The Lord of Void

‘Master, there is a -’ came a telepathic voice

‘I’M A BIT BUSY AT THE MOMENT!’ I interrupted just as I dodged a punch from an Obsidian Giclops.

I had learned very quickly that Giclops’ were very strong and were the definition of a bullet sponge enemy. Thankfully they were slow in both in movement and in wit. With my speed it is easy to confuse and outsmart them. However I still needed to concentrate because they did tons of damage. According to the scan I did before the threat level on this thing was extreme. This meant that it would be a long and possibly difficult battle.

The first Giclops I fought was an Onyx Giclops with a threat level of moderate. It legitimately took me 25 minutes to beat it because of its huge amount of HP. This one was an extreme threat and I would not be surprised to learn I had been fighting for at least 40 minutes so far. My stamina was beginning to wane and the Giclops was getting closer and closer to landing a hit.

The area we began our battle in was what I could only guess was the treasury or vault of the castle. There were some gold bits and gems scattered about, it was obvious this place was cleared out in a hurry, whether by the owners or by looters, I had no idea. The area was huge and so was the Giclops, the last one I fought was in what I assume was an underground training facility. Why it was underground I had no idea.

I had come to the conclusion that the best way to fight these Giclops’ was to outsmart them. My strategy for fighting them was to use afterimages to make it attack air and open itself up to a counterattack. It was really about being cautious and never make an attack that I wasn’t absolutely sure that it would not be able to counter me in any way.

Basically it was a very slow battle, thankfully it seemed Giclops’ hated being in groups. Both times there was nothing around them when we fought.

Ten minutes later the Obsidian Giclops finally made it’s final mistake by trying to hit an afterimage of me that I had left behind as I flash stepped behind it, creating a nice opening for me to exploit. It exploded into Grist as I slashed it in the nape of it’s neck using my newest sword Astroranem. Took me a week to get all of the Grist to finally alchemize it. So far it was well worth it. The next thing I was going for was a sword that looked like it came right from Skyrim and cost three thousand Build Grist and a bunch of other Grist as well, including a type I had not encountered yet.

As I collected the Grist that had filled the room, I checked on my Grist Warehouse and sure enough Obsidian was the last type of Grist I needed to upgrade the Warehouse to level 5. Allowing me to have a hundred thousand of each Grist types at one time. It also dropped gold which was apparently the missing Grist to my soon to be newest sword.

‘Ok, I’m done. What’s up?’ I send to the darkling that had tried to talk to me before.

‘One of those thestrals from Luna’s guard is hanging around up here’ came the response

‘What? What time is it?’ I ask

‘It’s still a few hours from dusk’

I look toward Astroranem, I had alchemized it from one of Luna’s old banners and an ornate officers sword that I had found while exploring. It cost quite a lot but was better than the Blood Sword that I had made from a rusty sword and my Blood modus.

Well Luna your imagery gave me a good sword, what will one of your agents give me?

‘What is he doing?’ I ask

‘Looks like he is waiting for dark before entering the ruins, seems they know we are here’

‘No, they think we are here. They have no proof, beyond that I am definitely somewhere in the Everfree, or else they would come in force.’

‘What do you want us to do Master?’ came the reply after a few seconds

‘I’ll be up in a minute, just keep an eye on him. I have a plan’

I do have a new spell I would like to try.

I sat waiting in a hidden alcove of the ruins and looked through the eyes of my darklings. The thestral had been stalking around the ground floor of the ruins. Thankfully I had taken to moving everything underground weeks ago and making/removing walls with ‘Revise’.

He was actually rather methodical, moving throughout the ruins in a search pattern. Going from one room to the next, never once dropping his guard. Unfortunately for him, my darklings were far better at being sneaky than he was.

I had been playing with my VoidTerror seeing what I could do with it and I had found a way to bring out the shadows to surround me, making me blend in perfectly with the shadows around me. The only way he would know I was here would be to physically touch me. Which he would not be able to do as I would strike first.

He rounded the corner and looked directly at me. Then turned and looked down the corridor I was facing. As before he turned toward me to search for any hidden passages before he would turn and continue down the corridor. This time however, would not go as he planned.

As he neared I got into a runners’ stance and brought my palm in line with his head.

He took two more steps and before he could lift his leg again I charged. All he had time to do was look at me with wide eyes before my hand patted him on the head.

Normally he would be rather offput by this, however my hand was charged with a stunning spell, which caused him to crumple like a puppet with it’s strings cut.

Ok, let’s see if this works

I put my hand back on his head and attempted the spell I wanted to try. It would basically alter his memories slightly. I had already known that there are two types of memory, short term and long term. The ponies did not seem to know this… or atleast they didn’t a thousand years ago, but from what I had gathered, it seems that they still do not know this. From some of the reading I had done in the library, it was possible to use magic to alter memories but it was ludicrously difficult… for long term memory. Short term however, I found was almost scarily easy to change.

I used the spell I had prepared on my way back up so that he would forget about finding anything that would even hint that there may be anything living here, including seeing me. I even made him ‘remember’ running into, and avoiding, some imps. Since this place was crawling with them when I first got here. This would drastically lower the chance of being found, and him returning. I had originally intended to take him captive and trying to pump him for information. But I assumed that he must have a specific window of time where he had to report back and didn’t want to make it obvious where I was. Besides I had sent more darklings to Canterlot, and it seems I would be sending a few more. None of them seemed to know that this one was coming before he got here.

I placed some rubble by his head. He would wake up and believe he was knocked unconscious by some falling debris. With the imps he now remembers seeing, he will likely believe it was due to one of them, as well as call it a night and leave.

‘Master, it seems Cider season has begun in Ponyville’

Oh? Then that means the Flim Flam brothers will be making an appearance. I cant wait to give my comeback to Applejack’s ‘didn't learn anythin’ lesson

It had been a few days since the thestral was here and as I expected he left when he woke up and hasn’t come back. I made the darklings make noises and such to make him believe they were imps, their noises would lead him to assume he had managed to simply evade them and not question why he never encountered any on his way back. There have been other thestrals sighted in the forest, searching caves and such for me no doubt.

‘Let me know when The Flim Flam Brothers show up’

I went back to my alchemiter. I had been playing with combinations and creating Dawnbreaker. Seriously not only was it called Dawnbreaker it looked exactly like the Daedric Artifact from Skyrim.

I had also found that while using things symbolic of Celestia made better swords than things symbolic of Luna, it was exactly the opposite when it came to my scalpels. I assumed it had to do with associations.

Hmm, I wonder what would happen if I try to combine swords or a sword with a scalpel...

I try to combine the Astroranem with the newly created Dawnbreaker with a bitwise AND. It was a greatsword that truly looked like a frankenblade. I decided to try a bitwise OR, resulting in a duel blade, half Astroranem and half Dawnbreaker.

Hmm, I have another sword… Wonder what will happen if I add that to these.

I take the double punched Bitwise OR card and try to combine it with the Blood Sword. The result was a sword called Vicious Heart. Just looking at the holographic image I knew I had to have this sword. Judging by the cost. I knew I just stumbled upon a late game ultimate weapon.

It cost over 1.2 million Build Grist, 1.2 million Garnet, 1.2 million Ruby, 1.2 million Onyx, 1.2 million Obsidian, 1.2 million Gold, 1.2 million Diamond and 1 of a Grist type I haven’t discovered yet.

Holy SHIT! It’s going to take me months to get all of that Grist and I need to upgrade my warehouse two more times to be able to even make it, meaning I need even more! That’s not even thinking of that last unknown Grist, the sword costs a million of 7 different Grist types and only require 1 of it? That Grist must either be extremely super rare or a very late game type of Grist

‘Master, they have arrived’

‘On my way’

I arrived a bit after the competition ended, just in time to see those two about to take their leave.

“You wouldn't pay even one cent?” said one of the brothers

After a resounding no from the crowd they turned to each other and began a hushed conversation.

I started to have this weird feeling about them. It was like there was something... different, about them.

“How about two cups for one cent?” said the other brother

Hmm, wouldn’t hurt I suppose

Scan

Wait, what?

I focused on Flam and scanned him too

Ok, that’s weird. Each has half of the Doom Aspect by their names… Maybe if I…

Scan

Fucking What? Consort isn’t a class and Celestia MUST be the last player… How…

“Two bits for a barrel?” The brothers said in unison

“NO!” The entire crowd shouted

“It looks like we've encountered a slight... problem here in Ponyville.” Flam said nervously

“Nopony wants our product. Next town?” Flim said as they both danced a bit

“Next town. Let's go, Flim!” Flam responded

“Let's go, Flam!” Flim said

They proceeded to jump up on the podium attached to their wagon… thing and drive away.

‘Follow them. I may need to talk to those two’ I said to my darklings

“Because of this silly competition, we've made enough of our cider for the whole town!” I heard Apple Bloom shout as I moved closer.

I was slightly worried as I waited for Applejack to begin her asope. After all in the episode it was a voice over of Applejack that gave the ‘Lesson learned’ aesop. Thankfully a few seconds later she began.

“Dear Princess Celestia, I wanted to share my thoughts with you.” She pauses for a moment to clear her throat “I didn't learn anythin'! Ha! I-”

“Really? Nothing?” I interrupted

“Jackal!” Twilight shouted while looking where my voice had come from and where I had been seconds ago.

“That’s Doctor Jackal. Anyway, did you really learn nothing Applejack? I learned a bit about arrogance and underestimating others. Well the Flim Flam Brothers did anyway. They were well within their rights to deny the rest of you from helping the apple family.” I said, watching as they all spun to look at where I had just been

We still woulda won! Our cider was better than the dirt they made!” Applejack shot back

“I was watching the entire time” I lied just a bit so she would call me out on it. “The barrels that they made before Twilight and the others joined is great! It was only after you began to close the gap of barrels produced, with help of course, that they removed the filter that was filtering out the debris and bad apples. Hell, If the brothers had given the crowd a barrel from the beginning of the competition they would still be here!” I said, flash stepping after each sentence.

“You're lying!” Applejack shouted again

I made sure to sigh loud enough for them to hear.

“Twilight, there is a few barrels that, in their haste, the brothers left behind. Grab one towards the middle of the bottom row. Try it and tell me I’m wrong” I said, wondering if Applejack was really living lie detector.

Twilight hesitantly looked between the stack of barrels and her friends. After a resolute nod from Applejack she levitates the upper stack off and takes a barrel from the middle of the bottom row, then grabs a clean glass, no doubt to make sure the experiment was free of contamination, and tried it.

From the look of horror on her face, her friends knew I was not lying.

“I’m sorry Applejack. This… It tastes as good as yours” she says in a crestfallen voice. Applejack’s expression mirrored Twilight's voice.

“You got lucky. Thanks to arrogance and using one of the last barrels they made, you ‘won’. Congratulations!” I finished sarcastically.

None of them said anything and stared at the ground. I took it as my cue to leave, my message had been delivered. Leaving behind six mares realizing just how close the Apple family had come to losing everything.

Once I returned to the ruins I began to think on the brothers and what my scan revealed about them.