The Daemon of Trotschester

Chapter 3.

Kiwi Glitter and Lumina had stopped in the middle of the room and were staring slack jawed at Clodhopper, who was seated at their dinner table, apparently about to snack on some rolled bread and fruit preserves. Lumina tried to put on a serious face.

Clodhopper blushed and knocked his hooves together, “Ahh, hello Kiwi, ahh, nice familiar you have here.”

“That isn’t mine!”, Kiwi shot back.

“Ah, well, its still a nice...err... toad monkey, Lumina”, Clodhopper corrected.

“Toad Monkey?”, Lumina scoffed, “This is a mighty Daemon lord.” Lumina rubbed her hoof on her chest and tossed her mane, clearly proud of herself.

“Daemon Lord?” Clodhopper asked, with an eyebrow raised.

Kiwi Glitter smacked Lumina and gave her a death glare. Lumina looked right back at her and sneered.

“You can call it what you want, but this thing sure makes some good food.” Clodhopper said, with mouth partly full.

Kiwi Glitter pulled out a seat, “Clodhopper, don’t take this the wrong way, but I really expected you to be freaking out right now.”

Clodhopper laughed, and slicked back his mane, “Yeah”, he said smugly, leaning back in his chair, “Most stallions are more nervous when a mare comes on as strong as you did, but I guess I’m too cool for that.” He grinned and put his hooves behind his back, clearly hiding his nervousness.

“She means about the Daemon!” Lumina spat.

Clodhopper raised an eyebrow, “Lady, whatever that is, its no Daemon, and I’m not impressed by your fancy magical minion.”

Lumina was furious, “I am a powerful sorceress and this Daemon is teaching me the dark arts!”

The Daemon looked back at Clodhopper and rolled its finger around its ear. Clodhopper laughed terribly hard and Kiwi hid her face in shame.

Clodhopper wiped a tear from his eye, “Seriously, I can tell a creature of discord when I see one, this is a fishing town, we sell a lot of meat to Minotaurs, Griffons, Manticores, even Dragons.”

Lumina stomped her hooves repeatedly on the ground, “oooooo.” She said.

Kiwi spoke up, “Clodhopper, as much as I hate to admit it, Lumina really did summon that thing, and I’m pretty sure it’s a Daemon.”

“You’re shitting me.” Clodhopper said.

“Nope”, Kiwi said.

“It doesn’t look like a Daemon”

“I even made the circle myself for summoning it.” Kiwi answered.

“Damn, that’s pretty impressive.” Clodhopper said.

“Ha ha, now you see the truth about my skills.” Lumina returned her hoof to her chest and beamed smugly.

“No I meant that a pegasus could get their hoof into magic, you’re quite the dabbler, Kiwi.”

Lumina snapped. She dropped her head in bitter defeat and pulled up a chair.

“All I wanted was some respect for my magic.” Lumina said.

Clodhopper leaned in, “Lumina, seriously, it’s cool, I mean, you’re what? A sophomore at magic academy? You’ll summon something better with practice. Maybe you’ll get a manticore next time?”

Lumina just looked stunned. “No, I shall not, since I was expelled and had to move here.”

“Wow, they expelled you for summoning this thing? I knew it was silly looking but...”

“They expelled me for levitation!” Lumina snapped.

“Seriously? I thought all unicorns could...” Clodhopper stopped himself.

Lumina began to cry.

“Lumina...” Kiwi and Clodhopper spoke.

“Even with the dark arts I can not scare a single peasant.” Lumina observed, sadly.

“No, I mean, its scary, I guess, giant hairy toad monkey, making breakfast, I mean, way to put him in his place.... musta been really... magical... to do that.” Clodhopper unconvincingly said.

Lumina groaned.

The Daemon brought out more breakfast rolls and sat next to Lumina.

The Daemon pushed a plate in front of her, “From what I gather, you just bombed out of magic school and your first plan was summoning a Daemon?”

Lumina nodded.

“First off, that’s really stupid and you could have died. Second, I told you I’m not actually a Daemon, maybe you messed up.”

Lumina sniffed back her tears, “Nonsense! We followed the spell perfectly, I will not fall for your deceptions, Daemon!”

Kiwi and Clodhopper looked at each other, Kiwi chimed in “I dunno Lumina, this WAS your first time, maybe you summoned this guy by mistake.”

“No! My incantations were flawless! I aced all my incantation classes! Let us go to the tower and I will show you that everything was correct.”

Kiwi groaned, but despite her complaints, breakfast was interrupted by a trip to the lighthouse. The Daemon remained behind to prepare some glassware for its own inscrutable purposes.

Clodhopper leaned in towards Kiwi on the journey and whispered, “Is she always this high strung?”

“No.” Kiwi responded, “I think she might be having a nervous breakdown.”

“Why?” Clodhopper whispered back.

“We were pretty scared of that guy when we first saw him, though I guess without his scary mask and all the smoke it’s not so bad.”

Lumina ignored the whispering and led everyone back to the ritual chamber.

“Behold!”. Lumina motioned to the room with a circle of very old and stinky blood in it.

Clodhopper scratched his chin. “Well, I hate to say it but I think I can already see what you guys did wrong here.”

Lumina gawked, “What? How?”

Clodhopper cleared his throat, “Everypony knows that binding evil monsters requires the eldest sign, which is formed from Equestrilateral triangles, not equilateral.”

The tension in the air was quite thick. Kiwi Glitter began to back up towards the door.

“Kiwi...” Lumina began, her voice cold as ice.

“Now Lumina, I think that things worked out umm... better this way don’t you think?” Kiwi nervously explained.

Lumina had her head down and was shaking. Her horn began to glow and she let out a terrible screech. Then she turned away and closed the book of summoning with a loud thud. For a moment the group stood there stunned and speechless.

“Lumin...”

Lumina turned around and let out a terrible laugh. A really, really, fitting laugh for a wicked sorceress, more of a cackle with great volume.

“You know what?” Lumina began. “You ARE right, Kiwi! A REAL daemon probably would have killed us all, but this toad monkey is MUCH better.” Lumina cackled.

Clodhopper and Kiwi looked at each other nervously.

“Once this Daemon teaches me fireworks, I shall finally have the respect that I deserve! None will be able to deny my power! My cutie mark shows how brilliant I am, and all things happen for a reason! This must be my destiny!”

Clodhopper and Kiwi looked at each other nervously. Again.

Clodhopper shrugged, “Ahh well. I guess the rumors about this place were true.”

Lumina snapped back a bit, “What rumors?”

Clodhopper explained, “Well, they say back in the day, this place used to be home to a great and evil enchantress, who would live up in the lighthouse and... I don’t know, do some evil things, create brambles and bad luck, I wasn’t really sure on the specifics.”

Lumina collected herself and trotted forward, “Hmm. My parents did mention that grandma Malevola used to live up here and research enchantment.”

Clodhopper laughed, “Yeah, case closed then. I mean really, who names their daughter ‘Malevola?’ I take it you found some dark and devious books up in Grandma’s old tower and summoned this guy?”

Lumina frowned, “Well, it was not as though the Daemon was just chained up here and I released it, Kiwi and I summoned him ourselves, and I bound it to my service using the dark arts!”

Clodhopper sat on his haunches and crossed his arms, “Really? You seem pretty easy going about this whole situation then. I mean, not a lot of evil enchantresses just let their Daemons answer the door.”

Lumina gasped, “Evil? Why must I be an EVIL enchantress, why can I not simply be, the powerful and respected sorceress of the light house?”

Clodhopper cringed, “Well... powerful and respected sorceresses tend to... I don’t know, control the weather, bless crops, cure chicken pox, summoning Daemons is pretty much a one way ticket to the bottom of the popularity bin.”

Kiwi Glitter chimed in, “Actually, I’m kind of wondering how this all worked out, why didn’t you just run away when the Daemon answered the door?”

“I used to deliver food. A giant toad monkey is hardly the strangest thing I’ve ever had answer a door.” Clodhopper explained.

“Seriously?” Lumina asked. “What could be more frightening than him?”

“Three stallions wearing thongs and lacey saddles”

Kiwi and Lumina looked at each other and frowned.

Clodhopper explained, “Well, I was a little bit put off when I saw him, but he had a plate of fruit cakes and didn’t seem all that angry. That and my Dad always said, ‘an evil pony runs when no one is chasing them, and hides when no one is looking for them’. I figured, how evil could you be when you’ve got this guy answering the door?”  “Plus for a while I thought you guys were actually up to something, and I might have to stop you.”

Lumina laughed. “What, praytell, did you think you could do against my Daemon and I?”

“Punch you.” Clodhopper said. “That’s like, rule 1 for dealing with spellcasters.”

Lumina raised a hoof, then thought for a moment and lowered it. “Yes, I suppose that might have worked.”

Lumina went to a window and looked out over the sea. “Do you really think there is a place for me in this town, Clodhopper?”

Clodhopper walked up next to her, and looked back at Kiwi, “Listen, I know you are in this whole, funk about failing at school but... tons of people in this town never went to school at all.”

Lumina looked back at him with an expression of angry indignity.

Kiwi spoke up before giving her a chance to talk, “Yeah Lumina, just think of how lucky you were to get this far, most ponies don’t have parents that can just ...give them a house?”

Lumina sighed. “I suppose I have been acting fairly spoiled today. Truth be told I may just be jealous that you have made a friend in this town before I did. I made few friends at the academy as well, I have not really made any since leaving Fillydelpha.”

Clodhopper raised a hoof, “The name’s Clodhopper Clamhandler, pleased to meet you.”

Lumina smiled, and shook his hoof. “Lumina, I am charmed.” She kissed his hoof and bowed.

The group giggled and walked back to the main house. They joked about spellcaster stereotypes during the walk back and entered the building giggling. The Daemon seemed confused that they were all in a better mood and looked at them like they were crazy. The ponies saw the massive kitchen in the manor now filled with glass bottles, strange powders, and of course, brimstone.

“Ahh, Lumina, I think I promised to check out Clodhopper’s family farm today, will you be fine on your own?” Kiwi asked.

Lumina looked back at the Daemon.

“I think I will be able to entertain myself here, go on Kiwi, we must both attend to our careers.”

Kiwi hugged Lumina, then trotted off with Clodhopper.

Lumina looked back at the Daemon. What these odd kitchenwares had to do with fireworks she couldn’t imagine.

“Are you ready to begin?” asked the Daemon.

“Yes”

The Daemon shifted its weight onto one hip and crossed its arms. “This might be harder than it looks, I can’t just wiggle my fingers and chant some magic words and make magic happen. The ‘magic’ here is mostly just mixing things together the right way, and knowing the right stuff.”

“I remember. What is our first spell?”

“Making smoke. It is by far the easiest ‘spell’ I can teach you, though not the most useful.”

“Okay. so what do we mix?”

The Daemon was apparently boiling some logs in a pressure cooker, with a small hole in the top. He also had some mortars, pestles, a flour crank, tons of stuff that didn’t seem particularly magical.

“While that charcoal is being made, lets grind up all this powder, we need this incredibly smooth.”

Hours passed, spent grinding and re-grinding powder, sifting it and then grinding again. After a time, the log boiled down and fell apart, then was also laboriously ground into powder. A pail was filled with the powder, and lunch had come and gone. Lumina seriously wondered where this was going. Maybe this was a test of patience? You must earn your right to knowledge, start at the bottom? Who knew, Lumina thought, she was just exhausted, the Daemon did the work of 10 ponies with his fiddly squid hands.

Earlier, Kiwi had walked off with Clodhopper, making the significant trek out to his family farm.

On the journey she asked, “So Clodhopper, why does a clam ranch need someone to keep the weather in check?”

Clodhopper chuckled, “Well, the clams mostly come out at night, but it’s easier to just whip up some dark clouds and trick ‘em.”

“Oh, that’s easy.”

He tilted his head to the side and lowered his ears, “Well.... there might be a bit of clam harvesting in the job description also.”

“I can handle that.”

Clodhopper sighed, “You know, it kind of gets to me how easy going you are.”

“Why’s that?” Her expression was plain, but she made eye contact while walking.

“Well, Lumina is just so... intense, you seem so different I have a hard time imagining how you two got along.”

Kiwi shrugged, no easy feat while walking on all fours, “We grew up together, she was always there for me, and honestly, her place was always nicer than mine.”

“You came from a poor family?” Clodhopper asked.

“Poor for Fillydelphia, but I didn’t have many brothers or any sisters, so my parents could still send me to school.”

“What about Lumina, it seems like she’s pretty loaded.”

“Yeah I don’t even know, that’s all old money. Her family seems to have always just been rich.”

Clodhopper lowered his head. “I guess everything I’ve got came from my family too, Granite calls me out on it some times.”

Kiwi laughed a bit. “Yeah sorry, maybe your farm is really posh, but I just don’t think of you as the rich type, most rich kids don’t deliver food or pull carriages for spending bits.”

Clodhopper grew a bit idignant, “Well, that’s not how I was raised, or at least not how I was allowed to act, my parents always made sure I had a job, figuring I needed to know how to work if I was gonna take over the farm.”

Kiwi raised an eyebrow, “Sounds like you have a big family, d’your parents just decide you were gonna take over from birth?”

“Pretty much, or at least once I got my cutey mark. With a big hoof boot on my ass they figured that meant I could stand to spend my time wading in muck for clams all day.” Clodhopper lamented.

“Ah, did you get that for wading in muck?” Kiwi asked, a bit confused.

Clodhopper pantomimed a few hops, “Yep. I was hopping clods one day, ran out through the muck to pull my sister loose when she got stuck. Turns out my special talent is moving fast in muck and more than that. I can gallop on glass or trot through quicksand if I want.”

“Wow that’s amazing!” Kiwi giggled, “I’d heard of a lot of good cutey powers, but really I have no freaking clue what my special talent is, I got mine while planting random bushes”

“Hmm, maybe your special talent is more metaphorical, your cutey mark is sliced open, maybe it means, like, there’s more on the inside?” Clodhopper opined.

“I doubt it” Kiwi said, I make a mean fruit salad, I’m pretty sure I just got ‘fruit master’ stamped on my destiny like so many other ponies.”

“Well, you know what?” Clodhopper asked “No one in my family can make anything out of fruit worth a damn... actually that reminds me.”

“What’s that?” Kiwi asked.

“You’ve never been to Innsmuzzle have you?” Clodhopper asked, his ears flattening.

“No, why?”

“Well, a lot of ponies in Innsmuzzle look a bit strange, by city folk standard.” Clodhopper seemed quite a bit embarrassed.

“Strange how?”, Kiwi asked.

“Well, they’ve just got that....Innsmuzzle look. You’ll know it when you see it. There’s a bit of Donkey blood in the family lines around my home.”

They traveled on in a bit of awkward silence, but the farm was now in view.

“There we are.” Clodhopper pointed, “Come on, let’s hurry and meet my folks.”

Soon Kiwi walked on a ramshackle wooden boardwalk into a massive field of muck, a sandy wetland many miles across, carefully flattened into a field, with rows of clams and oysters in place of crops. It was low tide, and uncountable shellfish jutted out, sharp and pointy in appearance. Here and there one clam or another seemed out of place, more colorful than the ugly brown of the average shellfish.

The smell of ocean salt was overpowering, and everywhere just smelled like a fishing pier. Several fish actually floundered about in the muck, gasping for air in pockets of water too shallow for their needs. Kiwi felt a terrible sense of.... rottenness in the atmosphere, a rather abrupt change from her previous sense of security on that winding road.

Clodhopper himself effortlessly cantered along the creaking, rickety timbers that had grown green with age, while she quickly tired of the feeling and took flight to follow him.

Soon, they came up to manor larger than the estate Lumina’s parents had her shacked up in, more like a pile of flotsam had been hammered into the shape of a house, a long dock simply transformed with distance gradually into a warehouse and then just a regular house. Several ships were docked in this makeshift marina, and from the look of it, some of the boats acted as extra housing.

The air was deathly silent. No wind moved through this plain, and no clouds were overhead. A tall, wiry pony with eyes slightly too big and ears slightly too small walked out of the manor towards Kiwi and Clodhopper, then shouted out as they came.

“Oye, izat you Clawd Happper?”

“Yeah!” Clodhopper yelled, “I’ve got a farm hand with me!”

“Izzat rayt?” The now clearly somewhat toothless pony spoke back.

By now they were walking up to shake hands.

“Ayem Chadder ‘ead, ann welcome ta Innsmuzzle.” The pony reached out an arm, his hoof was scaling a bit, and Kiwi could have sworn that a barnacle was on his hoof. He was starting to go bald in odd patchy bits, and his jowls flopped at the side of his neck. Kiwi visibly winced, then reached out a hoof.

The grimy farm pony shook Kiwi’s hoof vigorously, then went in for a hug while she showed a grimace to Clodhopper, who chuckled.

“Ahh yerr real perrty, jess layk Clawd Happer aintcha?” Asked Chowderhead.

“Ahh... uh... yeah?” stammered Kiwi.

“Yeh, Claude’s Mam is genna lauv yerr rayt auff the back.” Chowderhead laughed. “Grab yeself a muckrake and snag some a da oystas out ‘attaway, Claude, get yerself a big bucket, yer mams already getting supper on.”

Clodhopper nodded and threw a giant wooden bucket on his back, “Sure thing uncle Chowderhead, we’ll be back before dark.”

Kiwi grabbed a muckrake, and Clodhopper grabbed a second, then took her to a lonely stretch of farm. Kiwi flew to keep up with him, but Clodhopper trotted along a reef of oysters, their sharp shells crunching effortlessly beneath his hooves. The area was practically a reef of oysters.

“Geez, we should have brought a shovel.” Lamented Kiwi.

“Hah yeah! Or a hammer!” Clodhopper said, and set down the bucket.

“Clodhopper, is your whole family like..”

“Oh no, Chowderhead is just getting on in age, he had a bad case of hoof rot 15 years ago. Still, I guess that can happen in this line of work, what with the constantly mucking about.” Clodhopper sighed. “I can understand if you don’t want to work here.”

“No no, it’s fine. I can make do...” Kiwi began raking oysters, checking for empty shells and shoveling live ones into the bucket. She hovered in place, never daring to set hoof in the muck.

“You are a strong flyer, can you carry a lot of weight while doing that?” Clodhopper asked.

“Yeah, but I’m not real fast.” Kiwi said.

“Heh, oysters aren’t real fast either Kiwi.”

Kiwi smiled and they finished their work quickly. Clodhopper was carrying what must be 15 gallons of oysters on his back. Kiwi stared a bit, the strength of earth ponies always amazed her, no matter how many times she saw it in action.

When they got back to the main house, Clodhopper left the bucket of oysters on the porch, wiped his hooves and walked in. “Memaw! I’m back home and brought Kiwi!”

Kiwi stopped and stared as rudely as possible, this was actually a one story building, with huge arches like a cathedral, or maybe just a massive flipped over boat, and a gigantic long table ran through the middle of the room, with at least 15 of the fuck ugliest looking ponies Kiwi had ever seen in her life sitting down waiting for food. The salty dogs looked like they’d just crawled out of the briny depths 10 minutes ago, but it was Clodhoppers mother that shocked her the most.

She looked like a mermare.

Her mane was a bit scaley and her face uncommonly long, and her tail clearly had little fins in it.

“Hello there Kiwi, Clodhopper’s told me so much about you. Have a seat.” said Clodhopper’s mother.

Kiwi was shocked, but sat down at a bench anyway. Clodhopper sat down next to her. Her fear was palpable.

“I’m Hydrangea, and for now I run this farm. I heard you could kick up a storm if we needed one?”

Kiwi noticed everyone looking at her, “Umm, charmed, I’m Kiwi.”

Everyone laughed, and various supporting slaps came from the peanut gallery assembled before the altar of dinner.

Bowls began being filled.

“I hope you don’t mind a few clams in your chowder, deary, we all eat a bit of seafood around here.” Said Hydrangea, smiling widely with a slightly serrated grin.

Kiwi gulped, and a huge bowl of potatoes, clams, celery, and carrots came sliding in front of her. This chowder was pretty heavy on the clams. “Eat up.” Hydrangea winked.

Kiwi looked around nervously at the other ponies, who greedily devoured their meals. Clodhopper spooned it carefully into his mouth and slurped down his meal one bit at a time. Kiwi nervously took a few bites, cursing some part of herself too cowardly to speak up, but had to admit it tasted good. She’d heard of ponies with a taste for meat but... never imagined she would be one of them. Some part of her wretched, but didn’t want to seem out of place.

Meanwhile, Lumina had had just about enough of this stalling. They had carefully placed the powder into a bucket, and buried it up to the rim outside near the cliffs.

“Daemon, I command you to tell me what we are doing here! The sun is nearly set, and you promised we’d see some smoke. What kind of spell takes all day to cast?” Lumina, clearly had just lost her already pressed patience.

“Heh, this is the magic of my world.” said the Daemon. He wadded up an oily rag, lit in on fire, and heaved it at the bucket. Lumina followed the rag quizzically along its path, then she fell over, clutching her forsaken eardrums, a terrible ringing had replaced all sensation with a swimming, cloying pressure that overtook her senses. She stumbled back to her feet to see the Daemon laughing. Her eyes felt like she had just stared into the sun. Dirt and pebbles rained down on her and the Daemon. A pillar of black smoke wider than her house and taller than any building had formed where the bucket used to be. It continued to jet up into the heavens, and a huge hole in the ground remained where once had been a bucket and a much smaller hole.

Lumina could form no words. She simply stared in awe at the terrible destructive power she had just seen. The Daemon looked at her and spoke, but she could hear nothing. The power of magic had already spoken.

Miles away, having finished off her bowl of chowder, Kiwi looked around the room nervously. Clodhopper smiled at her.

Then a terrible sound rang out, fast as being right next to a lightning bolt as it struck the earth, but faster than the low rumble of distant thunder. Everyone in the room fell silent to look awkwardly in the direction it had come from.

“Boy, a sound that loud is like ta wake the dead!” One pony in the room joked, soon the laughing returned and ale replaced chowder.

Kiwi walked outside and Clodhopper followed. She saw smoke out near the lighthouse and looked back at Clodhopper.

“Yeah, she’s up to something all right.” Clodhopper mused.

“Clodhopper, I think I need to check up on her.” Kiwi said.

“Yeah, we’ve walked a long way to get here, it would be pretty late by the time we walked back, and I wouldn’t want you out in these woods alone at night.” Clodhopper stated with no shred of pride in his voice. “It can be kind of dangerous.”

Kiwi read his expression, which was stern and straightforward.

“Fine, stay with use tonight, but I have to go check this out and we need to move quickly.” Kiwi said.

“Fine by me.” We’ve had a leisurely stroll all day.

Nearby however, that great sound stirred stranger, older, forces to action. An ancient being of unimaginable power lay miles away, partially buried on some secluded beach. The being was sleeping, its dreams troubled by voices of ancient times, for such a creature remembered a time when ponies had barely mastered language, and it had seen the faceless horrors of the darkness rove across all lands in a time before mortals came to rule. Time could not kill that which did here lie, and it dreamed that in strange aeons, even darkness may die.

This old one had set its wrath upon mortals and gods alike, and a fate worse than death awaited those who angered it, at its gesture, the sun itself would move. The thunderclap of Daemon magic rippled across the air on that secluded beach, and the old one’s eyes snapped open. It looked up at the setting sun, shook itself free from the sand and rose.

The old one fixed its gaze upon the pillar of black smoke in the distance.

“Kibitz, prepare me some strong coffee.” Spoke the great elder.

A massive, stately unicorn with a gigantic mustache approached the great old one, “But my lady! ‘Tis nearly night, and you need your sleep!”

The eldritch horror chuckled, “Oh Kibitz, I was napping for hours here, my circadian rhythms are already off, but I have a feeling I may need to stay awake for quite some time. Once, here, I sealed a great evil, perhaps not as bad as Discord, but a terror nonetheless.”

“My lady?”

Celestia looked out at the pillar of smoke. “I fear the ancient evil survives.”