Elementa in Aeternum

The moon rose above the crystal empire for the first time in a thousand years, and with it so did it’s ancient ruler; Sombra had awoken.

Tenebra opened his eyes to the familiar sight of his bedroom, the jet black unicorn was feeling more well rested than he had in years. Unbeknownst to him, the reason for this was because he had actually been asleep for a thousand years. A flash of dark grey magic allowed Tenebra to secure his Onyx pendant around his neck. As always, when the pendant was placed around Tenebra’s neck, he felt instantly at ease. Sometimes he suspected that it was a part of himself that had been surgically removed at birth, though when these thoughts arose he would think solely of the impossibility. When Tenebra ventured downstairs, neither of his parents were anywhere to be found, which while a little strange, was nothing out of the ordinary, though by this time the lack of noise from outside the house was becoming increasingly suspicious. Tenebra suspected that the tyrant King Sombra was responsible for the deafening silence, though how he achieved it remained to be seen by the young colt.

After Tenebra found no one in his house, he began to wander outside, where he found the entire empire to be deserted, as if all its occupants had vanished off the face of the planet. Becoming increasingly worried, Tenebra ventured towards the borders, following the faint sound of laughter, one not often heard in the reign of the tyrant king. “That must be where everypony is,” he thought to himself. As the unicorn wandered closer to the sounds, it became clear that what he had been hearing was not, in fact, ponies of the crystal empire, it was a piny pony that seemed to have wings as well as a horn, and a white unicorn with a depiction of a shield as his cutie mark. The two ponies were displaying signs of great affection that threatened to progress into something else, which forced Tenebra to depart the scene with more questions than before.

The sun was setting above the empire, and with it, darkness was creeping in. While Tenebra preferred the darkness of night over anything, he had a bad feeling that there was something lurking out in this night. After some careful deliberation, Tenebra decided venture inside one of the dark buildings that was forbidden during the reign of Sombra to all but a select few. When he entered, the lights came on and revealed walls stacked with books of every kind, from magic to history. Tenebra was amazed, having only seen one book in his life, he dove into one of the books placed on the library desk. This book was titled Umbramancy, and seemed to be a book on a strange type of magic, and while Tenebra knew a little magic, the spells he saw in the contents page of this book were ones he either previously thought impossible or ones that he never even dreamed of.

As he was reading the book, Tenebra didn’t notice a large blast of love magic that spanned throughout the empire. The grey figure of a pony was approaching Tenebra from behind, its glasses shining in the dim light. “Hello little colt, it’s good to finally have someone to talk to other than that mean pony Sombra,” the mystery pony croaked. At the sound of her voice, Tenebra jumped and turned to look at the grey earth pony with a scroll as a cutie mark. “Uh, hi. Who are you?” the startled unicorn asked, clearly still recovering from the initial fright of somepony in the empire other than himself again. “Why, I’m the librarian, Amethyst Maresbury, but I think the better question is, who are you?”

“I’m Tenebra Vicis, so I assume that this place is the imperial library?”

The librarian gave a nod of confirmation to this, and inquired, “how did you get in here? I thought the guards stopped everypony except Sombra from entering, is this not the case?”

“Well, you are the first pony I’ve seen all day, so I’m not too sure about guards. They might be here now that somepony other than me has appeared,” Tenebra reasoned. “Of course, I would appreciate it if you didn’t report me to them, it could get me in quite a bit of trouble.”

“Of course I won’t report you! I wouldn’t sentence you to death willingly,” Amethyst reassured. ” Though I do wonder what you’re doing here.”

After Tenebra told his story from when he woke up that morning, the librarian decided to leave him alone in his readings. A few pages into the Umbramancy book, Tenebra found a spell called Verto in Umbra, which seemed to render the user as a shadow in a near invisible state. “This could be useful,” he remarked to himself.

Verto in Umbra

To perform this spell, the caster must focus on the goal while directing magic from whichever part of the body they chose, to form a cloak around their body. This will render the caster as a shadow, which will make them near impossible to see in all but the brightest of days. The duration of this spell is determined by both the energy put into it, and the affinity the pony has with Umbramancy. For example, if an earth pony, who has spent every day of their life working in the sun, were to cast this spell, it would last an incredibly short time, while if a unicorn who has spent many days in darkness researching or performing magic was the caster, then this spell could last many days.

To undo this spell, one must feel the magic cloak around them, and direct the magic that makes it up back into their body. The less time this spell is kept active, the more of the magic used to cast it the caster will get back.

After reading the passage describing the Verto in Umbra spell, Tenebra looked up to see a black notebook had appeared on the desk in front of him. The unicorn grabbed the notebook with his magic, and when that happened, the spine of the notebook became the same green colour as his mane. Tenebra gasped in surprise at this, dropping the notebook in shock. Cautiously opening it, he found some text inside it.

Personal Spellbook of Tenebra Vicis

Initiate Umbramancer

Journeyman Amicitiamancer

The notebook had once again amazed him, it had somehow detected his name, and the fact that he had been performing Umbramancy, though what Amicitiamancy was, was anyone’s guess. Turning the pages, Tenebra noticed that some of the pages were already filled, with the Verto in Umbra spell page from the Umbramancy book summarised in his notebook. In amazement, Tenebra flicked through the notebook to find an instructions page at the back. In short, it described the fact that the notebook would take the instructions for the casting of a spell from its owner’s memory, and transcribe them into a blank page in the correct section. Going back to the contents page of the spellbook, Tenebra found the page that described Amicitiamancy, which appeared to be standard unicorn magic. The book even contained the instructions that he was first given to levitate objects when Tenebra was a child.

The librarian rushed into the room, where Tenebra was about to test the Verto in Umbra spell, and spoke in a hushed voice, “people are coming, I’m not sure if they are hostile, but they are incredibly powerful. You must leave now, before they find you.” Tenebra agreed, and rushed out the back door of the library, taking his notebook and the Umbramancy book with him.

After exiting the library, Tenebra made his way to his home, where he found his parents who were looking grey and depressed, as if all the joy had been taken from the world. While Tenebra was worried about his parents, they weren’t always the nicest of ponies to him, he had been treated as a slave as a child, not afforded the same loving care as foals of other families. So he moved on, to his room, where he packed the two books into his saddlebags and decided to leave via the train station that he saw on the way back home. Grabbing a few bits, Tenebra walked over to the train station, where he saw a few guards at the train. These guards were not crystal ponies like the ones usually seen in the empire, they were white unicorns dressed in golden armour. Tenebra began to approach the station when he came up with an idea to get on the train undetected. It was the perfect time to test out the Verto in Umbra spell. He began by focusing on the magic in his horn, similar to how the telekinesis spell begins, but instead of focusing it onto a single object, Tenebra forced to it form a cloak around himself, just as the book instructed. Once this was done, he approached the station, keeping out of direct sunlight, and boarded a train that seemed to be about to leave.