didn’t get a primary.”

“Look, I am sorry about that but it was mostly a gut reaction. I’ll also try to keep the high chance of mis-casts here in mind so I don’t end up doing something like that again.” Seeing that the lieutenants seemed to be placated for now I turned to the lavender unicorn who was now going over a massive checklist of what seemed to be her day’s tasks. “Excuse me, would you happen to know where I can find...” I paused, trying to remember the name I was given. Having no luck remembering the name I chose to use the only other thing I knew about her. “... the bearer of the element of magic?”

She looked up from her list, startled as if she had forgotten I was there. “Oh, I forgot to introduce myself didn’t I? sorry. I am Twilight Sparkle, personal protege of Princess Celestia and bearer of the element of magic”

“Huh, well that would explain why you knew about my arrival. I assume the Princesses informed you of who I am and Why I’m here?”

“Yes, Princess Celestia told me that you are a necromancer from another world and that you think the Elements of Harmony hold the key to getting home.”

“Well Ms. Sparkle, you obviously know this already but it is only polite to introduce oneself. I am Yetagain, adventurer and mage of Eberron and I will be studying the power of those elements. I have hopes that you and your friends will be willing to cooperate with me on this, the process will be much easier with the help of the bearers.”

“Oh, I’ll gladly help you, and I hope that I can pick your brain a little while you’re here.”

“What would I know that would be of use to you? do you wish for knowledge of dark magic?”

“Oh, not really. I just want to know about your world.” She got a far off look in her eye and continued talking. “I mean, the implications of it’s existence alone are astounding. If there are other worlds then there is so much we could learn from them.”

“Are you proposing a trade? I answer your questions about my world and in exchange you help me research a way back home?”

She was brought out of her musings by my question “What? Oh, yes! that sounds like a wonderful idea. we can have a Q&A session and exchange information. It will be like studying together!”

“...Okay.” I said, drawing the word out. “Well then, when would you like to do this?”

“As soon as possible.”

“Well, I’d like to find a place to set up camp first then I’m going to take a look around the town, always good to know your surroundings.”

Twilight’s ears turned back and she blushed lightly, barely visible under her coat. “Oh, of course. Sorry, I forgot that you would want to get settled first.”

“Oh, not a problem. I am just as eager if not more so to get started on this, the sooner we begin the sooner I get home after all, but I have a feeling I’m going to need to be in peak mental condition for this and I did just teleport from Canterlot and snap cast another spell. I also need to figure out why my ring is missing. If someone took it then I’m going to be a bit annoyed, it was always so convenient to have around.” I put my hand to my chin in thought for a moment. “How does tomorrow work for you? this is probably not going to be a short conversation.”

“Yes, that works fine. See you in the morning then?”

“Sure, see you then Ms. Sparkle.”

With that we parted ways and I pondered on just how accepting these ponies have been so far. It was odd to say the least but a pleasant change of pace from the usual. I went to the outskirts of town and wandered around for a while before finding a large, dark forest that I assumed to be the Everfree that I had heard about. This looked like as good a place as any to set up and I quickly informed the lieutenants that this was where I was going to camp. They nodded and began setting up their own camps, having been told beforehand that we would likely be sleeping outside. After we set up camp I decided to explore the town with the guards so that the residents of Ponyville wouldn't be surprised by me tomorrow. Nightshade chose to stay behind and watch the camp and rest up so the two of them could go back to watching me in shifts.

Brightblade and I wandered around the town for the majority of the day. The ponies were generally staring at me with a mixture of fear and curiosity but were calmed slightly by the presence of the guard. None of the ponies acted particularly accepting but they also didn't do anything against me and one shopkeeper even carried on a short, though nervous, conversation with me when I asked about his business. All in all the ponies were less readily accepting than the others so far had been but still far more so than my normal expectations. At the end of the day we went back to the camp and both Brightblade and I laid down while Nightshade kept watch. All in all, my first day in Ponyville was quite uneventful.

Author's Notes:

Yeta has finally left the castle and has found more difficulty with his magic. Why are his spells acting weird? Why is his ring missing? Will the story ever get exciting and use the adventure tag? the answer to all of these questions can be found...
right here.
strange magic stuff, Canterlot, and yes but it might take a while.
the next few chapters will probably be episodic but I promise it will eventually get away from just Yeta talking alot.

You don't know the half of It

I awoke early the next morning and quickly began packing what few belongings I had taken out of their bags. When these things were back in place I pulled out my boots and gloves then pulled out the robe I had been given in Canterlot. I had decided rather easily to leave my enchanted robe and staff in my bag as to seem less of a potential threat to those that may be able to sense the magic on them. I quickly got dressed and reached into my bag for one last object. After a few seconds of rummaging I pulled out a simple chain bracelet with five small lengths of chain, maybe an inch long each, attached along its circumference. At the end of each of these chains was a small receptacle which was designed to hold some of my more solid spell components, such as the crystal cones I had filled them with today. I also placed a few tiny bags of powdered components into a small pocket on the belt line of the robe, it seems that whoever made this truly duplicated every detail of my robe aside from the rune-work, allowing for easy access as an extra precaution in case some of these ponies take issue with the strange, bipedal creature wandering their streets under armed supervision.

I did a quick double check to make sure that I had everything on and that nothing was left in the tent before I opened the flap and walked out. It seemed to be just after sunrise as I looked out over our tiny, three-tent camp and let out a small chuckle when i saw Brightblade and Nightshade already awake and eating food that they had packed with them, seems they wisely came well prepared.

“Heh, the Sun still rises in the east and guards are still awake to greet it. Good to know some things are the same are the same no matter where you go” My mind flashed back to all of the prosecution I've faced throughout my past and the constant battle for survival. while I turned around to take down my tent I muttered to myself “Let’s just hope not all things.”

“What was that?” I heard from behind me and simply looked over my shoulder with a calm smile.

“Oh, nothing for you to worry about. Just the reflections of a tired old man.” As I said this I sprung up to my feet with my now dismantled tent in hand

The two guards looked suspiciously at me but decided not to press the matter any further. Instead, they simply returned to their breakfast and Brightblade spoke up in between bites.

“So, why are you packing up your tent?”

I shrugged “no real reason I suppose. I’m just in a habit of moving a lot and don’t like to camp in the same place twice.” The memories of my past flash through my mind again “Also, I’m thinking it might be best to have both of you with me if you've had enough sleep.”

The two guards looked at each other with raised eyebrows before Nightshade spoke up.

“And why would that be?”

“Two reasons.” I said, thinking fast. “The first is that if I’m going to move camp then you’ll probably want to pack up as well and know where I’m going. The second is more of... well, let’s call it what it is. Paranoia from a few centuries of being hunted has taught me that when in a new place it is best to be as cautious as possible until you have gotten through everyone’s initial reaction and as small as this town is I still doubt I've met everyone in just that one walk.”

“So, you’re scared.”

“Not scared, no. I just like to be cautious in new situations.”

“Well, we switched shifts in the middle of the night so I won’t have any problem staying up through the day.” Brightblade said as he returned to his food.

“And I suppose having two guards will set the townsponies at ease more than just one.” Nightshade said as he finished his breakfast and turned to pack up.

Within a few minutes the three of us had the camp packed up and set out towards town but not a minute into our walk I stopped as something occurred to me. The guards noticed this and stopped as well.

“Is something wrong?”

“... I have no idea where Twilight lives.”

After the guards faces met their respective hooves Nightshade spoke.

“She lives in the library at the center of town.”

“And how do you know this?”

“Information is kinda a part of my job. Did you really think I wouldn't know how to find the princess’s personal protege and one of the Elements of Harmony?”

“... I suppose you have a point there. Well, lead on then.”

As we walked, Nightshade leading the way, we kept relatively silent. The only sounds were the quiet sounds of nature waking up and the sound of hooves and boots on the ground as we made our way to the town. After a couple of minutes we had reached the first buildings but there were few ponies out at this time and the ones that were kept their distance, still watching me with the same mix of fear, suspicion, and confusion that they had yesterday. After we got to the well worn paths of the town it took us very little time to reach what looked to be a massive tree with... windows?

There was no doubt about it. Somehow this tree had not only windows but a door, a sign out front that had an image of an open book, and even balconies. It seemed that someone had managed to turn the tree into a home but it still looked to be alive and healthy. No discoloration, no dead leaves, no apparent damage aside from the fact that it had been hollowed out to be made into a library.

“Impressive. This must have taken one skilled druid to accomplish. probably wasn't cheap either.”

“I’m not sure what a druid is but you’re right about it being impressive. Nopony really knows how the craftspony did it or why but nopony has ever been able to recreate this kind of thing and the creator isn't around anymore to tell us how.”

“I just might have to look into this while I’m stuck here. It could be quite the interesting work and maybe even be a nice gift to get some of the druids back home to stop hating me.” I let out a dry laugh “Well, either that or they’ll think it a perversion of nature and hate me even more. But, enough standing around here. I've got a pony to talk to.”

I walked up to the door of this strange library and knocked. I waited about a minute but got no response so I knocked again, this time a little more loudly. A moment later I heard what sounded like small claws on wood and the grumbling of a childish male voice on the other side.

“Who gets up this early to get a book?” a few seconds later the door began to open. “The library doesn't open ‘till nine. Come back la-” The small creature that opened the door was stopped mid-sentence as he caught sight of me, my height easily towering over him. He appeared to be a small purple and green reptile, possibly a drake though I had never heard of a drake that could talk, only about as tall as a pony’s chin. He had green spines going down his back and was wide-eyed with terror at the large, unknown creature looming over him. I knelt down to appear less intimidating and when I did he seemed to catch sight of the guards behind me. This seemed to calm him slightly but it was obvious he was still scared.

“I’m sorry for arriving so early but I have an arrangement to meet with Twilight Sparkle and was told that this was her home. I am Yetagain, a being currently... displaced from his home and I come from Canterlot to meet her and the other bearers of the Elements.” As I said this I offered the young man a handshake, hoping he would understand the gesture. After a moment he cautiously extended one of his claws and shook my hand.

“I-I’m Spike, Twilight’s assistant.”

“Her assistant? I was told her assistant was a young dragon, have I been misinformed?”

At this question Spike looked at me with confusion. “No” he said, drawing the word out.

“So...” I looked over the relatively tiny creature in front of me again “You’re a dragon?”

“What else would I be?”

“Well, back home you’d be more akin to a drake than a dragon.”

“How so?”

“First off, you are way too small to be any kind of dragon I’ve ever seen.”

“Hey!”

“And second, you have no wings.”

“I’ll have wings eventually, they just haven’t grown in yet! And I’m only small right now, when I grow up I’ll be bigger than this tree!” Spike was obviously a little offended by my words. It seemed his size was a touchy subject for him, as it is with most who are young.

“So let me get this straight. The dragons of this world are born wingless and this small?” I put my hand to my chin as I thought. “That’s quite interesting.”

“What’s so interesting about it? It’s just the way it is.”

“Well, back home dragons are born at least twice your size, depending on species, and are able to fly within days. Even wyrmlings are a force to be reckoned with.”

Spike looked like he was about to launch into more questions but was interrupted by the sound of Brightblade clearing his throat. “Perhaps you should continue this conversation inside, you seem to be attracting quite the bit of attention.”

I looked over my shoulder and saw that he was right. While Spike and I had talked more and more ponies began waking up to begin their days and were stopping to stare at me. “It seems I was right about not running into everyone yesterday.” I stood up and dusted off my knees. “Well, perhaps moving inside would be a good idea. I hope our little talk has assuaged any fears my appearance brought on. I assure you, you have nothing to fear from me.”

“Fears? I wasn't afraid” Spike puffed up his chest and made a show of looking brave and I smiled at his antics. Oh, to be young.

“Of course not, dragons aren't afraid of an old man like me.”

“Anyways, come on in. I’ll go wake Twilight up for you.” As he said this, Spike stepped aside and held open the door.

“Oh, no need to wake her. I can wait until she awakes on her own, I wouldn't want to interrupt her sleep.”

Spike waved a claw dismissively. “Nah, I know her, she wouldn't want to waste a second sleeping when she could be leaning whatever it is she want to learn from you.”

“Well, she did strike me as a rather... enthusiastic scholar.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “You don’t know the half of it.”

The two of us shared a small laugh as the guards and I walked in. The room was rather simple. The entire room was made from unpainted wood and, as expected, looked to just be cut from the tree itself. The walls were lined with shelves carved into them and filled with countless books except for where there was an opening for stairs leading up. In the center of the room was a table that held a large carving of a horse’s head and off to the sides of the room were a couple of reading stands tall enough for a pony to read while standing. Aside from this the room lacked furniture entirely, meaning that this was obviously just the library portion and the living area had to be up the stairs at the far end of the room.

“go ahead and make yourselves comfortable, I’ll go get Twilight and be back in a sec.”

With that Spike went off to the other side of the room and climbed the stairs. Nightshade and Brightblade simply went to the front door and stood on either side of it while I decided to walk over to one side of the room and simply lean against the wall since there was nowhere to sit. After a couple of minutes I heard the sound of claws on wood again and Spike came back down the stairs.

“Twilight’s awake now and getting some coffee ready, come on up, she want’s to talk in the kitchen.”

I pushed myself off the wall and strode quickly over to the stairs, the guards following behind, and waited for Spike to lead us up. At the top of the stairs was a much more home-like room that looked like a rather comfortable living room. There was a couch on one side of the room with a few plush cushions scattered nearby and a small table in front of it. there was still a small shelf with a few books, likely a personal collection separate from that of the library, and a couple of windows. There was a set of stairs up to a small loft that held a bed, a basket, and on one side of the room was another desk that held inkwells, quills, parchment, and a couple of books. In front of one of the windows was another reading stand like those downstairs and on one side of the room was a doorway leading into the kitchen and on another side was a closed door.

The four of us walked into the kitchen and were greeted by the sight of Twilight sitting on a cushion at a table in the center of the room that had a few more cushions positioned around it. She was nursing a steaming cup of coffee and looked utterly exhausted to say the least. There was the beginnings of bags under her eyes, her mane was bedraggled, and her greeting smile was weary at best. The guards went to position themselves by the door again but I spoke before they did.

“A conversation like this isn't going to be short by any definition of the word. It will probably be best if you make yourselves comfortable.”

The guards shrugged and the three of us made our way over to sit at the table while Spike prepared cups of coffee for us as well before taking a seat himself. As I sat down I smiled and spoke.

“You look like you had quite the night. What were you up to?”

Before she could respond Spike spoke up with a chuckle.

“She was up almost all night studying everything from history to advanced magical theory while muttering something about an ‘important visitor’. I guess I know who that is now.” He smiled as he finished saying this and Twilight looked a little sheepish.

“I just wanted to be prepared for any questions you asked.”

“Well, It looks like you might have gone slightly overboard. Are you sure you’re awake enough to be answering any questions?”

“Oh, I’ll be fine. This wasn't my first all night study session and probably won’t be my last. Just give me a minute with my cup of coffee and I’ll be fine.”

As she said this I picked up my own mug and looked down at the steaming dark liquid inside.

“Is something wrong?”

“Huh? Oh, no, nothing’s wrong it’s just been a long time since anyone’s offered me a cup of coffee.”

“Why’s that?” Twilight asked, tilting her head curiously.

“Well, people don’t tend to be very hospitable to necromancers and the few friends I've managed to make throughout my years haven’t really been the type to make homes in which to offer it. The closest thing I've had is the suggestion to talk about plans over a meal at the inn, which isn't really much of an offer since we still pay for ourselves and it’s mostly business.”

“That sounds rather lonely.”

“Eh, I suppose it would seem that way to most people but I chose that when I decided to make my company with adventurers. We aren't really the kind of people to settle ourselves anywhere and when we aren't out on some kind of job we’re typically just sleeping in the inn until we find another. It’s a busy life and not one of luxury but there isn't a job more exciting or satisfying than handling the problems that the city guard simply can’t or won’t.” I said this with a grin at Nightshade and Brightblade who simply gave me expressionless stares.

Twilight however, looked completely shocked.

“You do what?! What kind of problems would those be?!”

“Oh, anything really. From simple tasks like running off a group of bandits in the countryside to stopping a legion of devils that plan on ascending their leader to godhood and destroying everything as we know it.”

The jaws of everypony at the table fell open at my casual description of the events I consider to fill a typical day for me. After a minute or so of silence Twilight managed to compose herself enough to speak.

“It looks like we have a lot to talk about.”

I smirked at her and chuckled. “You don’t know the half of it.”

Author's Notes:

I have some apologies to make here. First off, sorry about how long it took to post this. I intended to have this done the first week of April at least but I hit a wall known as writer's block and tests kicked my ass. I have more time on my hands now though so I hope to post more often.
Secondly, I'm sorry about how I ended this chapter but I was already kicking myself for not having this ready and didn't want to leave this untouched for any longer so I'm going to release what was planned to be one chapter as two parts.

Well, It'll be two parts if he stops being lazy and actually writes it.

Oh shut up Yeta, I want to actually make this not horrible so I'm not going to rush it too much.

But if you don't rush it then we'll never get to the good part

Trust me, I want to get there just as much as you do. If only just so I can get to the stuff that I already have plans for. But as I said, I'm not gonna rush it in the hopes that I can actually make this an interesting story.

*sigh* Whatever. I suppose it would be best if you don't portray me horribly. Fine, as you were.

Thank you, now get back in the story. Can't exactly write it with the protagonist missing.

Heh, I suppose not. See ya later kids and have fun

I guess I should be saying bye too. see ya next time people, ponies, and beings of unknown kind.

Story time!

“Wait...” Nightshade was still staring at me after my casual remark about my line of work “So you’re kinda like a vigilante?”

I took another sip of coffee as I mulled this thought over before sitting the cup down and sighing. “I suppose you could say that, though it doesn’t really cover what we do. Hells, sometimes we’re even hired by the king, nobles, or even the guards so it’s not really vigilantism. Really, if someones got a little gold or some magical items to spare and a problem to solve, they can hire us to get the job done.” I hummed in thought for a moment “I suppose you could compare us to mercenaries but that doesn’t really cover it. Mercenaries are only in it for the money and wherever the money lies, so too does their loyalty, but not all adventurers are like that. There are even some cases of people taking on nearly impossible jobs and then refusing payment for it.”

Twilight looked at me with an inquisitive gleam in her eye, her previous fatigue all but forgotten. “What kind of jobs have you done? I know you said something about bandits and demons but you didn’t really give any details. Also, why do you keep saying ‘we’? Is this some kind of organized business? If so, how is it organized? Is there some central location where everyone picks up jobs?”

“Whoa, one question at a time kid.”

“Hey! I’m not a kid, I am a grown mare!”

“That’s not how I...” I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed “It’s just how I refer to almost everyone. I’m well over six hundred years old, it’s become a bit of a habit to call anyone that isn’t at least two hundred a kid. Trust me, I meant no offense.”

“Six hundred?! Does everybody from your world live that long?”

“What? No. Elves and such usually do but humans normally don’t.” I looked at her with a raised eyebrow “I thought the princesses told you what I am.”

She tilted her head curiously “They said you were a necromancer and that you were something called a human, aside from that they didn’t tell me much about what you were just who.”

“Of course they didn’t” I sighed and looked into my cup of coffee while I thought “I suppose I should tell you. Better you find out this way then learn I hid it later.” I lifted my head and looked the lavender unicorn in the eyes “I’m not really human. I used to be but I traded that long ago for a long enough existence to see my goals done. I’m not really alive either, so you can’t say I’ve ‘lived’ this long.”

This only served to further confuse the mare and her dragon assistant didn’t look to be any less so. The guards, who had already been briefed on this and spoken with me about it, simply sat by and watched expressionlessly.

“I’m what is known as a lich, a member of the unliving and the peak of necromantic achievement so far. In short, I’m undead.”

Twilight stared at me with wide eyes and leaned away while Spike moved closer to her as his eyes widened similarly before speaking in a wavering, uneasy voice.

“Y-you mean, you’re a z-z-zombie?!”

“I am NOT a zombie!” I shouted as I felt a sudden spike of anger before I calmed myself down, reminding myself that dark magic was almost non-existent here and that he was only a child. It’s lucky I did calm down too, seeing as the guards were already standing with weapons at the ready and staring at me levelly. I sighed again “No kid, I’m not a zombie. Zombies are mindless undead with no soul created simply to serve the will of a necromancer. There are many types of undead and what I am is called a lich. While I am undead, I retain my mind and soul... Well, I retained my soul but that’s because I did things a little differently than most liches but that doesn’t really matter right now. The point is that the only differences between me and a living person are that I don’t die, my body functions differently, and I have greater necromantic power than any living person could achieve in their lifetime.”

Spike seemed to relax, content that I wasn’t going to try and eat his brain or something equally ridiculous and Twilight relaxed slightly as well, though most of her fear seemed to be buried by curiosity as she leaned forward.

“If you’re undead then how come you don’t look it? I mean, sure you’re pale but I thought that was just an aspect of humans.”

“I don’t look undead because I’m neither an idiot or a cocky show-off of a necromancer.” Seeing that I only served to confuse everyone in the room again, I explained. “The reason undead look dead beyond pale skin is that they are either created after their bodies become that way or they aren’t properly preserved. Corpse preservation magic isn’t complicated and a permanency augment for enchantments is only slightly more so. The only reason that liches, or any self-made undead, look like rotting corpses is that they either can’t preserve themselves or don’t want to.”

“Why would anyone ever want to look like a rotting corpse?” Twilight sounded disgusted at the very notion of it.

“For the sake of showing off their necromantic power or for intimidation purposes. Some people find a barely covered skull talking to them to be more intimidating than a normal face.” I sighed again, I seemed to be doing a lot of that since I got here. “Honestly, some necromancers are complete and utter fools.”

“So, let me get this straight. You’re an immortal, undead being known as a lich and you have necromantic power beyond that of anyone living. On top of that, you also spend your time fighting bandits and demons on jobs that, as of yet, you haven’t told me about?”

“Well, that’s an accurate enough summation so far, yeah. And I’d tell you about them if we didn’t get off on these tangents.”

“Oh, right. Please, go on.” She turned to the dragonling by her side “Spike, take notes please.”

“Sure thing Twi” Spike reached behind him and pulled a roll of parchment, a quill, and ink from... somewhere. I’ll have to look into that later.

“So, it seems the simplest way to explain this would be to just tell you about one of my adventures. What do you want to hear about? One of my smaller jobs or a bigger one? One by myself or with friends? I’ve done a lot of jobs and every one is a story in and of itself.”

“Well, tell me about your most memorable job. One that was important to you.”

“My most memorable job huh?” I put my hand to my chin and stared at the ceiling for a moment as I thought over my past missions. After a couple of minutes a fond smile came across my face as I reminisced about one of the jobs that holds the most meaning to me. “Yeah, I think I can do that.”

“Now, for you to understand this I’m going to have to first tell you a bit about my world. This information stems from the very beginning of our world, a time when none of the races of Eberron flourished and the world was almost uninhabited. At this time three great dragons came to the world and discovered, or possibly created, a great prophecy that told of things to come for possibly all of Eberron’s future, even today it is coming to pass and we still try to find and decipher it. These dragons are known as the Progenitor Dragons and their names were…” I leaned forward and reached into one of my bags, pulling out three crystals and concealing them in my hand. I then placed a dark purple and black crystal on the table in front of me “Khyber, the dragon below.” I placed a yellow and blue crystal on the table that shined bright “Siberys, the dragon of the heavens above.” and finally a placed a red crystal in between the two “And Eberron, the dragon of the mortal world.” At this point the young dragon was staring at the crystals with an odd look that seemed to be of… hunger? I ignored this and continued on. “These three dragons were believed to be siblings and they fought over the prophecy, destroying the world in the process and killing Siberys. After Siberys’ death Eberron ended the battle by using her own body to restore the world and bring life to it while simultaneously sealing Khyber within its depths. It is said that…” I picked up the crystals and held them all between the fingers of my right hand, showing them to the ponies gathered around the table “... these crystals are fragments of the three great dragons’ bodies and contain pieces of the great prophecy within them. These are known as Dragonshards.”

At this information Spike recoiled slightly with a look of horror. “Those are pieces of… dead dragons?”

I put the Dragonshards back into my pouch as I continued my tale. “It’s possible. Nobody can really know for sure if they are as not even the gods came to be until after these events but it is true that these are scattered in the billions where the dragons are believed to reside. Siberys Dragonshards orbit the world, Khybers are buried deep within, and Eberrons are scattered on or close to the surface. It is also true that they can be used, in great number or massive size, to view the draconic prophecy. Sadly however, only the dragons and a few great scholars have been able to decipher it so the shards are gathered and pawned off as any other jewel would be, nothing more than a pretty rock.”

Twilight got a bit of a confused look “Wait, if nopony was around during all of this, how do you know what happened?”

I smirked and looked at her “The prophecy didn’t begin when the dragons died, it covers their arrival as well. It’s even possible it covers a time before the Progenitor Dragons, though none have managed to find parts that date that far back. Anyways, it seems I went on a bit of a tangent on my own. The important part of this is the Prophecy itself. On Eberron, the world not the dragon though I guess those are one in the same, there are certain houses that are tied to this prophecy. The houses are more like clans really and within these clans there is the potential for the people within them to bear something known as a Dragonmark. It is a symbol that appears on one’s face that signifies your ties to not only your clan but the great prophecy as a whole. These marks give their bearers powers according to the mark. There are many marks but a few of them as an example are the Human house of Cannith’s Mark of Making, the Elven house of Phiarlin’s Mark of Shadow, the Halfling house of Jorasco’s Mark of Healing, and the Dwarven house of Kundarak’s Mark of Warding.”

Twilight tilted her head in confusion “Elven? Halfling? Dwarven?”

“I forgot just how much I’m going have to teach you.” I sighed “They are a few of the races of my world. The Elves are often lithe, agile, and cunning. They are also one of the most long-lived of the races, living for a couple of centuries at least, and generally, though not all, tend to look down on the other races. The Halflings are a small race, similar in appearance to humans but about half of our size. They are a naturally curious and nimble people. Overall they are possibly the most like humans of the races. Dwarves are a short, stout race. They are generally strong, tough, and stubborn, and all around steadfast. Aside from them there are a lot of other races but I’ll tell you more about them later.”

“Anyways, the mark you need to know about for this is the Kundarak Mark of Warding. As the name suggests, it gives the bearer powers that are rather helpful with defenses. They can set magical traps through just their Mark’s power, are naturally adept with protection magics, and are all around good at building defenses and protections. As such, the house of Kundarak has become responsible for most of the banking of the world. Basically, if you need to store something valuable at maximum security, Kundarak is the place to go.”

“Now, for most of the house’s banking career there have been almost no successful break-ins at their banks. One of the closest ever was done by a group hired to test the bank’s security, a group called The Laughing Knives. This group is famed for being quite possibly the best at getting through any and all defenses and reaching any high-security point with little trouble but when they took the job to test Kundarak, they finally met their match. The defenses of the bank’s newest innovation, The Vault of Night, bested them and the group was disheartened, eventually breaking up. Now, The Vault of Night is guarded by pretty much every defensive trick that Kundarak has and quite a few guards on top of that. Also, even if you manage to get past the rest of these defenses, The Vault is considered such a big innovation because it’s not entirely on the plane of Eberron. The Vault exists partially on the plane of shadows and is nearly inaccessible through normal means because of this. The only way to enter The Vault is through a portal connected to it that lies in the heart of the bank on Eberron and is guarded by the most advanced golem that the Kundarak Warders and Cannith artificers have ever been able to create: massive, powerful, and made from adamantine with more reinforcements than any golem ever made before or since.”

“Now, about 13 years ago, about two years after the Laughing Knives break up, there was someone that managed to not only get past all of The Vault’s defenses but also turn them against Kundarak. An elder red dragon by the name of Velah disguised herself as a beautiful elven woman and broke in, holding herself up in the veritable treasure trove of The Vault with all of Kundaraks defenses protecting her. She couldn’t leave The Vault though, because the moment Kundarak found out she had slipped past them they set a veritable army around the entire building and every other possible exit. So, Kundarak found themselves with a bit of a conundrum, how could they get past defenses that beat the best infiltration team ever to walk the streets of Khorvaire?”

“It was while the leaders of Kundarak where mulling this question over that Marek Mulcannus, the halfling leader of the disbanded Laughing Knives, approached them with an offer. You see, he was never satisfied with the way his group’s last job ended. He was certain that, if given another chance, The Laughing Knives could best Kundarak’s defenses and get this dragon out of The Vault. Kundarak, with little other choice in the matter, accepted this offer.”

Twilight spoke up, confused again “But wait, didn’t you say that their group disbanded? how can The Laughing Knives break into The Vault if there are no Laughing Knives?”

I smirked slightly at her question “Ah, that’s where I come in. You see, Marek tried to convince the rest of the old group to get back together for one last job but for one reason or another each of them declined or couldn’t be reached. Marek, unable to solve all of his friend’s problems on his own, sent out a request for adventurers to help him. I found this request and approached him to accept it. Marek was glad for the help and told me that I would be helping Dirge of Karnaath, The Laughing Knives’ weapons master, to acquire a new weapon that he had his sights on ever since losing his prized axe in the first attempt to enter The Vault. I was told to meet him at a place in House Kundarak’s enclave in Stormreach and that I would be meeting two other people that had accepted the job.”

“So, I went to the specified location, a place that is one of Stormreach’s worst kept secrets as it is a business that houses an illegal fighting arena known as the Tharashk Arena. The Arena only accepts combatants from the more… monstrous races of Eberron, ones that are generally viewed as barbaric and that stay away from cities and even towns and have a preferred profession of bandit. This arena, one of the most vicious fighting rings in all of Khorvaire, is hidden underground and accessible through only one entrance, a secret door in a shop housed in the Kundarak Enclave.”

Nightshade raised an eyebrow and looked over at me questioningly “What kind of business would house an illegal fighting arena under it?”

I smiled and chuckled before speaking. “The Tharashk Arena is hidden under one of the most well known shops in Stormreach.” I paused, feeling the need to be a bit dramatic “... The best damned bakery in the city.” and I couldn’t help but laugh as the jaws of everyone around the table simultaneously dropped and they just stared at me with looks of disbelief. “A lot of people seem to have that same reaction. However, the exact reason you’re so surprised is what makes it such a good front for things like that. Nobody suspects the baker.”

“Now, as I was saying, I went to the bakery and found the place almost completely empty aside from the minotaur behind the-” I didn’t manage to finish my sentence before Twilight interrupted me.

“There’s minotaurs in your world too? Interesting, I wonder if there are any differences in our minotaurs and yours.” as she said this I realised a bit of inconsistency with the information I’d been given up to this point.

“Wait, wait, wait, There are minotaurs here? So you don’t have any humanoid races but you have monstrous humanoids?”

“Humanoid? that means ‘resembling a human’ right? Well, I wouldn’t really say Minotaurs look like humans. I mean, at the most basic I guess the body structures are similar but I wouldn’t really say they look like humans.”

“That’s what humanoid means.” I sighed “It just refers to any race that has the same general body structure: bipedal, two arms, and head in the same relative position on the body. Races such as the minotaurs which, admittedly look more like bulls than humans aside from that, are considered ‘monstrous’ humanoids.”

Her eyes sparked with realisation “Oh, then I guess there are a few ‘monstrous humanoids’ here. there’s the minotaurs, ogres, and trolls that come to mind first.” Her face scrunched up in thought for a moment “Wait, I thought you said the monstrous races were barbaric. While minotaurs might be a bit more… aggressive than ponies that’s not to say they’re entirely uncivilised.”

“Well, no, the minotaurs back home aren’t either. In fact, some of them even live rather prosperously in the cities and one of the most famous poets in Stormreach is a minotaur but generally they tend to stay away from the rest of civilisation because they have a reputation brought about by their, as you put it, aggression.”

“Now, where was I? Oh, yes, the bakery was rather empty aside from the minotaur behind the counter and Dirge, the human I had come to look for. He was a tall, muscular man with dark brown hair and wearing full plate mail armor while arguing with the previously mentioned minotaur about wanting to fight in The Arena and the minotaur just kept replying with ‘you know the rules, no humans in the ring. you can watch as much as you like but fighting is off limits.’ I cleared my throat to get their attention, walked up to Dirge, and led him off to one of the tables to talk, much to the minotaurs relief. I told him I was sent by Marek and he said he wouldn’t agree to do the job without a new axe and when I offered to get him one he told me he’d only accept a magical axe known as the Oath of Droaam, which just happened to be the prize for beating the current champion of The Tharashk Arena. As we were talking, two women entered the bakery dressed in armor and carrying weapons, leaving little doubt in my mind that they were adventurers and I got their attention, asking them to come over believing that they were the other two Marek had hired.”

“The first was a young human woman of about five and a half feet in height, only a couple inches shorter than me. She had dark brown hair tied back in a ponytail and she wore a robe absolutely covered in pockets, small quivers filled with bolts, and a couple of sheathed daggers. Her face seemed to be quite pretty but it was hard to tell behind her massive goggles with knobs on the side. On her back, she had a large, repeating crossbow and there was a large smile on her face.When she saw me she raised a hand as if shielding her eyes from something bright then reached up with her other hand to turn one of the knobs on her goggles. When she lowered her other hand the lenses on the goggles were a few shades darker.”

“Behind her sauntered an elven woman slightly taller than her.The most obvious feature on her was her deep, dark blue hair kept to shoulder length by hair clips. On her back she had a large bow and a quiver bristling with arrows and in holsters on her belt she had two simple looking scimitars. She wore leather armor and a large smile on her face, looking as if she was in a perpetual state of happiness. When I called her over she practically skipped over to our table and went to take a seat. Somehow though, despite a complete lack of anything to trip on, she managed to fall over onto me and knock me to the floor before landing on top of me.” this had everyone else at the table giggling and I couldn’t help but chuckle at the memory “Yeah, she didn’t make the best first impression.”

“After sorting ourselves out and me getting the elven woman off of me we all took a seat at the table and began talking. I found out that, yes, these were the other two adventurers that had accepted Marek’s job request and we all introduced ourselves, the human naming herself as Maywild and the elf calling herself Suki. I filled them in on the situation and, after a bit of discussion with Dirge remaining adamant about not taking on the bank job without the Oath of Droaam, we decided that we would have to get the axe. Maywild suggested we sneak in and steal it but Dirge told us that it was kept under a shield spell inside the arena itself, to be claimed the moment that the champion is slain. This really left us with only one option, enter the arena and win the axe.”

Nightshade spoke up from the side “But I thought you said that humans weren’t allowed in the ring. Did you plan on having the elf fight in there by herself?”

“No, elves aren’t allowed in the ring either, pretty much only the monstrous races are allowed without special permission. However, Dirge said he had a contact on the inside that could get us the password to enter and with that we could probably bluff our way into the ring. If all went well then the one in charge wouldn’t even know until the fight started and at that point they’d just let the contestants deal with us. Afterall, the crowd would likely go into a frenzy the moment they saw a couple humans and an elf in the ring and would be eager to watch us get slaughtered in there.”

Twilight looked at me with a hint of surprise and confusion “But, I don’t understand why you would be willing to do this in the first place. This fighting ring sounds pretty dangerous, why would you risk your lives just to get this guy an axe?”

Well, for one thing, the Oath has quite a few powerful enchantments on it, even by Eberron’s standards, where enchanted items are pretty commonplace. For another, Dirge was likely our best bet at getting through some of the tougher defenses in The Vault and we couldn’t just let Velah sit up there with pretty much all of the most valuable and powerful items Kundarak had. And finally, the Arena wasn’t really known for having strong competitors. In fact, the common challenger is pretty weak in there, they just come in rather large mobs. The only real challenge would be the champion, Dreadheart the Unbeaten, and his sidekick along with his pack of trained wolves. Together, that group had managed to remain champion for about four or five years, impressive in any fighting ring. But the three of us weren’t exactly easy to beat either, an ancient Necromancer, a highly skilled and agile swordswoman, and a cunning master mechanic coming prepared with traps, alchemical explosives, and a veritable arsenal of bolts for her repeating crossbow, we were a pretty good group for taking down a couple of targets. Our only real problem was our lack of anyone with a strong defensive style, we were pretty much all offense. Overall though, we didn’t see the fight as too much of a risk and it was a necessary one at that.”

“So, we prepared ourselves for battle, were told how to find the contact, and made our way into the underground passageways to the Arena, telling the guards we were there to watch the show. We got a few odd looks, an old man and two young women coming to see a fight like that was pretty strange, but Maywild was able to talk our way through and we got into the arena.
From what I could see it looked like we would be fighting in a fairly open circle but I turned to Suki and Maywild and pulled out a pair of necklaces from my pouch, identical down to the small white stone set in the center, and asked them to wear them, saying they would help protect them in case one of my spells went astray. That wasn’t entirely untrue, as the necklaces did have an enchantment to protect the wearer from magic but it was a fairly weak spell unless blocking necromantic spells, in which case it was highly potent. They dismissed my worries, saying we would have plenty of room to fight but agreed anyways and put them on before stepping out into the arena.”

“The fight started and, as expected, the crowd went into a frenzy the moment they saw us and the promoter for the fight was furious that we had snuck in but there was nothing he could do without angering the audience even more so he let us stay, figuring there was no way we would survive even one round.” I smirked and chuckled darkly “And oh did we prove him wrong. We went through the first round untouched entirely; Suki unslinging her bow, Maywild readying her crossbow, and me channeling spells constantly, the contestants didn’t even get a chance to get close to us. The next few rounds proceeded with equal ease, Suki eventually switching to her scimitars and practically dancing through the mobs of foes while Maywild hurled exploding flasks and shot down enemies with pinpoint precision. We managed to make it to the final round almost unharmed.”

“That’s when things started to go downhill.” I sighed as I leaned forward. “Dreadheart came into the arena and we saw firsthand why he and his team were unbeaten. He and his sidekick were massive trolls, each wielding clubs bigger than me and Dreadheart’s being enchanted with an Otto’s Resistable Dance spell that occasionally triggered on contact. On top of this there was the pack of trained wolves to worry about. The animals would dart around the ring, harrying us and distracting us for the trolls to strike us from behind. The battle was not going well and the three of us got separated to either end of the ring, Maywild and Suki fighting back to back against the sidekick and the entire wolf pack while I fought Dreadheart himself.”

“Already, I was having trouble. I wasn’t able to use my necromancy without revealing myself which would likely end up with not only Dreadheart, his group, and everyone in the stands trying to kill me but the women I had come in with as well. And even if I got away, the rumors would spread and I wouldn’t be able to show my face in the city for quite a while without angry mobs trying to destroy the ‘vile necromancer’. I was at a severe disadvantage because of this already and then Dreadheart managed to close the distance between us and shatter the bones in one of my arms. Then, while I was attempting to cast another spell, his club came down on my other arm, shattering it as well. Both arms useless, I couldn’t cast most of my spells, and the ones I could were all but useless. I chanced a look over at the other two and saw they weren’t really doing any better. They were surrounded by the wolves and both were covered in slashes and bite marks while barely managing to evade the sidekick’s massive club. If this continued, there was no way we would have managed to live. I had only one choice now. I had only one spell that I could cast without my arms that would be able to both get Dreadheart off of me and save the other two. However, in order to do so, I had to reveal myself as a necromancer. There was no going back after I cast it, there’s no way to deny that the spell is necromancy and only a master necromancer could even learn the spell, let alone cast it, but it was the only option.”

Twilight looked at me with excitement and the unbridled curiosity that can be seen in any mage about to hear about powerful new magic “What spell?”

“Wail of the Banshee.” I stated in a level voice. The reaction around the table was almost a unanimous blank look of incomprehension. Unanimous, that is, except for Twilight Sparkle who lost her curiosity entirely and her eyes widened in shock. “So, it would seem you’ve done thorough research Miss Sparkle, I didn’t think anyone would have heard of the spell here.”

She gulped before speaking in a slightly shaky voice “I read about it in a rare book on necromancy, the only one I’ve ever found. It said that nopony had ever been able to cast it before. It’s actually become something of a myth.” She paused and licked her lips before continuing “A-are you saying that you can actually… cast it?”

Spike interrupted before I could respond with a look of curiosity “Why Twilight? What does it do?” Twilight seemed to go a bit pale beneath her coat as she turned to the young hatchling and started trying to stammer out an excuse to not say it but I simply talked over her in a calm, monotone voice.

“It infuses the voice of the caster with necromantic magic which is then released in a wail that kills all that hear it.”

The eyes of the remaining three widened and they all visibly recoiled from me at this statement but Spike’s reaction was the most extreme. He dropped the quill and parchment from his hands and fell in an attempt to scramble as far away from me as possible, keeping his wide eyes on me the whole time until he eventually scooted himself back into the corner.

I simply sipped at the now cold coffee in front of me and responded in an equally casual tone as before. “Why the look of surprise? Necromancy is the magic of death, killing and reanimating are it’s two specialties, and reanimation requires a corpse to perform it on.” I looked around the room, seeing that this did nothing to ease the fears of the young dragon and that the guards were still equally tense I sighed and dropped my head into my hand “Would you relax? I’m not going to use any of my necromancy except in self defense. Besides, if it makes you feel any better, I doubt I could cast any of my stronger spells with how little energy I can get from this Ley Line, the Wail included.” Surprisingly, this seemed to work marginally as the guards relaxed slightly and Spike’s seemed to calm down slightly and move back over toward the table, though staying noticeably farther away from me and closer to Twilight than before.

Twilight simply sighed and wrapped a foreleg around him, pulling him closer before staring at me “Would you please not scare Spike like that? He is a baby dragon after all and I was trying to find a gentler way of putting it.”

I simply shrugged “You’re the one who asked me to tell you about one of my adventures. They may all be quite different ordeals but they almost all have one thing in common. Death. And honestly, it’s probably best he be told flat out instead of beating around the bush and trying to sugar coat it. I am a necromancer, when I fight, I fight to kill. Simple as that.” Twilight looked like she was about to respond but i cut her off “Anyways, back to the story.” She huffed but relented and let me continue my tale.

“So, backed into a corner with time running out I had no choice but to reveal myself as a necromancer to save my allies and get the job done. I drew a large amount of necromantic magic into me, threw my head back, and let it all out in one loud, ghostly wail. Dreadheart, being right at the epicenter of the spell, never stood a chance and dropped to the ground in an instant. The wolves were the next to feel the effects, dropping to their bellies and their ears laying back flat as they whined before the full effect hit them and their whining stopped. Finally, it reached Maywild, Suki, and the sidekick. The girls, both already weakened from their wounds, dropped to their knees and covered their ears but were otherwise unharmed as the gems in their necklaces turned slowly from a pure white to a dark, inky black. The sidekick however, wasn’t so lucky and fell, meeting the same fate as Dreadheart himself. The magic stopped short just before reaching the crowd who all covered their ears and shut their eyes tight against the unearthly sound. Finally, as I channeled the dark magic through me my undead body began to use this power to mend itself, mending the shattered bones and closing all of my wounds while my eyes began to glow a deep crimson.”

“As the spell finally ended and my scream trailed off into silence I lowered my head and looked around, taking in the corpses of the now defeated champion and his group and the injured women shakily removing their hands from their ears, apparently not entirely unaffected but still alive. Finally, I saw that with Dreadheart’s death the barrier around the flaming axe at the other end of the arena had disappeared. I calmly strode over and picked up the axe, pulling an old strap designed to hold a staff on one’s back and slipped the axe’s handle into it.”

“I turned to the women as they were standing up, both of them turning towards me with grins on their faces that surprised me to no end. Then, Maywild said something that, to this day, has been the most shocking thing anyone has ever said to me…”

“‘Well, it took you long enough!’”

Everyone around the table just stared at me in confusion. Finally, Brightblade broke the silence “Really? That’s the most shocking thing that has ever been said you you?” I nodded. “In six hundred years, the most shocking thing you’ve heard is ‘it took you long enough’?” I nodded again.

“Well, it’s not the words themselves that shocked me so much but the implication behind it. She just saw me cast a spell that was undeniably necromancy, considered one of the most vile of magics, and wasn’t surprised, scared, or even angry. She just basically told me in those few words ‘I knew all along you were a necromancer, you should have done that earlier and saved us all this trouble.’ And not only that, she did it with a happy, carefree grin and absolutely no malice or ill intent in her voice. She honestly didn’t care that I was a necromancer, to her I was her ally and a mage, nothing more.” I chuckled “Well, I thought so at least, then I found out later that she even knew I was a lich all along.”

Brightblade simply tilted his head in confusion before asking “How did she know that?”

“Remember how I said she shielded her eyes and darkened her goggles when she first saw me?” everyone around the table nodded “Well, it turns out that those goggles let her see magic. And not just weaved spells either, she could see any fluctuation of the ley lines through them and liches are surrounded by dark magic, it’s what fuels our existence, so looking at me was like kind of like looking directly at a bright light for her and it didn’t take her long to make the jump from ‘surrounded by dark magic’ to ‘undead necromancer’ to ‘lich’. And Suki didn’t care either, she just saw me as an ally and she might have even seen me as a friend back then, I’m not sure.”

“Anyways, after that the crowd and the promoter were enraged and started to open the gate to the arena so they could come and tear us limb from limb so we beat a hasty retreat through a Dimension Door spell, delivered the axe, and continued on to help the Laughing Knives break into the Vault and defeat Velah. After that the girls promised to keep my secret and, feeling I could trust them, I gave them a way to keep in contact with me. We’ve worked together many times since and I consider them my closest friends, they’re almost like family to me honestly.”

Twilight opened her mouth to say something but before she could we heard a knock at the door downstairs. “Were you expecting company?”

Twilight looked toward the stairs “No, not that I know of. It’s probably somepony come to check out a book from the library, I’ll go answer it and be back in a moment.” With that, she stood up and trotted off down the stairs.

Spike stood up and followed behind her saying “I’ll go with ya Twi.”

Curious, I followed behind them and stopped at the top of the stairs overlooking the door. When Twilight reached the door she opened it and seemed a little surprised to see a pink pony with a fluffy pink mane and tail on the other side looking a little aggravated. She said something about wanting to talk to Twilight and she was let in, the unicorn closing the door behind her.

Not wanting to eavesdrop on their conversation I went back up the stairs and sat at the table again and the three of us waited in silence for a few minute. Eventually the two walked back up the stairs, Twilight with a mixed look of confusion and shock.

“So, what was that about?” I asked.

“That was Pinkie, one of my friends. She wanted to talk about something.” she paused for a moment thinking “She also said to ‘tell Yeta I’ll throw him a party later. I’d throw him one now but I’m a teensy bit busy at the moment.’”

I raised an eyebrow in surprise “Oh, so you told her that I was up here?”

She hesitated for a moment “No… I didn’t. I also never told her your name before…” she said this with confusion clear in her voice and my eyes widened slightly.

“Then, how did she…”

“I don’t know…”

I thought for a moment “... Maybe she saw me come in earlier? or heard about it?”

“Yeah, that has to be it.” Twilight said, taking her seat again. I shrugged off my confusion and turned back to the table to face her but a small thought drifted at the edge of my mind.

‘but how did she know my name?’

Author's Notes:

Okay, how do people keep finding this story? Seriously, it's on hiatus for months and I just keep getting notifications that people are giving it favorites.
Well, however you found this, every time I got one of those notifications it kept making me feel like I needed to get something written more and more until i finally did it. This was originally planned to be a 2 parter but it was getting a bit long and I wanted to get something posted so here it is, a bit of yeta's past and a bit of info on Eberron for those that don't know it.
Ah, the arena. Good times, good times.
Well, it is how you met Maymay and Suki after all, of course it'd be good times.
This is true.
Now, anyways, that's all I've got to say about that. I'm gonna try to get the last part of this out sometime soonish so until next time.
Bye kids, see you in part three, Griffon the Bru- I mean, Griffons and Liches... or something like that.

A griffin's brush with Death

Edit: if you are here to read the rewrite, everything in the first part is the same. if you want to jump to where the changes start, use your search function to find the word "cyclone" it should take you to the right paragraph.

After the visit from Pinkie, Twilight and I continued talking, though really it was just me answering her many, many, many questions. Eventually, Twilight’s questions brought us to a topic that had Spike jumping to ask a few of his own.

“Tell us about the stuff you were saying when I answered the door! Tell us about your dragons!” Spike said with excitement clear in his eyes and voice.

I chuckled slightly at the little hatchling’s enthusiasm. “Well, sure I guess. First off, what kind of dragons do you want to know about?”

Twilight tilted her head slightly “What kind? what do you mean?”

“Well, do you want to know about red dragons, green dragons, silver dragons, gold dragons, amethyst dragons, or any of the others really. I’ve managed to gather a good bit of knowledge on them and actually have a book in here somewhere that was written by a researcher on the subject” I started digging around through my bag and pulled out a rather large leather book with no title written on it. When I looked back up everyone was staring at me in confusion. Nightshade was the first to speak.

“What does the color of their scales matter? They’re all dragons, they’re all big, breathe fire, and eat gems.”

I simply stared at the pegasus in disbelief. Twilight was staring at my book intently and spoke without taking her eyes off of it.

“Is that not what dragons are like in your world?”

I shook my head a bit to shake off my confusion and looked over at her. “No, not really.” I paused for a moment and put the book on the table in front of me. “Well, not all of them. First off, the dragons of Eberron don’t eat gems. They’re pretty much carnivores.” everyone looked a little surprised by this but Spike looked downright shocked. “Second, sure, all dragons get pretty big but their size varies depending on species and color is the most obvious indicator of that species. And finally, only a few of the draconic species are fire breathers.” By this time all of the pony’s jaws were on the floor and Spike was staring at me in utter bewilderment. Seeing no response was going to be made I prodded the conversation along. “So, you mean you don’t have multiple species of dragon?”

Twilight slowly shook her head “Not really, no. I mean, there are different races but they are even less different than the three tribes of ponies and the color of their scales has nothing to do with it.”

“Well then, we have a lot to cover.” I said as I flipped the cover of the book open, revealing one word scrawled across the page in cold letters, Draconomicon. “This is the most famous work of one of Eberron’s top researchers on the various beings on our world, and the Forgotten realms in his more recent copies. Now, in Eberron, dragons are classified first into groups, then species, then any subspecies or things like that. There are two main groups of dragons, the Metallic dragons and the Chromatic dragons. As the names suggest, the metallic dragons have scales with a metallic appearance where the chromatics are less lustrous. Aside from these two groups there are a few others, the largest of them being the gemstone dragons, amethyst, emerald, onyx, and the like.” I turned the page in the book, revealing a table of contents with pages marked for each of the groups as well as each individual type of dragon. “Which would you like to know about first?” I looked to Spike with this question as he was the one that brought the topic up in the first place. He hesitated nervously for a moment before speaking.

“Well, you were saying something about me being an amethyst dragon right? How about that?”

I hummed in thought for a moment as I looked at the young dragon “Well, at first glance I thought it was possible though you don’t really have that gemstone quality to your scales. If I had to place you just off of scale appearance I would name you a half-breed between a purple and a green, two chromatics.”

“Let’s hear about those then.”

I flipped to the first section of the book labelled for chromatic dragons and flipped through until I found the purple dragons. “Ah, the purple dragons, one of the most intriguing of the species and one of the least known. First off, the purple dragons are a species that naturally delights in exploration, especially of deep underground places where no other living being has ever trod. This is the reason that so few people know about purple dragons, because they are almost always deep within the earth and in the darkness of their caves, the few that ever do see one and live to tell the tale mistake them for a black dragon. Now, as for size, they are very average for chromatic dragons. At their largest, their overall length will reach about 85 feet, their maximum wingspan 80, and their weight about 160,000 pounds. The only thing that really sets them apart is their slightly longer than average neck at about 28 feet max, only matched by the blue dragons. The truly exceptional thing about purples though, is that unlike almost all other types of dragons whose breath weapons are an element of some sort, Purple dragons have the ability to instill pure psychic energy into their breath to cause pain to the enemy’s mind.”

Everyone stared at me in stunned silence for a moment before Spike again broke the quiet.

“So… they don’t breathe fire? They breathe weird psychic powers?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” I shrugged “Like I said, not all dragons of my world breathe fire. Now, on to the green dragon. I guess since it surprised you most last time I’ll get straight to the breath weapon now. Green dragons have a poisonous breath so they are also somewhat different from most others in that respect. Many people make the mistake of seeing the green coloring of their scales and thinking that greens breathe acid but that is actually the black dragon. Green dragons tend to make their homes in dense forests where their natural color will help them blend in surprisingly well for such a massive creature. They are cunning and also rather average in size but they have a few characteristics such as the shape of the horns on their head that make it easy for them to push their way through the densely forested areas they prefer to call home. Green dragons also tend to use their poisonous breath to trap the thorns around their domain and anything else a hapless passer-by might scrape themselves on.” I closed the book and looked at it for a moment before picking it up and holding it out towards Twilight.

“There’s a lot about dragons and I don’t want to sit here talking about them for hours on end so here, feel free to borrow this.”

Twilight’s eyes widened and she hesitantly reached her hooves out to grab the book, staring at it reverently. “A-are you sure?”

I shrugged as the book left my hand “Yeah, why not. I already know the basic information in that and from what I’ve heard about you, I’m pretty sure you’ll treat it well.”

“Oh, I will! I’ll make sure nothing happens to it while it’s here.” she immediately opened the book and started reading. I coughed quietly to get her attention and she looked up before closing the book with a sheepish chuckle, sitting the book aside with a muttered “Sorry”

“Now, anything else you’d like to ask before I start asking some questions of my own?”

Twilight hummed in thought for a moment and tapped her hoof with her chin. “Hmm, now that you mention it, there was something you said earlier that I’ve been meaning to ask about. You said that you kept your soul because you ‘did things differently from other liches.’ what did you mean by that?”

I leaned back, straightening my arms behind me to support myself “Well, first let me tell you about the usual ways to become a lich. The most common, and the easiest way is the one that pretty much created the bad reputation liches have. It is to offer your will to a higher power for their help. This gives a bad reputation because most of the beings willing to do help are evil deities looking for undying servants. They basically do everything for you but you become their servant and they are able to destroy your phylactery or control you whenever and however they choose. Some people do it out of desperation, some desire power no matter the cost, and some already serve the being with such loyalty that doing this changes nothing, but all of them are puppets if the power desires it.

“The second method is harder but it’s independant. It’s also more costly in some ways. You have to put your entire soul into the ritual and creation of your phylactery in order to make up for a lack of power, because the ritual requires too much power to handle without some kind of compensation no matter what method you use.”

I leaned forward again “And now, for the method I used. I wasn’t willing to pay either of these costs because losing my entire soul is unacceptable and being the puppet of some deity would entirely defeat the purpose of my goal if they wanted me to do something evil, so I went with a third option. I researched, extensively. That’s actually the reason I’m so old, I was in my mid seventies when I managed it, near the end of a human’s natural life. I worked for years, combining the methods, testing, and exploring. I eventually managed to find the perfect conditions and created a process which I thought would work. I still used a piece of my soul for the phylactery as usual but I didn’t have to use the full thing. I had spent all of my life accumulating as much power as I could and looking for the area with the most saturation of dark magic, and I eventually had what I needed. I had found a place that was so saturated with darkness that the dead would rise on their own, I had power of my own and even a few trinkets that amplified said power, and I had the altered ritual. I set up, began the ritual, and then…” I paused with a sigh “Well, that’s when I realised the true reason no mage had ever done this on their own before.”

All of the ponies were staring at me, eager to hear what I had to say next but I decided to see how long it would take for one of them to ask. Unsurprisingly, Twilight didn’t wait very long before her curiosity got the best of her. “What reason?”

“The sheer, unfiltered pain of fragmenting your soul.” at the wide eyes and splayed back ears of the ponies around me I continued in an emotionless monotone, explaining things as scientifically as possible. “When a lich is made on it’s own power, the entire soul is placed in the phylactery because severing a portion of the soul itself is too painful for any being to possibly concentrate on even the simplest spell, let alone such a complex ritual. When it’s done through an outside power, the potential lich is first killed for a brief moment, long enough for the deity in charge to fragment the soul while there is no physical body to harm. There is still pain, but less than there would be if there was a physical body connected to the soul which would also be harmed by it.”

Twilight looked at me with confusion clear on her face “Then how did you do it? I mean, obviously the spell worked or you wouldn’t be here talking to me right now, but you just said it was impossible.” I sighed and leaned forward holding my head.

“Honestly? I have absolutely no clue. My memories of the ritual itself are fuzzy and fragmented at best. All I remember is the pain, blacking out, and then waking up inside my ritual circle, now burned out and smoldering, with my completed phylactery in hand and realising that I wasn’t breathing, my heart wasn’t beating, and all of my nerves felt… dulled. I could barely feel the ground beneath me. I could tell my back was touching the ground and I could feel something in my hand but I couldn’t distinguish textures very well and everything just felt… I don’t know, even after six hundred years of feeling things like that I still don’t have a way to describe it other than that my nerves felt, for lack of a better word, dead.”

I looked up from the table and saw that everyone was staring at me with mixed expressions. Was I seeing sympathy? Pity? Surprise? Horror? I couldn’t tell. I may be able to pick up on obvious expressions but I couldn’t read a pony’s face well enough to figure out what they were feeling in that mixture.

Surprisingly enough, the awkward silence and stillness of the room was broken by a dark blue hoof suddenly poking my arm. I simply looked down at the hoof in question and then up at the face of the pony it belonged to. After a moment of staring Nightshade withdrew his hoof and shrugged.

“What? You said your nerves were dead so I wanted to see just how dead they were.”

I sighed and shook my head as my hand went up and met my forehead. “Well, for your information, I can still feel when someone pokes me. Like I said, I can feel enough to know when I’m touching something or something’s hitting me, it’s just that most sensation is just overall dull unless it’s a particularly strong sensation, then it breaks through.” The sensations strong enough are almost always pain but I didn’t feel the need to add that little bit of unpleasant information. “Anyways!” I said with a clap of my hands, suddenly shifting the conversation to my control “Enough about my unpleasant past, time for my questions.”

Twilight’s eyes widened as she spoke in a slightly frantic tone “But wait! What about how-!” I cut her off quickly.

“Ah ah, nope, You asked what I did different, not what made the ritual work. It’s time I got my own questions answered, you can ask me more about it later.” Huh, so that’s how it felt to be on the other end of one of Maywild’s little conversational tricks. Always hated it when she took the conversation away from me like that. And from Twilight’s expression and the little huff she let out, she wasn’t too fond of this trick either but I continued on anyways.

“Now, the first thing I want to figure out is how hard it’s going to be to gather these materials.” As I said this, I reached into my bag again and pulled out a thick rolled up scroll and held it out towards Twilight. “I would’ve asked the princesses but Celestia wouldn’t let me speak with Luna alone and being around Celestia is… unpleasant for me.” NIghtshade scowled at me as I said this, as if I had just offended him greatly. Seeing as I had just said something negative about his deity, I probably did offend him. I was, however, a little surprised that Brightblade didn’t share that reaction, but figuring out the why of that can come later as Nightshade wasn’t all too pleased at the moment and I needed to take care of that before he got really an-

“And what do you mean by that exactly?” Well, too late for that, guess he was already angry. Damage control time.

“I meant no offense but it’s a simple fact and if you think for a moment you’ll understand what I meant. I am a being of dark magic and she is the embodiment of the sun. That comes with a surge of light magic being around her at all times. This makes being in her presence physically uncomfortable at best. Hells, if it weren’t for the fact that she was probably suppressing that whenever I was near, it would have been downright painful to be near her. Honestly, now that I’m out of Canterlot I realise just how far that little fluctuation she causes reaches. If I’d stayed there, I wouldn’t have the slightest hope of ever getting back to my full power.” NIghtshade at least looked a little bit less angry at me now so I turned back to Twilight and saw that she had already taken the scroll and was reading through it thoughtfully while Spike was standing behind her and staring wide-eyed at the admittedly long list.

“That’s all for one spell? Just how powerful is this thing that you’d need that many focuses?!”

Before I could respond, Twilight spoke up, still reading through the list. “It’s not about pure power, Spike. The foci are probably there to help with just how complex the spell would be.”

I nodded at Twilights words “For the most part, yes. Though, it does take a rather large amount of power to cast as well. Needless to say, I wouldn’t be willing to have a novice try to cast this spell no matter how good they are with complexities.”

Twilight nodded as she finished reading through the list, apparently having forgotten her earlier frustrations at my shift of topic in light of the list of information I’d handed her. “Understandably so, I’d imagine. Now, as for these materials.” she pulled a quill and ink well from a nearby desk, making a few marks on the list. “A couple of these are rather common and should be easy to get. Other’s could be a little difficult but doable. What worries me though, are these particular items.” she levitated the scroll over to me and I noticed that about five or six of the items had little x’s next to them. “I’ve never even heard of these. I’ll do a bit of research later, maybe they’re just known as something different here or I just don’t know about them, but it’s possible that they don’t even exist in this world.” I was a little worried about this but didn’t let it show.

“I’ll look into it as well, but if they don’t exist then I’ll just have to find a suitable replacement. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to improvise something after all.” I sighed and rolled the scroll back up, returning it to my bag. “I’ll have to get started gathering those as soon as I know more about this place. Hopefully it doesn’t take me years like it did last time. If even one of these is commonplace here, then that’s an improvement on back home. Every single one of these was next to impossible to get. Now, I have one final question for now and then I should probably move on to getting some other things done. After all, I still have to meet the other element bearers if I plan on studying those interesting artifacts and I should probably find somewhere to get lodgings. I don’t care if I’m out in the open but I’m pretty sure these two would prefer a bed and a roof to a blanket and a tent.” I gestured to the two guards who simply shrugged indifferently.

“Well, you could use my basement. I’d have to move some of my equipment around but there should be enough room down there.” I waved off her offer with a small shake of my head.

“No offense, but I think it’d be best if I didn’t take you up on that. I’m not exactly a good roommate.” Nightshade snorted at that and mumbled something along the lines of ‘you can say that again’ but I ignored him. “I don’t sleep often and I don’t spend time doing idle things. If I’ve got nothing to do I’m usually experimenting with spells or doing research or practice and that’s not always exactly a quiet or safe exercise. If possible, I want to find a place that’s near either the edge of town or an abandoned building I can use while I work.” Twilight hummed in thought and put a hoof to her chin.

“I can see why that might be a problem. The noise is easy enough to work with but I don’t work with spells dangerous enough to have a prepared area for them all that often. Back in Canterlot I used the facilities in the School for Gifted Unicorns but here the only place I’ve seen is the field between Ponyville and the Everfree Forest.” I perked up at the mention of the forest.

“The Everfree, that’s where I showed up right?” at Twilight’s nod I continued. “In that case, I’ll need to look into that area at some point as well. I have a few theories and ideas about why I lost consciousness. I’m not sure if it was the shock of passing through an intact part of the world barrier, if it was a result of the Elements, or if it was something else entirely but I intend to find out.” I thought about that for a moment before I remembered the question I had intended to bring up before we got off on this tangent.

“Anyways, back to what I wanted to ask you, I can find lodging later. For now, I have a few theories about something that’s been worrying me since I got here. My spells haven’t been working all that well-” this time both of the guards snorted but before they could retort I just glared at them. When they made no sign of interrupting further, I continued. “As I was saying, my spells have been having issues since I got here: a fireball coming out as nothing more than a spark of flame, my teleportation not accounting for vertical distance, and a featherfall spell giving me the ability to stand on a cloud just to name a few. Now, two of these can be explained by other potential variables but with the sheer amount of miscasts I think it’s something more… fundamental.” I looked at Twilight for a moment, my gaze particularly directed to her horn as it glowed and the cup in front of her, apparently having been refilled at some point, began to glow with an identical light.

“Now, this may sound like a somewhat pointless and obvious question but please answer it seriously.” I paused for a moment and Twilight nodded in agreement. “Okay, well I think it might be something to do with how we channel magic. Please, tell me, how is it that you channel? I don’t mean how you cast a specific spell or anything, but how you do the most basic thing any mage does and just simply channel.”

The purple scholar raised an eyebrow at this question and spoke hesitantly “Really? that’s what you want to know?” at my serious nod she continued much less hesitantly “Well, I’m not sure how it’ll accomplish anything but I guess it won’t hurt to answer you. Okay, well, in order to channel magic a unicorn needs to simply focus through their horn and reach through the inborn connection that they have to the ley lines. They then find the ley line they wish to draw from and pull the magic into their body through their horn, process the magic in their mind into the spell they want, and release it back through their horn to produce the desired effect.” I nodded soberly and spoke.

“Well, there’s the issue. Our methods of channeling differ. The magic of this world must be harder to work with in my manner.” Twilight’s eyes widened as the implications of my words sank in.

“What? We channel differently? The foundational concept of all arcane manipulation is different for us than for you? And you’re saying that magic here is different from magic in your world?”

“Well, somewhat different at least. First off, the way we channel differs in one major way, Humans don’t take the magic into their body to cast. In fact, doing so is harmful to the human body and even damaging to the mind with prolonged exposure unless it’s an already refined and channeled spell. The only kinds of magic that I know of that draw raw, unchanneled magic into the body are those of arcane beings, blood magic, and the very select few divine magics that use arcane power as a sort of catalyst.”

“You can’t take magic into your bodies?! Then how do you control it?!” Twilight was frantic at the sheer contradiction these ideas posed to everything she’d studied. Honestly, it was a little disturbing to me to but I was handling it better. Probably because their method was still used in my world for some things whereas it seems mine was unheard of here. I raised a hand to try and forestall any more questions from Twilight and calm her a little. It didn’t seem all that effective but at least she didn’t look like she was going to interrupt what I was about to say.

“Okay, now, first off there is one other exception back on Eberron to the usual method. Wizards, bards, swordmages, and pretty much every other user of the arcane channels magic through something other than their body or even just weaves it with hand gestures but there is one type of arcane user that not only can but will sometimes unwillingly channel magic through their own bodies. These people are known as sorcerers and they are born with a natural connection to one or more of the arcane ley lines and get their ability to channel through both this and some sort of arcane lineage, be they dragonblooded or the distant descendant of a djiin. No matter how they came to be born with the connection they are born naturally channeling magic and sometimes they aren’t even able to fully control it.” I paused to give Spike a little bit of extra time to make sure he had all of this written down before I continued.

“Now as for how the rest of us channel we use various methods. The most basic is what we call the somatic component of a spell. Almost all spells require one and the ones that don’t are either so close to pure unchanneled power that they don’t need to be weaved as intricately or are so simple that it takes almost no effort to weave them. A somatic component is pretty much a gesture or movement that is specific to the spell you want to cast and if you want a way to visualize it then you could compare it to weaving threads made of magic in the air to create a spell. Other methods include material components to stabilize a spell, implements to channel the magic through in a similar method to your horns, or arcane foci that not only direct but contain the magic and help to shape it. Now, for the most part, implements aren’t absolutely necessary they just make things infinitely easier. A bard can weave a song through the air without an instrument but they can focus more on the spell itself if the music is made by an actual instrument. And material components and foci vary on whether or not they’re needed and what they are if you do need them. Though, through improvisation I have managed to stumble upon the fact that certain materials will work for many spells, they just aren’t as effective as the component usually used for them.”

Twilight just stared at me in disbelief for a moment before she managed to compose herself enough to speak. “So what you’re saying is…” she started off slowly and with more than a hint of disbelief “Your race can just… weave spells through thin air? No taking the magic into their body? Not necessarily needing something to channel it through or something to stabilize the energies?” I simply nodded and Twilight’s jaw dropped open “B-but... THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE!” She then started ranting about various reasons that the very fundamentals of magic I studied were impossible. I decided that if she wouldn’t take my word for it, I’d simply show her undeniable proof.

I reached out to the ley lines and drew a small amount of power out of the central line which is linked to no element in particular and weaved a spell without a word or even a gesture. Well, it was barely a spell really, just a cantrip, the most basic of magics any apprentice learns before anything else. A brief moment later a shimmering purple hand of pure force appeared in the air in front of me and promptly closed Twilight’s mouth, effectively cutting off her words as her eyes widened to the size of saucers.

“Are you going to calm down now?” she nodded her head slightly, almost imperceptibly, and I removed the ghostly hand from her muzzle, floating it near the center of the table. “Now, look at the lines of magic. You should be able to see the usual connection from the ley line heading toward me and feeding the spell but if you look carefully you’ll see that it only gathers around my hand.” I lifted my right hand to show her. “It never enters my body at all, instead leading from me in small threads as a channeled spell connecting to the simple Mage Hand cantrip you see there.” I made the hand wave at her and she calmly examined the spell with the practical mindset of an experienced spell caster. When she was finished her eyes widened again but they didn’t reach anywhere near the size they were before.

“This is incredible. No, it’s completely unheard of! I have to study this further! I need to report this to the princess! I-” the hand quickly cut her off again before she could start another rant but this time instead of looking shocked, she glared at me in annoyance.

“I thought you said you were going to be calm.” When she continued to glare at me I decided to go ahead and remove the hand from her muzzle again but kept it near her just in case. “Now, I’m just as interested as you are about this subject. I mean, look at it from my perspective. It’s dangerous and potentially even deadly for people to take magic into themselves but your entire race, and any other magic-using races of this world from the sounds of it, are only able to channel magic in this way? Naturally, I’m going to want to study this as well. However, that can wait until I’ve gotten started on my more pressing goals. And as for reporting it to the princess, I doubt that will be necessary. I weaved a couple of spells in front of Celestia the first time I saw her and it wouldn’t surprise me if she noticed it then and there.”

Twilight finally stopped glaring at me as I was talking and instead shifted to examining the purple hand floating by her head. After a moment, she turned away from the hand and looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “So, you promise you’ll let me study this some more later?”

“So long as you help me to study the magic of this world.” This answer seemed to satisfy Twilight enough for now as she nodded before asking another question.

“You said that most of your spells were miscasting, understandably so if the fundamentals of magic are so different for us, so is there anything wrong with this spell?” she gestured to the hand which had become the center of the conversation by now.

“No, that’s a perfect casting, but it’s just a cantrip. From what I’ve seen so far it’s comparable to the telekinesis that unicorns use, something learned early on and eventually becomes second nature to cast. If I couldn’t properly control the magic enough to cast even this right then I doubt I would have even made it a few inches with my teleportation and probably wouldn’t have achieved anything more than a minor warmth with my fire spells. It seems that the weaker spells are casting with little trouble and the ones that are personal enchantments don’t seem to be having difficulty either, likely because they directly affect me instead of trying to manifest some greater outside effect.”

I continued on to explain some of the other cantrips that apprentices learn and the conversation followed through to simple topics like the schools of magic and up to a few of the more complex theories. Surprisingly, aside from the basic method of channelling, the theories and laws of magic were nearly identical between our worlds. We continued talking for an hour or two before we heard a knock at the door. This time Spike went down to answer it himself and came back a moment later with a pink envelope in his claw.

“It was Derpy delivering the mail. Looks like a Pinkie Pie party invite.” he quickly handed the envelope off to Twilight and she opened it, reading aloud.

“You are all invited to the double welcoming party of Gilda the Griffon and Yetagain! The party starts at 2:00 in Sugarcube corner!

-Pinkie Pie”

Nobody else spoke but it didn’t take long for me to break the silence with a single word.

“No.” everyone turned their attention from Twilight and stared at me in confusion.

“What do you mean ‘no’?”

“I mean no way, nuh-uh, not gonna happen. Just walking through town resulted in ponies staring and a few of those stares were in fear. There is no way I’m going to be stuck in a room that’s going to be crowded with ponies.”

“And why not?” Nightshade asked with a raised eyebrow.

“In tight quarters fear can easily turn into aggression and a party into a mob.”

Brightblade snorted at that. “Maybe one in twenty of the ponies looking at you were scared and they didn’t look near scared enough to suddenly decide to attack you. And even then, you will be with not only the two royal guards but also Princess Celestia’s personal protege herself, if that doesn’t assuage their fears than the crowd of friends and family will.”

Before I could respond Nightshade cut in. “And it’s a party, everypony will be in a festive and happy mood, not exactly ideal mob conditions.”

“Plus it’ll be a great way to get yourself introduced to the town.”

“Not to mention that it’s being hosted by the Element of Laughter who would probably be pretty sad if you refused to go to her party.”

The two of them just continued to roll on with reason after reason for me to go and I couldn’t stop them.

It was another hour before I finally gave in and agreed to go but on one condition, we were to get to the party early so that I could get there before the crowd and let everypony see me before the party actually got started. That way, instead of me suddenly walking into a crowd, each pony would see me as the came in small groups and get their questions out of the way before the party started.

As we were walking down the road I got curious and sometimes fearful stares from almost everyone we passed by but the sight of Twilight, the two guards, and the baby dragon walking with me seemed to calm most of them down. When we got to Sugarcube Corner I stared up at the building as yet another strange architectural design stood in front of me. First a treebrary and now this? Really, this town had some unusual buildings.

The bakery in front of me was, to put it simply, designed to look like it was made from pastries and candy. There were white lines resembling frosting, the walls roof looked like it was made of chocolate and was covered in something resembling sprinkles and gumdrops, and at the very top there was a giant cupcake with three fake candles sticking out of it. The building definitely left no doubt to the observer just what kind of business it housed without even needing the cupcake sign hanging next to the door.

Twilight was the first to enter the building with Spike on her back and I followed in behind her with the guards at the end. The moment I walked into the building I noticed the entire area was brightly decorated for what looked to be a child’s party and there were absolutely no customers. The only pony in the room, in fact, was the pink pony from before who was setting up the last few decorations with a large smile on her face. When the bell above the door chimed she saw us and her smile grew even wider. The next thing I knew she had suddenly appeared right in front of me from the other side of the room. I leapt away and took a defensive stance and most definitely didn’t scream a string of obscenities in my surprise but the mare, Pinkie Pie if I remember correctly, simply started bouncing in place and happily let loose a torrent of rapid words.

“Hi I’m Pinkie Pie and I’m throwing this party just for you! Well, not just for you. It’s for Gilda too but it’s still your welcoming party too!” she stopped for a moment as her muzzle twitched a little “Huh, twitchy nose? But that usually means something sad’s about to happen but what sad thing could happen? I mean, we have cake! how can you be sad when there’s cake?” as she said this I suddenly found a piece of cake being shoved into my mouth. I promptly spit it out and glared at the pony who’d forced it into my mouth only to see her staring in wide eyed shock as if I’d just committed an act of horrible blasphemy.

“What? What are you staring at me for? You’re the one who just shoved cake into my mouth, if anyone should be upset it’s me.” it took a moment before Pinkie spoke but when she did her voice was as filled with shock as her face.

“Do… Do you not like cake? No, that’s impossible, how can you not like cake? It must be something wrong with my cake. What’s wrong with it?”

I just shrugged nonchalantly in the face of her surprise. “I don’t know, I’d have to be able to taste it in order to know that.”

And just like that everyone was silent and staring at me almost as surprised as Pinkie was. Spike, however, just scratched his head and asked the obvious question on their minds.

“What do you mean? Didn’t you just taste it?”

“No, I didn’t. In fact, I couldn’t if I tried. I can’t taste anything, haven’t been able to for five hundred and thirty some-odd years.” as I said this I knelt down and cleaned up the cake that I had spit onto the floor. When I stood back up the looks of shock were still present but Pinkie’s eyes looked like they had tears building in the corners. “What? Why is everyone so surprised? A sense of taste has no practical use for a lich so my tongue’s been useless for anything but talking since I performed the ritual.” When someone finally spoke it was Pinkie whose voice made it clear she was on the verge of tears.

“Yo-you can’t t-taste? Anything? You can’t taste cake? Or candy? Or sundaes? Or sassparilla? Nothing at all?”

“Nope, can’t taste a th-” I couldn’t get any more words out as I was suddenly tackled by a pink blur and wound up with a pair of hooves wrapped tightly around my midsection. “Uh… why are you hugging me?”

“Because it’s so sad! How can you not be sad when you can’t taste any of the yummy things out there?!” I couldn’t really understand why but this pony sounded so damned sad. It’s like she couldn’t even comprehend the possibility of someone being happy without a sense of taste. I was confused but I really didn’t want her to start crying into my stomach so I did the only thing I could think of at the time and patted her awkwardly on the head.

“It uh… it’s not really all that sad. I mean, I didn’t really care all that much about food for anything other than nourishment when I was alive so when I found out I couldn’t taste it anymore it didn’t really faze me. I mean, sure, it came as a little bit of a surprise when I ate a biscuit and couldn’t even tell I was eating something other than the texture but that’s about it. Trust me, I may not have the ability to taste but I’m perfectly happy without it.” I put on a fake smile as Pinkie looked up at me with big watery eyes.

“B-but… how?”

I shrugged “I just am. Besides, if I really wanted to taste again I could probably figure out a spell to get my tongue working again without too much trouble.” She suddenly stepped back with a smile on her face.

“Well why didn’t you say so?! If all you need to do is a little magic and you can taste again then problem solved! Just cast the spell and taste some of this delicious cake!”

“Hey, I said I could figure a spell out, I didn’t say I had one already. And besides, I said if I wanted to, I don’t really see a need for it.” Pinkie’s mood shifted again int he blink of an eye from happy to a stern, determined demeanor and when she spoke her tone gave no room for argument.

“You are going to make your spell, you’re going to cast it, and when you do I’m going to make you the biggest, bestest cake ever to celebrate you being able to taste again. You got that?”

I don’t know why I didn’t argue, maybe the surprise from all these sudden mood shifts, but at Pinkie’s words I just nodded my head and she went back to smiling again just like that.

“Okie-dokie-lokie!” with that she bounced off to another room which I assumed was a kitchen and left the five of us standing in the middle of the store surprised. Eventually I turned to Twilight and said one sentence.

“Gods above, she acts just like Maywild.”

After the ordeal with meeting Pinkie I went off and stood in a corner, the two guards choosing to take up positions on either side of me, and soon ponies started to trickle into the store. A couple of them came over and tentatively asked me questions, one particularly enthusiastic mint-green unicorn came over and asked me almost as many questions as Twilight but she eventually left after making me promise to answer some more of her questions later, but most of the ponies just warily kept their distance.

That is, until an orange earth pony mare walked up to me. She had a blonde mane and tail and her mane was tied back in a ponytail. She had a worn-looking brown stetson on her head and she looked a little more muscular than the other mares I’d seen so far, either she work out or she’s no stranger to manual labor. Finally, her cutie mark was a set of three apples and her eyes were emerald green. When she got to me she reached one of her forehooves out to me and looked up at my face with a warm smile and when she spoke it was with an accent that reminded me of the farmers in some of the farthest outlying villages back home.

“Howdy there, you’re the feller we found out in that old castle right? The names Applejack, nice ta meet ya.” she chuckled a little “Well, to meet ya when you’re actually awake an all.” as she finished, she still had her hoof held out and I felt stupid as I realised what she wanted. I reached out and grabbed the appendage and she shook my hand rather vigorously. As I took my hand back I spoke.

“Well, hello. So, you’re one of the ponies that found me? So that means you’re one of the element bearers, excellent. My name is Yetagain, and it’s nice to meet you too.” I paused for a moment and tapped my chin with a finger, thinking back on the descriptions I’d been given of the bearers back in Canterlot. “Let’s see, if I remember correctly you’re the bearer of Honesty right?”

“Eeyup, reckon that’s me. Me an my family run Sweet Apple Acres out at the end of town, you should stop by sometime an I’ll introduce ya.” I raised an eyebrow and smiled slightly.

“Offering to introduce me to your family? That’s awfully trusting of you. Aside from that Lyra mare I’ve barely held a conversation with anyone but Twilight.”

“Well, I figure if you’re gonna be livin out here, you’re bound ta meet em eventually. ‘Sides, you seem like a nice enough fella so far.” I made a little shallow bow and smiled down at her.

“Well, thank you for the offer, I’ll definitely have to take you up on it in the near future.” We exchanged a few more pleasantries before Applejack wandered off into the rest of the party. I glanced around and saw two more mares that seemed to match the description of two of the other element bearers talking to each other in the opposite corner from me. One was a rather elegant looking white unicorn with a violet mane and tail styled to curl around while the other was a yellow pegasus that looked to be trying to hide behind her curtain of pink mane. The unicorn looked at me and smiled nervously before turning back to the pegasus who was noticeably keeping her mane blocking vision in my direction. It seemed like she was trying to coax her into something...
I decided to leave them to their conversation and continued to just scan the crowd from my corner. It wasn’t long before the other person this party was being thrown for arrived, or at least I guessed it was her since she was the only griffon I’d seen. She came in with a blue pegasus with a very distinguishable rainbow colored mane and tail, obviously the last of the bearers, kinda hard to forget her description. Surprisingly, she didn’t even seem to notice me as she was distracted spending time with the griffon. I decided to leave them to their devices as well, after all, I figured I’d probably be meeting all of the bearers soon enough so I might as well let them have their fun at this party.

So, I continued to simply watch from my corner. A few ponies occasionally came up to me but for the most part I just watched as events unfolded. It wasn’t long before I started seeing a pattern in certain events. Namely, almost everything that Gilda did resulted in a prank of some sort being triggered on her and she looked to be getting more and more aggravated by the second. It seems griffons may be sentient here but they’re still easily made aggressive. I didn’t think she’d actually do anything too extreme in the middle of a party like this unless she blamed all the pranks on someone she was already angry at but I decided to take precautions just in case.

I lifted my arm and checked the bracelet around my wrist, checking to see that it still had all of the crystal cones attached, and then called to mind the words of a simple holding spell in case I had to stop her from trying anything too crazy. After all, there’s a new and unusual being standing in the corner watching all of these pranks happen and who just so happens to be sharing the guest of honor position at this party, it wouldn’t be a big leap for her anger to be misplaced at me and think I set the pranks up. The spell should be able to keep her in place long enough to… disarm the situation.

To my surprise, however, her anger never got directed towards me. I watched as the situation came crashing down and she became furious. She blamed Pinkie pie for all of the pranks and when Rainbow Dash said the pranks were actually hers she went into denial. And then Dash basically told her that their friendship was over and the griffon just… snapped.

“No! No way! This is all her fault!” She screamed as she pointed at Pinkie who stared at her wide-eyed, likely scared at being stared down by an angry predator right in front of her. And then something that none of the ponies seemed to expect happened. The exact thing I’d been predicting this whole time but was hoping wouldn’t happen. Gilda stepped forward in the blink of an eye and raised her claw to swing at Pinkie in her misplaced rage but that’s as far as she got before I acted.

My voice rose above the crowd in a shouted spell as one of the crystal cones on my bracelet tugged at it’s chain and pointed at Gilda. The cone quickly disintegrated and the dust flew towards her as my spell finished but surprisingly, instead of simply binding her in invisible force as I had planned, the dust swirled rapidly, creating a cyclone that shot out toward her. The cyclone connected, and the downward angle sent her slamming into the ground and sliding rapidly into the wall, hitting her head both times.

All movement stopped and all sound ceased as the griffon lay unconscious against the wall. For a brief moment, time seemed to stand still. Then, I acted again. I swore quietly as I moved to step forward towards the likely injured creature, but I was stopped by the flat of Brightblade’s sword slamming against the back of my legs. I collapsed forward and found the massive blade, which shouldn’t be possible to move so quickly, pressed against my throat.

“Don’t. Move.” He spoke calmly and with emphasis.

I went to speak but was stopped as Nightshade shot across the room like an arrow. He flew over the crowd to land next to Gilda and quickly inspected her for injury. After a moment he looked up with a slightly relieved expression and called into the room.

“She just got knocked out, luckily nothing seems to be broken. However, somepony should get her to the-” He didn’t get to finish his sentence before another blur shot across the room, this one polychromatic. The next moment, Rainbow Dash was next to Gilda and attempting to lift her onto her back.

“I’ve gotta get her to a hospital!” And in the next moment she was out the door with Gilda on her back.

The entire room was silent except for Nightshade’s hooves as he walked calmly back toward me and Brightblade.

“What exactly do you think you were doing?”

“Stopping an attack.” I replied flatly, my expression equally so. “I’m sure you saw it too, you seem to have pretty keen eyes. That griffon was about to claw Pinkie’s face off.” at my… less than gentle words I felt the sword press a little more firmly against my throat.

“And blasting her across the room, through a crowd of ponies, and into a wall was the only answer you had?”

“Not the only one, no. And not the one I was going for.” At the confused expression of the pony in front of me I elaborated before he could speak. “Remember when I said my magic was mis-casting? That was supposed to be a harmless holding spell. Nothing more than a binding of force and air. And before you ask, me moving toward her? What this lovely sword prevented? That was me moving to check on her and make sure I didn’t injure her.”

“And if she had been injured? Or worse?”

“It was unlikely to happen. That spell isn’t really deadly without some kind of environmental hazard and even if it was, a miss-cast can never reach the power of the true spell.” I said dismissively.

“But if it had? What then?”

“I would have done what I could to right the situation.”

Nightshade looked over my shoulder and for a few moments it seemed as if he was having some silent exchange with Brightblade, before he nodded and the blade was returned to its sheathe. I stood up slowly and dusted myself off as I glanced around the room. Every set of eyes was locked on me, near-universally filled with fear, and many with loathing. I sighed and took a step towards the door, the ponies all parted away from me.

“It would seem I am no longer welcome here. Let’s go set up camp for now.”

And with that I walked away, the guards following me. After a particularly long walk, putting as much distance between me and the town as possible, I began silently setting up camp. The guards, equally silent, setup their own tents and returned to their rotating shifts. I walked into the open fields just a short way from our tents and immediately began experimenting with spells to distract myself, all the while thinking of what is to come when I return to the town, because there is no doubt I must. The Elements are the only clue I have as to a way out of this mess, and the bearers are in that town. I’ll simply have to find a way to earn their trust. It won’t be easy after today, but I’ve faced harder situations before.

With newfound determination, I worked on through the day and night.

Author's Notes:

Okay, here's the rewrite. Chapter nine is in the works and I think this will fit a bit better than the last version. Feel free to give me your feedback and I hope you enjoyed.

Dancing With Lightning

NOTE

If you didn't get the notification or see the post, I revised the last chapter. You will need to go back to it to fully understand what's happening here.

“DAMNIT!” My shout broke the quiet of the early morning as I threw my staff down to the ground “THIS MAKES NO SENSE!”

Jolted awake by my shouting, both guards were in the field within a moment.

“What’s going on?!”

I ran my fingers through my hair and was on the verge of tearing it out. “There’s no pattern! No sense! There’s just absolute chaos! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO CAST WHEN NOTHING MAKES SENSE!” In my fury, I reached into my robe and pulled out a small ball of compact materials and threw it, channeling and shouting an incantation. What should have resulted in a massive explosion of flames instead turning into a directional blast of freezing wind, leaving a cone of frozen ground in front of me. “AHH!”

The next thing I knew, the flat of Brightblade’s sword was brought across the back of my legs, knocking me to my knees, and Nightshade was in front of me with his hooves on my shoulders.

“Calm down! You’re going to ruin the whole field at this rate!” He gestured behind him where the results of last night’s experiments were plainly visible. Frozen ground, strewn earth, and scorched soil were scattered throughout the area in wild and unpredictable patterns.

“Fire turns to ice, lightning to force, wind to acid! Nothing makes sense!” I found myself repeating the same phrase again. I then found myself getting slapped across the face by a hard hoof. It got through to my dull nerves and I felt my sense returning to me. “Ow… thank you.” I said as I removed my hands from my hair and dragged them down my face.

Nightshade backed away and I heard the sound of a sword resheating behind me. “Care to tell us what the hay that was?”

“This world managing in one day, what a few centuries of isolation failed to do. My spells, the one thing I’ve ever taken pride in, are unpredictable and… simply chaotic.” my eye twitched as I started to get angry again.

“Do I need to smack you again?” A deadpan look and an equally deadpan sentence snaps me back.

“No, no, no, I’m good. no more hoof-smacks.”

I hear a chuckle behind me “A mighty lich cowering before a simple smack?”

“Hey, hooves hurt.” I said as I turned to glare at Brightblade. “Besides, I wasn’t cowering. Simply trying to avoid unnecessary blows to the head. My mind is my weapon after all, gotta make sure it stays sharp.”

The two guards had a quick laugh at that before Brightblade turned to walk toward the camp. “I’m going to go ahead and turn in. Nightshade, keep him from going too crazy.”

“Hey! We aren’t supposed to switch shifts for another hour!”

“Well, you’re already awake and out here, so we’re switching early. Blame Yeta if you want to blame somepony.”

Nightshade went to protest but as Brightblade turned and walked back to the tents in the distance, he was left with no other option but to simply glare at me as I stood up and dusted myself off.

“What are you glaring at me like that for?”

“You cost me an hour of sleep” When I simply shrugged and knelt down to grab my staff, he sighed. “So, what’s the plan for today?”

“I need to go into town.” I stood up and leaned some of my weight on my staff “I’ve got to at least clear up any misgivings that the Element bearers have about me if I can.”

“And how do you plan on doing that?” Before I responded I looked up at the sky, seeing the sun had risen quite well into the sky. If I had to guess, it was only a short time after when I went into town yesterday.

“Well, for now my best plan is to find them and talk to them. If that doesn’t work…” I trailed off as a flash of rainbow amongst the pegasi overhead caught my attention. It was likely the bearer of Loyalty. After all, I doubt there were many ponies with rainbow-colored manes.

I was about to ask Nightshade if he could go get her attention for me, after all, one of the bearers is as good as another for a starting point. However, before I could the pony stopped and I think she was looking at me, though it was hard to tell from this distance. Any doubts of that were soon cleared away as the pony started rocketing towards me at impressive speed. For a moment I wondered how she planned to stop at that speed but that question was answered as I saw her pose. Hooves held in front of her, wings flapping furiously, and a grim expression on her face. She didn’t plan on landing, she planned on flying straight into me.

With her speed, I didn’t have time to move out of the way. Even if I did, she’d likely just change direction or come around for another pass. So, I did the only thing I could do. I braced my staff along my forearm and placed one end firmly against the ground. The other end was held at an angle, effectively blocking most of my body just before she impacted. And she definitely hit hard.

Her hooves met the wood of my staff and the force went straight through it and into its two anchor points. Namely, the ground and my arm. There was a loud crack and a lance of pain shot through my forearm as I was pushed back a few feet, digging three furrows in the ground with my staff and my feet. Somehow, I managed to stay standing and, gritting my teeth against the pain, I threw my shoulder forward, pushing the staff and the now considerably slowed pegasus back. I prepared myself to fight but before either of us could react, Nightshade moved between the pony and I and facing her.

“What are you doing?” as Nightshade said this, she turned to him with what can only be described as pure rage.

“Gilda’s in the hospital because of that thing! I-”

“And Pinkie’s unharmed because of this thing.” I cut her off quickly, diverting her rage back to me again.

“G wouldn’t have hurt her! She was just gonna smack her or something!”

“No, she wasn’t.” This time it was Nightshade stepping in. “She was an inch from digging her talons into that pony’s face. If not for Yetagain, she would have three long scars across her face if she was lucky, probably blind if she was unlucky.”

“And how would you know?” She shouted but her voice was less sure this time. And Nightshade responded in a deadpan voice.

“Because I’ve fought griffons before.”

“Look” I said, cutting back in on the conversation. “I did what I had to to prevent a bad situation. Knocking her out? That was an accident and not something I wanted to do, but she was lucky. There are a million more deadly spells that my spell could have turned into but she got hit by one of the least deadly I have. Hells, I’ll pay the healer’s fees and formally apologize for hurting her. But I won’t apologize for stopping her.”

Surprisingly, my words had the opposite of the intended effect. Her fury seemed to get stoked by my speech.

“That’s it?! ‘Hey, sorry, I didn’t mean to knock you friend out but at least I didn’t kill her.’?! To hay with your fake apology!” Nightshade was about to move, likely to subdue her, but I put a hand on his shoulder. He turned to me with a look of curiosity.

“Step aside Nightshade, it seems she won’t be calmed down with simply talking. If she wants to fight, let her. It’ll help her blow off some steam.” I looked up to Rainbow Dash with a calm and emotionless face “If you want to fight me, I’ll fight. But we do it unarmed and we don’t take it too far. You can feel free to hit me all you like, but this is not to be a fight to the death. Understood?” Without even waiting for a response I relaxed my injured arm, releasing the staff which stayed partially in the ground. I winced in pain as the cracked bones shifted. I then calmly stepped in front of Nightshade and I heard him backing away.

“Okay Yeta, but I’ll be ready to step in if this gets out of hand. That goes for you too, I won’t hesitate to put my claws in your back.”

“Understood.” I said without turning. I concentrated for a moment as the pegasus in front of me took what looked like a fighting stance. I risked closing my eyes briefly as I reached out to the ley lines, finding the miniscule dark line and channeling a small amount into my body. Unlike living bodies, undead bodies can not only handle taking in necrotic magic, but in fact thrive and heal off of it. I opened my eyes and everything had a slightly red tint to it as they glowed red and there was a faint crackling sound as my bones repaired themselves. “Thank you for giving me time to get ready.”

“Yeah, well, I may be ticked off at you but if you’re going to offer a formal challenge like that, I figure I should at least let you get ready for the butt-kicking your about to get.” After a brief nod I moved into a clumsy fighting stance of my own. I may have some training in martial combat, but it’s just an emergency backup, I’ve never been very good at it.

Not even a second after I got into position, Rainbow Dash was on me. Her speed was unbelievable, I barely managed to block her strikes but the odd few still managed to connect. Despite this speed, however, she seemed to sacrifice little in the way of power. This was definitely a trained fighter, there’s no way these are simple improvised attacks. Her movements were as precise as they were swift and I’m quickly having to give ground as I flee from her strikes.

Feeling cornered, I decided it was time to pull out a trump card. I waited, timing her strikes as I weathered the storm of blows, and with speed, strength, and just a little bit of luck I managed to grab one of her hooves and use her momentum to throw her past me as I moved to where she had been. The pegasus spread her wings to stop herself from hitting the ground, but I gave myself enough distance for a quick spell. I reached into a pocket and grabbed a small orb of materials, muttering an incantation and moving my other hand at lightning speed in a practiced motion. Luckily, the spell worked and I felt my body become lighter and energy seemed to shoot through me.

This time, as the mare was upon me I found myself following her blows better and my body moved markedly faster. Gotta love haste. With my newfound speed I was able to block all of the pegasus’ strikes and, when another opening revealed itself, I tumbled to the side and pulled a small flask out of one of my robe’s inner pockets. With no time to pop the cork I had to improvise and I braced myself for pain as I smashed the vial over my head and shouted another incantation, hoping beyond hope another spell would work. Miraculously, for the second time in a row, I got the intended effect and I felt my body strengthening and my skin toughening. An ethereal armor-like image shimmered around my body and I felt a distinct sense of loss as I was cut off from reaching the ley lines any more. Tenser’s Transformation, a double edged sword that dramatically increases the caster’s physical potential but prevents the casting of spells while it is in effect. Alongside all of the magic coursing through me, I felt a familiar strain. It would seem I was pushing my limits, that night of casting put a serious dent in my built-up reserves. Surprisingly, Rainbow wasn’t on me again but the reason became clear as I heard her shout.

“Hey! Magic’s no fair!”

“I only remember one rule for this fight, and it wasn’t ‘no magic.’” I said this as I reached up and pulled out the shard of glass that had managed to get stuck in my scalp. Luckily, most of the glass came apart in large pieces and simply fell around me. The pegasus growled in frustration.

“Whatever, I’ll still beat you anyways!”

And with that the rain of blows began again but this time, I barely felt them. The hooves of the mare met only toughened arms and hands. I found an opportunity and released my first real strike of the battle, a solid punch straight at the head of the pegasus, but despite all my spells, the fatigue of the night was catching up to me and my strike was too slow. She ducked the blow and quickly brought a hoof up through the opening I had provided, landing square against my jaw.

I stumbled back as the blow connected and shook my head in a daze. A hit that fast has no right to be so strong. Clearly, this mare’s lithe form hid a well-trained strength. Before I could ponder this any further, another blow landed against my chest and sent me back again. Another strike hit, then another, and another. I gave the pegasus one solid opening, and it was all she needed to capitalize on it and end the fight. Within moments I was on the ground and she had one hoof on my chest while the other was poised to strike down upon my head. As the mare stood there panting above me I admitted my defeat.

“I concede.” Having no need to breathe, I wasn’t panting but my exhaustion was clear in my voice. Not just physical either, just two spells and I’m worn down. I guess that’s the result of a full night’s worth of casting right before a fight.

The pegasus stayed in her position for a long moment and out of the corner of my eye I saw Nightshade moving in to stop her if she tried anything but eventually she lowered her poised hoof and slowly, she removed her other hoof from me, allowing me to sit up with a grunt.

“You’re good, how much training do you have?”

“Enough to be considered an expert in three fighting styles and a novice in three more.” Nightshade said as he walked over to us with a water pouch. I’m not sure when he had time to get it, but he offered it to Rainbow and she reluctantly accepted, gulping down a hefty sum before speaking.

“How did you know that?” She said with a look of suspicion as she handed to container back to him.

“The moment you received the Element of Loyalty it became my job to know about you. Equestrian Intelligence has a file on each of you and your capabilities.” Where most would likely be offended that they were being watched and researched, Rainbow seemed to take pride in the fact that she was deemed so important as to have her own file.

“Well, it’s good to know they’ve learned how awesome I am.” She gloated, her mood seeming to have improved immensely. I guess I was right, this is the kind of pers-no, pony that calms down best if you give her a way to blow off steam. Namely hitting something. “But yeah, I’ve pretty much mastered three martial arts. The one I was using there was called Lightning Strike.”

“Heh, an appropriate name. Even with hasted speed I was only able to keep pace.”

“Well, I guess you aren’t too bad yourself.” She said almost reluctantly “I mean, even before you cheated with your magic” I rolled my eyes but she didn’t seem to notice it “you were able to block some of my punches. That’s a pretty big deal, was that some kind of human martial art you were using?”

“Oh, no, no.” I chuckled lightly “That was just something I taught myself so I wouldn’t be worthless without my magic. I guess it would be most akin to a calculated form of street fighting. Where typical brawlers depend on pure speed or strength or a combination of both, I rely more on finding opportunities to strike and using my opponent’s weaknesses. Something you seem to all-but lack.” I figured stroking her ego a bit might help keep the jovial mood she’s in. “And it’s really all-but useless against a truly strong opponent unless I can manage to amplify myself with some spells or if I am using my staff, which I do have some formal training in. As you saw in that fight, I was being worn down pretty quickly before I cast Haste.” As I finished my sentence, the illusory armor around me dissipated into mist. At this, Nightshade cut back into the conversation.

“So, why were you holding back?” As I looked up to him, I was met by a dead-on stare, leaving no doubt as to who the question was directed at. An indignant voice spoke up beside me.

“What does he mean you were holding back? Did you just throw that fight?!” I put a hand up to get her to let me speak.

“He’s right, I was holding back, but not physically. In terms of martial ability, I was giving it my all.” I turned to look at her and her eyes were narrowed in suspicion.

“And what, exactly, does that mean?” The other pegasus responded to her before I could.

“It means he only cast self-augmenting spells. He didn’t cast a single offensive one.”

“That’s because I was adhering to our one rule.” That got the full attention of the pegasi. After all, our one rule was that we wouldn’t kill each other. I quickly decided it would be best to elaborate. “I think yesterday was a good indication that I can’t predict how my spells will work here so I had no guarantee my offensive spells would be non-lethal. At least with self-augments, if something went wrong I would be the only one hurt by it.”

At the mention of yesterday, the polychromatic pegasus let out a little sigh. “So, was it really an accident?”

“Yes, I only intended to bind her in air and force, holding her in place long enough for the guards to react. I swear to you that this is the truth.”

“Then I guess I can let you off the hook this time, just make sure it doesn’t happen again.” And just like that her energetic and cocky demeanor was back. “Hey, I gotta get back to work so… I guess I’ll see ya later. Bye!” And then she was off into the sky.

“Farewell!” I called up after her. Immediately after she was out of sight I fell back to the ground with a groan. “Uhh, I hate martial fights. It always ends in pain, even with dulled nerves.”

Nightshade chuckled deeply beside me “Well, all things considered, that went pretty well. It seems your little meeting plan is off to a good start.”

“Yeah, I guess it is.” I winced as I shifted and what felt like a broken rib shifted with me “Though I think that start just put a delay on the rest of it. For now, I need to rest and patch myself up. Why didn’t you tell me that mare was an expert fighter?” Nightshades demeanor immediately turned to a flat stare.

“One. Hour.” He deadpanned the words and I groaned at his little act of revenge. I would have to remember that little stunt for later. But for now, it was time to rest.

Author's Notes:

Okay, I'm finally back in action. Hopefully, I can manage to keep the steam I slowly built up while writing this and can manage to update more than once every three months...
Anyways, feel free to throw your feedback at me, and I hope you enjoyed.
Also, yes, the martial arts part is referencing Xenophilia.
To any of you that caught that, you get 1 lich-point, redeemable for one free use of the phrase "I'm a lich, bitch!"
To any of you that didn't, feel free to check it out. (WARNING! it has a mature rating and for a reason.)

This is normally where Yeta would make some snide comments about me and my writing abilities but he's a little busy with some in some world called Runeterra. Something about champions and a big battlefield.