The King of Storms

The Journey Begins Part Two

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I attacked first. I lunged at the biggest one, and uppercut him. I opened my mouth, and let loose a stream of fiery energy. It screamed in agony as life faded from it’s eyes. Rocky chains covered me. Wait, that isn’t right. Shouldn’t the rock dragon’s obey me since I defeated the alpha? Or was that the Air Dragons? Ah, screw it.

I cast a quick diagnostic spell for weak points in the rocky chains. The spell informed me that if I applied sixteen pounds of pressure to a spot on a link of one of the chains the entire chain would break apart. Did I have enough magic? Probably not. The rock dragons came in closer, earthen magic in their jaws. I tried a spell but no, I was completely dry. This was the end. I would die right here, right no-

“ARHF!” One of the dragons roared. I opened my eyes, and saw that one of the dragons rocky arms had been broken off. It yelped and tried to run, but a large blast of golden magic destroyed the remaining dragons. I saw a unicorn with a scraggly beard and tired golden eyes limp towards me.

He broke away my chains and looked me in the eyes, even though I towered twentyish feet above him.

“Tempest Chronodonious….” He murmured. He healed my broken wing with a flash of golden magic.

“Chronodonious? What?” I asked.

“I’ll do anything!”

“I was gifted with the charge of two alicorn children, who I would take care of while their parents did something. Not sure what, but that’s not my business. I woke up one day to find them gone. The next week, Prince Arbmos found out he could control the sun and moon. Something only an alicorn could do.” Starswirl said.

“What?” I asked. When no answer presented itself to me, although I wasn’t really expecting him to pop back and explain it, I continued my journey.

I had been walking for a while now, and no more rock dragons had presented themselves to me. My wing wasn’t broken, but it did hurt too much to, fly. However, the city was in sight. A huge spiraling city, three kilometers away. I ran the remaining distance quickly.

“HALT!” I heard someone scream. I looked up, and on top of a huge wall, saw a group of markling. They had weapons pointed at me, runed staves glowing with mystic power. I charged up my precious reserves of magic, and teleported to the top of the wall.

“WAIT!” I scream before anyone fires. The markling don’t lower their weapons, but don’t shoot.

“The King will want to see him.” One of the markling said. He turned around, pointed at a tower, and shouted.

The world around me warped. One moment I was standing on top of a wall, the next I was bound in chains and magical binding rings in the middle of a throne room. I was looking at a throne, the chains forcing me to kneel(1)

The throne was dramatically cloaked in shadow, a markling shaped figure sitting on it. The figure came out of the shadows, and I saw him.

A tall unicorn, a curved horn white as day, a beautiful white coat and red-silk cloak. His eyes, however, were the most striking thing about him. Grey eyes but there was something in them that made me feel insignificant. Like everything I would do is nothing compared to him. Like I should do anything and everything he says.

"Sorry for the chains, but you can never be too careful now, can you darling?" His voice sounded so smooth, like silk wrapping around me, filled with the same something.

"Why are you here?"

"I am the last of my clan, and my kind. An attack by Discord has killed all others. I do not ask for your help, I only ask for this - A place to sleep, some warm food, and access to your magical knowledge. Please, I beg of you for this." The King considered what I was saying for a moment.

"I agree. However, you will have to hunt for your own food, and you are not, I repeat, ARE NOT allowed in Section 5 of my castle. Understand?"

I nodded happily. "I understand sir!"

This was wonderful! All of the markling magical knowledge, shelter, and food!

"If you need me, I'll be in the library." I teleported to the library, then -

Wait. Not allowed in Section 5, and the Starswirl markling suspects that alicorns are somewhere in Castle Arbmos. I thought for a moment.

If I was caught, I couldn't make use of this knowledge. I decided to use the magical knowledge to my advantage. I browsed through the library, and found a couple of books. I opened one up, and the first thing I saw was -

A Guide to Growing Magic

By Twinkle Shimmer

"Magic. The most beautiful thing in the world, with infinite uses. In this book, I will list the best ways to grow your magical knowledge and might. The following is a table that has a type of magic, how to grow knowledgeable in it, and my own personal comments in it. There are many more branches of magic, but these are the core ones."

Magic

Where to LearnCommentsDefenseWorld of Defense - Clover the CleverDefense. The most basic of magics. Creating shields is not all that defense is - Creating resistance to magic, poison, hardening skin, etc.HealingA Healer's Guide - Clover the CleverHealing is no doubt the most useful magical skill. Practiced healers can regenerate lost limbs, and a few can even resurrect the dead without necromancy for a few minutes every day.CombatThe Magus' Guide - King Skardenfrost of the WolfkinCombat is the polar opposite of healing magic. While healing is getting rid of wounds, combat is inflicting it. Most magics can be used for combat, but combat magic in combat is often the most devastating.Dark MagicNecronomicon - Unknown Dark Magic is not inherently evil, and should not be treated as such. However, writers of dark magic tome books may include curses that will corrupt. Why? The reason has been long since lost to time. The Necronomicon's curse can be disabled with the words - "Klaatu, verata, nikto."Light MagicSolaria - UnknownLight magic, like Dark Magic is not inherently good, and should not be treated as such. Totes of Light Magic are often commonplace in unicorn households. The Solaria contains ancient knowledge older than the Necronomicon, and has been copied down. It is in 80% of all libraries.Chaos MagicDiscordia - DiscordChaos magic is widely unknown, and incredibly hard to use. The Discordia was written by it's most well known practitioner, the Old King, Discord.DiviningSeer - Delphi of the WolfkinSeer only describes how to make Divining more common. If you don't have the talent for it, your out of luck.Dimensional MagicDimonsacia - Delphi of the WolfkinDimensional magic is spells such as null-space storage and teleportation. The spells, while hard to use/maintain are incredibly useful.TitanomancyTitans - The ImmortalWritten by the mysterious immortal, Titanomancy is harnessing the very forces of creation to heal or harm. I don't know much about it, only that is is incredibly dangerousElemental MagicElementia - Delphi of the WolfkinIt seems all the books are written by Delphi, aren't they? Elemental magic is harnessing the four elements to do your bidding.Hatred MagicWar - King BellumAn ancient drakon magic that harnesses the forces of hatred to cast incredible spells that feed on rage energy. It is incredibly rare for someone to have enough rage for a being to fuel rage magic.

I zoomed down the list, and paused when I saw the Discordia. Maybe the Discordia would contain information I could use to defeat Discord? I continued down the list and broke out into a grin when I saw Hatred Magic.

Discord! I hated him with every fiber of my being. Surely that was enough rage to fuel hatred magic. I lit up my horns with power and channeled my rage into them. I don't know how I knew what to do, I just did. My dark purple glow crackled and flickered until it was replaced with a blood red. I grinned and tried a few basic spells.

Telekinesis? A red glow picked up a book. I didn't feel any drain whatsoever on my magic.

Diagnostic? I tried a diagnostic spell. It worked! Was hatred magic just an alternative to regular magic that used no magic?

I used a hatred fueled telekinesis spell to collect the books I needed. A few minutes later I had a pile of books. The books for Hatred, Dimensional, Divining, Elemental, Light, Dark, Defense + Healing and Combat. I opened up Healing, as that would no doubt be the most useful.

"Three methods of healing...Transfer, energy, and telekinetic? What?"

A few minutes later, after I absorbed the basic knowledge in the book I understood the basic principles.

There were three methods of healing - Transfer, Mana, and Telekinetic. The transfer method was healing others - Transferring your life into them. Or, vice versa. Some necromancers used this to kill enemies while prolonging their life and healing their wounds. However, when used on Immortal/Ageless beings...It wouldn't turn out well. So the combat option of Transfer was out, but it was still an interesting concept.

Mana was using your own mana pool to heal the wound. This was the most complicated one as it required knowledge in the medical degree.

Telekinetic was the hardest one. Using telekinesis and mana to fuse together and regrow skin, it was painful and difficult but it was the best for healing broken bones. I think that was the one Starswirl used on me. Paper appeared out of nowhere and using magical writing I wrote down

Healing Branch

TransferManaTelekinetic

Now I knew the basic principles I would move on to the most required one - Defense.

I already knew the basic defense principles - You solidified your magic into barriers of solid mana. Or, if you had advanced enough psionics like a Wolfkin, you could make nigh-impenetrable barriers of pure thought.

However, I wasn't aware that there were different branches of shields. Area (2), Specialized, Defensive(2.1), Reflective, Disarming.

Area was projecting a shield over a big distance. It could be applied to any other branch of shield, and was widely studied. According to this book, there was an old legend that the first seven(3) could project a shield that could encompass an entire city, or with their combined efforts, all of the world.

The other ones are self explanatory.

I moved on to hatred, opening the b-

The wall smashed open, a building going through it. My magic sparkled to life and I teleported me (and five of the books) out.

I looked up and saw the huge corpse of a black dragon fall into the city. Discord appeared over his corpse.

Three more giant dragons surrounded him. They opened their mighty maws, and let loose a blast of magical fire.

Discord summoned a shield, and teleported on top of one of the dragons. He tapped the head of the dragon, and it screamed. Blood came out of it's eyes as it's skin/scales were turned into cotton candy. The blood turned into melted chocolate, and the other dragons withdrew. I stood gaping in awe.

'I have to fight THAT!?' I screamed mentally.  Discord grabbed the two tails of the dragons and pulled up, up, up, and flew high over the city. He let go, and all hell broke lo-

A white glow entrapped the dragons. They disappeared in a flash, and Discord flew down to a balcony, on which King Arbmos was standing upon. King Arbmos smashed his hooves down.

"Chaos Lord! You are not welcome here." He boomed. Discord laughed slightly.

"I was just coming to check on my two favorite children! Can't their unc-" A beam of energy hit Discord. He dodged, and growled.

"Are you threatening me?" Discord asked calmly. Too calmly. King Arbmos growled in reply.

"You have a week to prepare for total annihilation, or evacuation. Whatever suits your fancy. Have a nice week!" He said cheerily, disappearing in a flash.

Did Discord say two children? Two children. Two missing alicorn children. I wasn't allowed in Section 5...

Once I finished these books, I would need to do some snooping. I looked at the books and continued to read, expanding my magical knowledge. I would need it for my battle with Discord.

Footnotes

1 - More like lay down.

2/2.1 - Area and Defensive is the combination Shining Armor uses.

3 - REMOVED