Chapter 1: You Call This an Empire?
I awoke with a terrible headache, something that really wasn't too uncommon for me after attempting new spells and failing like I had done recently. What was different however, was the feeling of wetness and cold coming from beneath me. As I opened my eyes I was blinded by an intense light from above, forcing me to close my eyes.
"Syllas," I started, speaking to my servant, "turn off the light." After a few seconds of waiting, I heard no response. This was rather odd, Syllas would definitely have responded by now, he was the perfect servant, despite not being magically talented himself he had an exceptional understanding of magical theory, he was loyal, and never wasted time. Ah, he must have been knocked unconscious by the spell as well, no matter I will simply get it myself.
Opening my eyes, I was once again assaulted by the intense light; however, this time I forced my eyes to adjust and found it was no ordinary light, it was the sun. It most definitely not my laboratory. Around me were many layers of snow covering huge glaciers. This sight before me was not possible, the glaciers of Therus having melted centuries ago to deal with the freshwater shortages we had been facing. I soon realized what had happened, the spell hadn't failed. I had been attempting to create and inter-universal gate, something that had been attempted for decades. It would appear that I did create the gate, though instead of being stable, it sucked me in and collapsed as indicated by the disruption in the magical field that I felt. I then realized that the size of the disruption indicated that I was the only one to come through, something such as this was easy to figure out, even in a new magical field. The magical field was indeed different, though not in its frequency, in its power. The saturation of magic within the air was absolutely unbelievable, easily twenty times that of Therus.
I opened up my internal magical battery and was nearly knocked unconscious by the massive wave of magic that assaulted me, nearly. Soon the magic stopped filling me up and for the first time in my life I was completely filled with magic. Back on Therus filling yourself up with magic was very tricky, requiring artificially created environments that were magically saturated. Opening yourself up to the normal magical field of Therus would drain you to near death to balance out the magical pressures. This was due to the huge population of humans on Therus having drained the magical field to near nothing. Here however, the magical field was dense enough to actually give me energy. This much magic could be used for practically anything.
A cold breeze snapped me out of my thoughts and I quickly realized that I would need to find shelter. I focused upon the magical field and found a huge hot spot. A magical presence of such size could only be created artificially at a convergence of leylines. I climbed out of the snow ditch I had found myself in and began to set off in that direction after casting a heating spell upon myself. Looking off into the distance of the hot spot I was able to view a sliver of blue, different in hue from the ice around us. I slowly made my way towards the sliver, being careful not to slip up upon the glacier I was walking atop.
Eventually I made myself to the location that I had viewed from afar and was quite pleased at what was at the hot spot. I was now close enough to verify that this was indeed a leyline convergence, not only this, but sitting atop the convergence was a large city that was being besieged by a blizzard. The city was shimmering even under the little sunlight that was penetrating the cloud cover above. The single building that had once been a sliver was now a massive spire supported by four legs spreading off from the center.
As I approached the city, I figured out the reason behind the strange shimmering, the entire place was made of solid crystal. I'm guessing that this would have been impressive had this city been still alive, alas, it was not. The entire city was completely devoid of life excluding the central spire. As I made my way towards it I was able to see a single light coming from near the middle of the massive building.
I quickly made my way inside of the building and found it to be as cold as it was outside. I began to make my way towards where I had seen the light and soon found it getting warmer until eventually I stood outside two great golden doors. Pushing them aside in a dramatic fashion, I entered what appeared to be a throne room. The room was quite spacious and very long, with black and green banners adorning the walls until it reached the large, you guessed it, crystal throne. Sat upon the throne was a large black unicorn with red and green eyes with purple mist coming out of the sides sitting atop his head was a medium silver crown adorned with sapphires. Attached to the base of the throne was a normal horse and two pegasi. I soon found myself frozen into position with my jaw nearly detaching itself to hang lower.
"MONSTER YOU DARE TO DISTURB ME," roared the unicorn sitting atop the throne, snapping me out of my stupor, "I AM KING SOMBRA AND YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS!"
The unicorn's horn began to glow with green and purple, similar to his eyes. Suddenly a magical bolt was released from the horn and blasted towards me. I had no time to dodge the bolt and was therefore slammed in the stomach with it. I felt a quick electric feeling and then nothing, was I dead?
I opened up my eyes to find that I was, surprisingly, not only alive, but without a scratch upon me. Apparently the unicorn was equally surprised, judging by the awestruck expression upon his face. Unluckily for him, I recovered a hell of a lot faster and quickly charged up my own magic and launched a green bolt at him. Upon impact the spell appeared to have had had no effect to him causing the unicorn to smile pridefully, however, this simply was not the case, unluckily for him. The unicorn king attempted to charge up another spell to fire at me when he suddenly froze and collapsed. Slowly but surely a green mist that was the same color as the spell I had fired at him began to leak out of his horn and towards me. The mist was absorbed into my body and I quickly felt my magical battery's size increase as the former king's soul was converted into magical energy. Not only this, but I was suddenly flooded with information about this place.
I was about to begin to sift through the new knowledge within my brain when I heard whimpering from one of the horses. Getting a closer look at them I realized that they were not horses, but ponies, pony slaves. Have I mentioned how much I hate slavery? Well I do.
"Hello there little ones", I said in my kindest possible voice, attempting to calm them down, "are you okay?"
"We are now sir," replied the normal purple pony, which I now guessed to be female (a mare?), "thank you for saving us from him."
"Well, how about we get those chains off," I once again stated kindly, casting a spell to liquify the metal (without heating it of course), "then we can get you out of this place, what was it called again?"
"The Crystal Empire," answered the earth pony once again.
"What?" I questioned, not quite comprehending this. After a few seconds I finally got what she had said and asked her more properly, "no, I meant the city."
"That is the name of the city," she replied with a look of confusion.
I began to shake with mirth and questioned, "You call this an empire?"
Chapter 2: Law of Succession
Once I finally calmed down from my laughing fit, I turned the chains of the two pegasi, a cyan stallion and a yellow mare, to liquid. They soon grouped together and started whispering to one another. As I was about to question what they were talking, they broke out of their group, formed a line in front of me and began to bow.
"My lord," said the purple pony with a declarative tone, "we live to serve you." This caused a great deal of confusion on my part and it must have showed upon my face as the pony soon explained. "According to the Law of Succession, due to the fact that you killed the king," she paused (probably for dramatic effect) after saying the word 'king' with a tone of disgust, "and due to the fact that he had no heirs, you and your bloodline now claim the throne."
"Wait, what?" I questioned with a dumb tone of voice and with a probably similar expression upon my face.
"You are now the leader of the Crystal Empire sire," the pony reiterated.
The enormity of the situation finally dawned on me. I was now the leader of a city made of crystal, that was sitting atop a leyline convergence, in a world that already had a ridiculous amount of magic. A grin slowly spread across my face and would've turned into a full blown smile if the heating spell in the room hadn't broken down at that moment and sent in the cold air once again. Crap, I was controlling a city in the arctic that had only three subjects, or did it?
"Excuse me," I questioned, getting the pony mare to look at me attentively, "is there anybody else here?"
"Oh, of course, they are all probably down in the mines under the palace," responded the cyan pegasus this time.
Well that is certainly a relief, having a city with only three subjects wasn't very impressive but if there was enough to fill every house outside then there might be a chance for this little city. I gestured for them to lead the way and they complied, going through many hallways and down oh so many stairs, seriously, the person who made this place must have had a stair fetish, that was the only possible explanation.
Along the way I decided to ask them a few questions to get some information about the place I was in, starting with their names.
"I never did quite catch your names," I said to the ponies.
"I'm Amethyst Shine sir," said the earth pony mare.
"I'm Sapphire Star," answered the cyan pegasus.
"And I'm Topaz Thrill," finished the yellow stallion, "how about you sire?"
"I am Corvyre Fenrin," I answered, wondering at their names.
As we made our way downwards into the earth they continued to answer my questions about this place, filling in quite a bit in my mind. Finally, we stopped outside a large set of black doors. Trying to appear as royal as possible, I order the two pegasi to go in first and prepare the other ponies. After a few minutes of waiting, a knocking sound could be heard coming from the other side of the door, this was Amethyst's cue.
From the other side of the door I could hear Amethyst declaring my arrival, "Announcing the arrival of His Imperial Highness, Emperor Corvyre Fenrin." This was it, I pushed open the doors, one with each hand, and entered the unbelievably silent room. Stood in front of me in the large rock-hewn chamber were thousands upon thousands of ponies, my new subjects. Sadly, I could feel an aura of fear emanating from the population, something that wasn't all that unsurprising.
Deciding to get off to a good start I gave them the news. "It is true," I said as regally as possible, my voice amplified by a spell had placed upon myself, "Sombra is dead, slain by my hand." I was about to continue when I felt the fear fade away from the area to be replaced by pure joy as the ponies cheered at the news I was giving them. I continued, "Due to this, I have taken over as Emperor of the Crystal Empire in order to restore this great city to its former glory and in order to undo the mess that the tyrant Sombra has made of this place. In approximately 4 hours there shall be a feast for the entirety of the city. You are all free to go back to your homes, although I would request that any of the royal guard would stay behind. Oh, and one last thing, this is no longer the Crystal Empire," I paused for effect, "this city shall be forevermore known as the crystal city."
With my short little speech now finished the majority of the ponies began to leave, leaving me with around 150 ponies that I assumed were the royal guard.
"Would the commanding officer please step forward now," I asked. Soon after a large unicorn with a silver coat and a white mane made his way to the front of the group. "The rest of you go back to your barracks and get some rest. Those of you that are on duty at this time, get suited up and secure the city." The guards obeyed, I assume, and began to leave the chamber.
"Follow me," I said to the guard captain, "we have a lot to talk about."