Magic of the Earth

        Waking up can be an interesting occurrence. Sometimes, you will wake due to an external force, like an alarm clock, assaulting you with sensory information. Other times, your body itself can be the one that rouses you, filing messages of complaint up your nervous system. Still other times it can be the brain that rouses the body with false messages of alarm, such as when you are experiencing a nightmare.

        Not one of these, however, were what woke me on this particular morning. No, on this morning, what woke me was a conglomeration of all three. I was practically buzzing with excitement for this day when I went to sleep the morning before, and it somehow bled into my dreams in a twisted, alarming way. I was experiencing a terrible dream, in which I had done the deed that I was planning to do on this morning. However, instead of the cheerful, happy air that I would have expected from such a beautiful, momentous occasion, the dream’s tone was full of dread and despair. Why, I still do not know, for when I finally reached the part where I would perform the momentous act, I was jolted from my dark-toned slumber by a horrific screeching noise of metal on stone. While this happened, I calmly observed that I was no longer on my bed, and was instead in the air directly next to it, wrapped in a cocoon of blanket and sheets.

        This, logically, resulted in my immediate fall to the hardwood floor beneath me. In case you’ve never fallen from a bed that happens to be on a tall frame before, it hurts. Not enough to make a man weep, but enough to steal a cry of alarm from his lips. In my case, said cry of alarm was a deep-throated “Gah!” that echoed around the room. I wasn’t critically damaged, but my chest was complaining nonetheless of a stinging that afflicted my skin. Growling something about how I should get myself a wider bed, my attention was immediately drawn to the incredibly annoying noise that was shooting in from my window.

It sounded like someone was trying to test out their nails-on-chalkboard 50x emulator, and my tolerance for the sound was dropping fast. I quickly extricated myself from the knot of fabric I was bound in, fleetingly wondering if I had actually been tied up in my sleep, and immediately afterward shoved the mass of bedding up onto my bed. The sound was coming from behind my bed, also known as the direction that faced the street of the building I dwelled within. I scrambled up to a bipedal standing position, directing my body to the open window. There, directly across the street from my small residence, was a man that looked like he was trying to cut through a tile with a rotary saw.

I opted out of giving him a piece of my mind, wanting instead to start the day on a happy note, and forcibly shut my window. The noise was still there, but it was much less prominent. I found myself using my vocal chords for complaint for the second time that day, grumbling about what kind of an idiot it would take to be making such loud noise so early in the day. Thinking about time, of course, immediately made me wonder about what time it actually was. The clock read eleven sixteen in the morning, an unusually late time for me to awaken. Normal wakeup times for me were erratic, thanks to my ‘boss’, but they averaged to be somewhere in the seven range.

After that little bit of complaining and thought, I rapidly made my bed in a militaristic fashion, obliterating any and all wrinkles with extreme prejudice. My employer never allowed for me to have any objectionable form in my bedding, and I’d be dead before I allowed for myself to slip out of that habit. Again. After what happened the last time I left my blankets imperfect, I didn’t even want to think about what could happen now that I knew better.

        Shaking those dark thoughts from my mind, I strolled over my abnormally clear bedroom and entered the less dark hallway behind my thick oaken door. The bathroom was my destination, and was the second part of resolving the signals that woke me from my slumber.

        I quickly entered the white-tiled room, moving immediately towards the beautiful porcelain bowl that beckoned to me with a passion no lover could match. I resisted for a moment, then succumbed to my natural desires. I’ll spare you the details of what happened, but I believe it is safe to say that it was quite satisfying.

        After emptying myself of the liquid waste, I washed the controllers of the deed, wanting to cleanse the rest of me as soon as possible.

        First, however, I needed to look at myself in the mirror. I was somewhat concerned about my looks, and wanted to make sure nothing had happened overnight. When you’re in my line of work, there could be all sorts of random issues and changes caused by latent mistakes. There was one instance in which I completely lost all of my hair overnight, and it took a few hours to get it back in place. I raised my gaze to look into the reflective glass, and saw immediately that my fears were unfounded. Same short dark hair, same chiseled face, same emerald eyes. My gaze dropped lower, seeing no changes to my muscular chest and arms. I wasn’t some man that practically lives in the gym, my unusually powerful body was a direct result of the heavy lifting, pulling, and pushing that I did in my employer’s stead.

My eyes contained an excited gleam, clearly referencing the ritual that I, and I alone, was going to perform on this momentous day.

Today, you see, was one of the few days per year in which the entities far below the surface of the earth were releasing excess energy. That very energy is what fuel much of what my employer and I do. As such, a momentous day like this is usually one that is filled with rituals, spells, and collections. This particular ritual was one of which was designed to capture energy and put it to a purpose of collecting more.

The reason I was so excited over this is that not only does the ritual gather the energy, but it gathers it within me! My master, the only wizard on the planet, was generous enough to share his unique talent with his lowly servant of only a few years. To say that this gift was generous would be a tragic understatement, as there were many far more eligible apprentices available throughout the world.

Now, by servant, I do not mean a butler who brings the master tea and cheese cubes. Nor do I mean this as in a goon that he uses to do his dirty work. No, I mean this as in an assistant to perform the tasks he couldn’t do. He was far from a lazy man, but he did not have the time nor physical strength to move boxes of ingredients for his rituals and spells, nor did he have the time to organize the bookshelves he left as a mess so frequently.

He also didn’t have the time to cook his own meals, but my lack of skill on the subject had inspired him hire a professional cook in my stead.

In many ways, I suppose, I was like little Spike, the son/brother/number-one-assistant to Twilight Sparkle. The resemblance between our occupations was uncanny, except for the fact that I actually got paid for it as well as the fact that I am a grown man, unlike the dragon. I also lived apart from my employer at the moment, but only because he wanted to see how I would do performing the ritual on my own.

In case that little statement didn’t give it away, I was a fan of the television series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The innocence demonstrated in the denizens of the world the series depicted simply warmed my heart, and was an excellent way of cheering me up on days in which I was not feeling my best. I wasn’t much of a member of the online communities, as I had little time for such entertainment. No, the only occupation I am interested in is things that actually benefit myself or the people that I work for.

Well, I suppose that wasn’t the only reason I liked the show. I liked to laugh at the flawed depictions of the thaumaturgic system in the world they lived in, seeing how little the makers knew about the real ways.

Of course, I should probably hurry about cleaning myself, instead of rambling to myself while staring at my own reflection.

I quickly performed the usual human cleansing ritual, washing the sweat that came with the night’s nightmare away in minutes. There wasn’t much that happened while I did so, the only deviation from the norm being that in my haste, I accidentally put the water to a degree of temperature far greater than I am comfortable with. The scalds would be easy to heal once I learned the spell, and there was nothing, nothing that I would permit to keep me from learning the spells my master used.

I then left my bathroom, a cloud of vapor following me, and, as quickly as I could, I strode back to my room. There were several more things I needed to do before the ritual began, including getting myself some fuel for my body. I was told to strictly eat all-plant products for a day or so before the big day, as any animal products would apparently deter the accumulation of the force I was trying to absorb. I had no idea why that would affect it, but I trusted the judgement of my master, and resolved to having some simple fruits and bread for today. I wasn’t much of a fan of vegetarian diets, but some things were just too good to give up.

After dressing myself in a bathrobe, I shot down the hallway, eager to refuel myself so that I could set up the energy circle as soon as possible. There wasn’t very much in my kitchen normally, but I had stocked up on the food I would need in the event that anything bad happened with the ritual and I was stuck in my home for a while.

Once I reached the personal eatery, I hurriedly put together a banana, some bread, and an apple for the food I would need. I then split the banana, quickly peeling it as to get the refueling done faster. Of course, I hadn’t accounted for almost choking on the thing when I shoved the entire fruit down the pipe, and I spat out a now slimy and disfigured banana. I threw the ruined fruit down my open-topped garbage bin, quickly replacing it in my hands with the bread.

I took special notice to eating it, as to prevent more wasted food. The slices were nonetheless rapidly devoured, and I grabbed the apple afterwards. To save time, I ate it as I walked back to my bedroom and finished the edible part seconds after entering. I was greeted with the faded sound of my neighbor cutting his tiles, but I ignored the noise and tossed the apple’s refuse into the garbage can. I couldn’t do the ritual in my normal clothes, be it due to lack of dramatic effect or an actual effect of the absorbing. As such, I changed myself into a deep violet silken robe, not leaving myself any other potentially disruptive articles.

After cleaning, feeding, and redressing myself in the best clothes possible for the absorption ritual, I began chalking out the design that I would need on the floor. There weren’t many known things that could go wrong, but I had no desire to find which ones I could initiate.

Once the intricate circular insignia was laid out, I placed down the three tripods that held the magic-infused gemstones in their respective places to complete the design. The moment I stepped within the center of the circle and said the words needed to spark the process, the energy being spouted from the planet’s depths would converge upon me.

As such, I stepped to the center.

I cleared my throat, readying myself for the task ahead. Any deviation, no matter how minor, from the master’s words could have terrible circumstances.

        The spell that I had spent the past month studying alone appeared instantly in my mind, ready to be recited. I took a deep breath, before rumbling with my deepest voice,

        “O power of the depths, all that strays

Leave your paths, your chaotic ways

Come forthwith to this vessel, soon and with haste

And remain here, till the end of its days”

        The entire ritual was ready, the final word about to be spoken. Years of hopes and desires about to be fulfilled. Hundreds of beautiful spells about to be understood. My thoughts were completely on the task at hand, and I punctuated the initiation process with “Come.”

        I instantly saw the gems in the tripods start to glow and levitate, and then spin themselves until the sharpest of their facets faced me directly. They then glowed even brighter, before instantly causing a slight tingle in the back of my head. The tickle grew and grew, until it became an unscratchable itch of epic proportions. Just before I thought the feeling would drive me insane, it settled into what felt like a bar of red-hot iron just behind my eyes, causing for them to water and for me to stagger in pain. The burning caused by the fiery energy accumulating within my head lessened at a painstakingly gradual pace, before settling into a not-quite-pleasant warmth.

        The feeling stayed in such a state for a few moments, and just when I thought the ritual was complete, I felt the strangest feeling I’ve ever felt shot through my nervous system. It felt as if there was something slowly making its way through my soul itself, analyzing memories, feelings, and my own thoughts of how strange the feeling was. It seemed to dwell on the unprecedented excitement I’d felt throughout the day more than the rest, but that quickly changed.

It noticed the warm feeling I’d felt from all of the times I’d watched the My Little Pony show all at once, then brought both that feeling and the excitement from today to the front of my mind, then analyzed them both in detail, as if comparing the two. The entity seemed indecisive about the two in some way, and in my confusion as to what it was doing I failed to notice it had finished it’s “weighing” of my emotions. It settled once again in the warm little bar behind my eyes, leaving me even more confused as to what it had done.

The bar didn’t respond when I sent it a mental ‘ping’, so I decided it was best to leave it where it was.

The Wizard had told me to get to sleep as soon as possible as to help with the process of acclimating my body to build with the magical energies I had absorbed, instead of against them or around them. I believed him, and as such decided to take his advice in the form of a nap.

I staggered over to my bed not even caring that the expensive robe was still bound around my body. I was feeling more and more tired with every step. I was too mystified by the ritual to even notice how peculiar the drowsiness was, my master had never said anything about needing to sleep. When I reached the mattress, I flopped myself onto it with an audible whumph. I fell asleep within seconds, not so much drifting as sliding off to sleep.

During my daytime rest, I was plagued by the strangest of dreams. There were normal ones, but then there were ones that seemed to have nothing to do with me, usually surrounding the new feeling of the mental bar. I felt as if the bar was analyzing me again, but this time I didn’t care. I was far too busy exploring the dreamscape, mysteriously frequently referencing and ‘entering’ the Friendship is Magic series. There was the usual illogic that came with dreams, but the entire time the fantasies felt lucid and clear, albeit without me knowing and controlling the fantasies.

The strangest part, however, was undoubtedly how I felt during the dream. I felt as if my body was jello, and that that jello was slowly jiggling it’s way to a different shape. It was beyond strange, and it was the second time that day I felt a completely different sensation than one I had ever felt before. I didn’t really notice, but it somehow affected the dream’s form as well. The longer I slept, the more often Equestria was the subject of my mind’s rapid creations.

After a few dreams’ time ending, I slowly woke up. I felt strange and groggy, a feeling I had not felt for months due to the instant alertness charm my employer had placed upon me to improve performance. It was such an alien feeling, in fact, that the sensation jolted me awake at the feeling of it. I, while wide awake with adrenaline, still felt absolutely strange. It felt as if someone had twisted my body in shape, and it felt, above all else, fuzzy. I felt as if my skin had been covered with a suit of fine cotton balls, and I was quick to investigate this sensation by lifting an arm to inspect the skin.

I... I did not know what I was seeing. There was some flat, green fur-covered thing stuck where my hand should by all rights be. I stared at the appendage for what felt like hours, and all the while there was another, unnoticed being within my mind feeling, above all else, smug. While that thing sat there inconspicuously, I was too busy looking at the other thing at the end of my arm. There was one second before I could identify the object, one second of blissful ignorance and confusion. There was one second of realization.  Then there was an eternity of one thought going through my mind, paralyzing me with shock and coursing through my thoughts with horrifying connotation, and that was a single word.

Hoof.