From the ashes

Chapter 4 A Rise - Within Shadows

‘It’s funny really’ Sylvack thought as he progressed through the darkness ahead of him its shifting colors inviting the senses with thoughts and experiences of the euphoria cold could bring, or the joys of the dark void in forgetfulness of pains long felt being passed on to the nothing. ‘it really is funny how I can enter the dream realm yet still feel as if I was still awake’ the draconian finally decided to tempt the maddening shades within the void filled dreamscape with an out stretched hand claws flicking out into the distance calling forth memory’s of times long past, immediately a light sparked in the darkness and the void exploded into many shades of color.

The image began to unfold into a vivid scene depicting a small force of twelve bipedal creatures. Their armor glittered a bright silvery blue-white sheen that somewhat resembled the moon the helmets were off from their angular faces shaped in a triangular fashion, ears tapering to a sharp tip, they sat around a camp fire resting against either bags or trees in the crisp cool night air. In the sky as it began to shape in the void wrought dreamlike memory their appeared 3 moons each one glimmering dimes in the sky in sheer beauty, shining down their beautiful light upon the scene about to play out before him. Two of the creatures were standing just outside of the range of the camp fire staring into the forest around them watching waiting as if something were preparing an ambush or preparing an assault upon the camp. The first sentinel to respond was on the edge of camp standing on top of a sturdy piece of rubble that was covered in at least a hundred years of moss growth the piece having fallen from a dilapidated tower who’s previous occupants had abandoned it long in the past. It stood and ran to hide in the shadow of a fallen tree to watch something coming as if from the distance then it happened. A flicker of flame bright as if from a candle then the silently moving shadows creeping closer to the camp as if alive is it passed the firelights boarder a shrill trio if hastily whistled notes pierced the darkness from the position of the hidden creature now stepping from the tree into the open arms held outward at an angle twin stilettos. At the sound the rest of the platoon immediately lunged to their feet weapons at the ready prepared to face what darkness the forest would have to bring against them. and they were not disappointed as the first wave came bursting from the brush, small figures no taller than a young mare rushing forward on two legs, with skin the color of stone, their every breath releasing soot and shadow, as they approached the armored warriors.

The battle was slow as the warriors cut down the creatures quickly and efficiently usually cutting off limbs or walking past only to let the creature trying to attack them fall on the ground its eyes mysteriously blank and devoid of life. Then came the second wave just moments after the first had been completely wiped out, leaving the warriors little worse for wear with only minor scratches as a rebuttal for their quick and efficient slaughter, the second wave came fast and furiously as fireballs and arcane spells lanced from the tree line and quickly struck at the warriors who raised their own magic in defense. Creating barriers and shields either of pure magical energy and focus or elemental barriers but it was all for naught as dark creatures made as if from pure darkness started walking onto the small battle field imparting frenzies of spells completely crushing the pitiful barriers the soldiers were using. The warriors were well trained for such an occasion tho seven went down as they dropped the barriers and dodged for cover the remaining five were swift and rushed in from separate directions but in an ill planned counter attack all save one were caught in the defensive blasts from the shadow creatures the surviving warrior plunged one of its blades deep into the chest of one of the creatures and then followed up with a quick toss of his other only living long enough to see it embed deep into the throat area of another one of the shadow creatures as he fell a small smile played on his face as he fell to the ground dying as if the mortal felt a sense of accomplishment in its hallow victory against what is known the their race as the shadow scourge.

It was then that the dream world began to separate pulling away from his memories and becoming the blank slated landscape as before. It all faded away as he slowly woke up for the day ‘interesting and to think I thought I’d forgotten my time amongst the Clovarlee… silly elves their skills are commendable but it’s still foolish to fight a shadow wraith squad.’ He shook his head as he got up the dull gray of his dream reality traded places with the vibrant prismatic colors of the realm of waking. He slowly stood up and looked over the embers of the still decaying fire pit ‘Ashes really, ashes after all this time I’ve only found ashes in each world I’ve visited maybe it is no surprise that I’ve been so serious lately. Oh well’

the draconian yawned as he contemplated over these thoughts as he had many times. He shook his head clearing it and allowing for the day to actually begin in earnest he decided to see the town again and possibly check on the lookout incase the griffon was there on duty again if not then he could continue checking out the town and figure out how their society works. Already he knew that they ran on five simple rules of living that preached love and tolerate all over the first was kindness having been shown constantly through the constant helping of others, the next was joy and laughter giving a small chuckle even in a tight squeeze, the third was honesty explained in their blunt and forward manner in dealing with each other, forth was generosity ‘unlike any human settlement I’d come across these ponies have almost no solidly distinguishable classes but at least they are nice about their separation.’, and fifth loyalty ‘if watching them didn’t prove it seeing the avatars of the sun and moon defiantly protect one another without backing down definitely sealed the deal. Their stance on peace is commendable I guess I can settle down for once maybe this time I won’t have to directly involve myself in any of the mortal affairs for once save for creating my forces again’ lifting his chin up he smiled in joy “time to begin anew” he spoke clearly without hesitation.

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‘That was way too close last time. At least I made it back on time so I don’t need a wing guard this time’ Mieldar sighed as she rested on her high perch Mieldar watched as the ponies in Hayville went about their daily routines. She almost decided to go to sleep but then she remembered …

‘too slow’ in a calmly whispered  voice. ‘Is that the best you’ve got’ the same voice said with contempt.

No she was not going to dose off on the job again if anything she was going to keep a stronger vigil at least so she didn’t get caught off guard again, then she heard it a soft rustling of the brush below. ‘is it that damn creature again?’ she looked below but saw nothing instead it was all clear below then she turned her attention back to the town ahead of her. ”wha?” she didn’t get out another syllable as she was bucked from her perch and sent spiraling to the ground.

“I thought you were a better watcher than that” the same voice from her memory spoke again with mirth. As it landed on the same place she was so forcefully ejected from.

“gah! Uuk!” she bounced off a tree just before she landed on the soft padded ground, as she slowly stood back up hindered by the pain of her injury she screeched “what is the meaning of this unprovocated assault” she then turned a spite full glare at the nickering unicorn above.

“oh I say no need to be so upset just a good bit of fun.” He continued laughing at Mieldar as she glared at him, then after a few minutes he rolled his eyes “fine I’ll get to the point of why I’m here I wish to here you’re answer to my offer yea or nay” he then looked at the furious griffon expectantly.

“mine answer is thus. Yae. i am tired of being coddles like some desperate hachling left in the nest long after its cluch mates had already flown off. i also wish to see exactly what you have in store to teach me.” She softened her glare to a smoldering smirk “so when doth the training start?” as she said this she flew back up to land right next to her old perch.

“Soon once you have your affairs in order I’m going to fabricate your death and you won’t be seeing any of these old acquaintances again, the reason behind this is you’re going to be training with me for quite a bit before your ready for  the kind of tasks I’ll be setting before you” Mieldar was looking at him as if he was crazy and said so as well “now don’t be like that plus the agreement is binding but by the time you actually start the real training you’ll understand the necessity of it”

She gave him a look that spoke volumes “and why would that be?” her tone was honest.

“Because the training will be nothing like you’re used to, wait it’ll be much more grueling and no I’m not going to make the obstacles lethal …yet. But that’s enough, you have one day to set your affairs in order then meet me in the burnt part of the forest where the remains of the hydra are also bring a few allies to watch so that they at least believe you have died and in turn I will fake my own death by their hands it’ll be pretty simple really now I’m off to go prepare the area o and I will be disguised as a hydra class three.”

She gave him a strange look having not been trained in combat specifics like the best of the warrior cast not to mention threat specifics. “what is a class three hydra” she asks dumbly.

“A Hydra with three heads” he retorted disappointedly shaking his snout in her direction “ughh, ok you definitely require a lot of teaching as well as training” then he facehooved “ok do you have any other questions?” he raised a scaled eye-ridge.

“No I don’t” she raised her head and reintensified her gaze upon the diminutive unicorn before her “I have made my decision and I will not back out of this agreement but I do expect to become more awe inspiring, besides how intense could your training style be?” She turned her eyes back toward the town pondering what the training will be like.

He flicked his eyes to her for a split second before gazing back towards the town “by the end of it … well its best to let you decide before I say anything definitive.”  The moss colored unicorn lowered his head hiding his eyes with his mane only to flick it back up with a grunt of annoyance. “However I cannot have you go through the more intense course until I have experimented and pieced together a few things of the utmost importance so you just have to deal with minor opponents and courses when you start soon.” He jumped down from the high perch upon the balcony of the outpost and landed on the ground a few hundred feet below without even a single sound, then spoke calmly back up to the stunned griffon above “thanks for your time, until tomorrow I bid you adieu.” Then he trotted off into the forest leaving the griffon to her own thoughts on who would be best to bring on the 'Hunt'.

‘Heh that griffon will be quite the adventure eventually she’ll learn some humility tho it might be interesting to see her hold onto some of that attitude. Hmm WHAT!’

‘Exsto!’ before him the image formed and burst into a near perfect projection of Celestia. “Hello Sylvack I was hoping that thou would be willing to teach me a few spells.”

He smiled as she explained what she wanted “Of course child i am willing to teach you a few spells however i do have a limited amount of time to teach them." he smiled softly "so which ones would you like to learn?”

The alabaster alicorns eyes lit up as he spoke. “I was wondering if thou could teach me how to improve on my revealing magic mayhap even how to better use the suns power?” her face setting into a cautious interest as she continued to watch him.

“which ones have you known already? For many of my magical abilities are based upon manipulation of the natural order.” sylvack responded smoothly.

She held a hood up to her mouth “some magic’s I know plenty of, many of which are based on having the sun directly above I know how to brighten the darkness and reveal the hidden but I have yet to figure out how to see through a magical disguise, and well the only sun spells I do know are the ones that can only be used during the day.”

“hmm ok I’ll teach you a simple spell that you can enchant your eyes with that’ll allow the user to ignore others disguises tho I do warn you sometimes its better not to see what lies underneath” he shivered a little as if to accentuate the warning “,and as for the sun spells well theirs more than one form of solar magic simply put you could easily concentrate some of the suns energy into specially designed sun crystals that will allow you to preserve the suns power for later use… tho you might want to be a little careful with that one.”

“Why?” she queried.

“Because even tho sun crystals are useful they consist of pure energy much as the sun and that also means they can be used by anyone unless bound to the user like your namesake is bound to you and can only be used by others only if you allow it.”

“understandable thanks again for agreeing to help me with this.”

“It’s ok just please don’t mention it to anyone outside of our circle, besides I offered last night in the first place which reminds me where’s your sister I wanted to comment on how lovely her night was.”

“O she is resting right now. She exhausted herself playing with the townsfolk. Anyway are you ready?”

“But of course child which spell shall we start with, the spectral sight or how to solidify and grow sun crystals?”

“Spectral sight” Celestia asks cocking her head a little. “So that what you call it? Anyway we should start with that one.”

Xaldon nods in understanding “ok first how much do you know about physical augmentation magic and healing magic?”

“I’m pretty good with healing magic I use it constantly when Luna gets reckless with the other foals, but what are physical augmentations.”

“they are ability enhancing spells, a little difficult but only because they have to be maintained and yes they are possible how do you think I move around so quickly or actually transform myself so completely, also its good that you know healing magic healers usually have a sharp eye naturally for physical anomaly’s which is a good thing in this circumstance it means it’ll be a lot easier to teach you the spells needed in order to cast spectral sight” he then lifts his right limb forward palm outward “first I’ll teach you the basics of physical augmentation magic.”

…2 Hours later

“Alright first piercing sight to sharpen your vision, next mana vision, now look at me. What do you see?”

Celestia lifted her snout to look at the image before her “hmmm? It seems thin image hath been cleared from my vision? Is that supposed to happen?”

“Yes perfect! Now what you need to do is finish by collapsing sunlight into your vision and that should finish the spell also be thankful that you’re immune to the ill effects of staring into the sun, because this spell is just like looking straight at the brilliant object. Hence the reason I’m teaching it to you for few can use it safely and even fewer will be able to tell and detect it for what it truly is.”

“Ok done thank…you?” as the spells finished joining together Celestia took another look at the position Xaldon’s projected image was supposed to be in and instead of seeing the dragon form she saw the pony form he met her in the night previous. “Umm… am I supposed to be seeing thee as a pony?” she asked, slightly phased by the difference.

Xaldon lifted an eyebrow “Ah I see it works as expected the spell is designed to see through illusion and shadow and so it basically reforms the projection to fit the parameters of the person speaking through it revealing the true form of the creature shown.  I happen to be in a unicorn body at the moment so yes also the reason it changed the image is because the magic I used to transform myself is more thorough than skin deep I actually change the form of the body so as to ignore detection magic like what your using now” he nodded in her direction.

“so that means the form being shown to me by the rune is false?”

“no of course not in truth the from shown by the rune is my true form but it’s also just an illusion of my true form over the form I’m currently using so do not fret the spell if anything else woks as it should.”

She sighs in relief “Ok now can we get on to the sun crystals? I’m quite intrigued in how to create them but first how long doest thou have left to teach me this?”

“About 3 hours.” He answered calmly.

“Ok so where do we start then?”

“First what do you know about crystals in general, and how to make and what mana is composed of, also I’d like to know your skill with attuning magic’s between objects and others. Like say the moon and your sister.”

“crystals?... o you mean gems and other baubles well I know that they look pretty and they come out of the ground, what is mana it sounds similar to magic tho so… what is it? And I know that I can attune items to each other with my magic basically having two objects share the same instance between each other even in separate locations is that related enough?”

“No I’m talking about crystal’s they are like gems but unlike gems they can be grown and unlike plants they grow without the life giving light of the sun. Mana is concentrated magic or energy used in the creation of powerful magical items or focal gems that are held at the top of staffs helping intensify the user’s spell casting, you are quite close with the attunement spell but item linking is a very minor form of the spell you’ll need to learn in order to bind the crystals to yourself” the unicorn raised its hoof, scratching his chin. “It seems you still have much to learn it might take a few days to master this spell are you sure you want to learn it?”

“Of course, I wouldn’t have suggested it otherwise.” Celestia snorts in derision at Sylvack’s suggestion that she would be unprepared “So how about I contact you next time I’m ready for the study session?”

“Sounds fair tho one more thing I do probably have enough time to teach you how to concentrate your magic into a tangible form, You should also practice with the other spells I taught you they will become easier to cast with use and familiarity.” The unicorn points his hoof at Celestia “I warn you now that I won’t be available for lessons till three sun rises from this day, there is a small project I will be working on within that time period. However I shall be available should you immediately need my assistance with something important”

Celestia smiles and gives Sylvack a look of understanding. “I see, well then let us continue then.”

Sylvack nods in agreement “Alright then to start off first find your magic, your core being.” He pauses watching carefully as Celestia begins concentrating her features going tense “Close your eyes if needed to focus, it should be similar to an internal light.” A gasp from Celestia is all the prompting he needs to move on to the next phase of the spell. “Alright now you’ve got it, it should feel warm and comforting somewhat familiar.” Celestia nods slowly in agreement to the statement. “Ahh Pleasant... now with it firmly grasped try casting a spell but continue holding onto it. For your first spell try levitation so you may sense how the spell paths to the object.” A small glow envelopes her horn as she concentrates on an unseen object. “Good, good now how does it feel? What do you sense from it?”

Celestia smiles as her muscles relax while her spell cancels out. “That was amazing. It was like having a third hoof extend from my head, a little awkward but still quite interesting.” She frowns in thought. “Why haven’t I ever thought of that before tho?”

The unicorn chuckled “Why? Well the same reason you aren’t an adult yet.” He spoke crisply. “It takes more than a few thousand years to learn the wisdom I wield from scratch, without assistance, and by relation you are still quite young.” He smiled disarmingly to tie back any frayed nerves. “Now are you ready for the next step?” she nods excitedly ‘such a youthful child it’ll be interesting to see her grow through the years’ he thought with a ting of nostalgia as he explained the next step which involved the same method of touching the internal magic as before except with the addition of the ability to siphon and focus the energy into a tangible form that could be touched.

“Amazing” stated Celestia as she waved her hooves through the semi corporeal substance. “It feels like water except” she taps her hoof on her chin thoughtfully. “Except… it feels more viscous like sap, excluding the stickiness of course.”  Then she scowled even harder in thought and lowered her hoof to the ground as she came forth with the vexing question plaguing her mind. “How do we solidify the liquid substance?”

Sylvack gave a hearty laugh “The annoyingly simple answer to that question in theory is that you must condense the liquid tightly so it does not escape and melt back into the fabric of reality once you have completed that task you must then continue adding pressure to the substance slowing it down all the while releasing heat energy from the condensed fluid eventually it will reach a point where you cannot condense it any further. At that point it will be solid enough to release pressure and it will retain form though surprisingly mana for being a liquid/gaseous substance solidifies into crystal like formations probably due to the fact that you might be unable to keep from capturing gas as well in the compression spells.” He smiles at Celestia as he continues “If I were there I would give you a rudimentary demonstration but alas I am not there for I won’t. Sadly I think our lesson is over for the day I do bid you farewell and a nice rest, one last thing before I leave.”

Celestia still smiling looks the unicorn in the eye curiously. “yes? What then do you wish to say?”

“Just continue practicing your magic and the spells you learned the only way to truly learn is through practice.” He shoots a sly look in her direction. “But I assume that you already know that, don’t you?” Celestia rolled her eyes at him as if to state clearly ‘Duhh of course I knew that!’ he smiled at her antics “anyway till later continue your studies Celestia.” And with that the connection cut off leaving Sylvack to continue on his way to the site where he will initiate the griffon. ‘Mieldar was it? … Hmmm yes. Yes it was’ feeling in a chipper mood he transformed into a 3 headed shadow hydra, and plodded off on his way to prep the area for the griffon hunting party that should arrive at in a mattter of sixteen hours.