Broken Land's Broken People

Dawn spent the next few days curled up in the study reading book after book, she was still reading long after the bear which was apparently an ursur major (page 48 of magical monsters and you) was gone. Dawn had discovered that she had a strong thirst for knowledge, she could of spent forever reading, learning, and exploring the books cover to cover, only occasionally having to out to collect food, to her this sounded perfect, Just Dawn and her books.

"Nothing good can last forever" Dawn read, while she gravitated mostly towards educational books she had recently discovered a very simple story book about two sisters who ruled the world together bringing peace and happiness. Until the younger sister who felt shunned by her subjects rebelled agents her older sister causing chaos. Strangely Dawn felt like she was reading the story twice, and that wasn't the only strange thing she had discovered while reading.

Dawn had discover she had a natural gift for the arcane, spells that according to the books would take the average unicorn days to learn she could cast after just a few hours, and while not all her casting was perfect she was doing allot better than she should have been doing. Indeed Dawn had learnt a lot from this studying and was enjoying it very much. But nothing good can last forever *rumble*.

"What was that?" Dawn asked out loud *rumble rumble* the ground shuck violently, "earthquake!" Dawn screamed, she had read about these, great natural disasters that could crack the very earth . With lightning speed Dawn began unlocking the vault door, the supports began to creak and the rafters sagged, Dawn was half way done already but large stones began falling from the ceiling. Dawn need time that she didn't have *smash* a central support came down and the roof gave way trapping Dawn in a stony crypt.

That would of been the end of Dawn, if she hadn't been studying short range teleportation. With a flash Dawn appeared just above the rubble, dazed but alive. Now Dawn was outside with no where to go for shelter and no food or water. Dawn took a look around, some of the ground had been cracked by the earth quake but over than that it was just as left it, a wasteland. Reluctantly Dawn decide to pick a random direction, she went north in relation to the sun.

An hour later Dawn was still walking, one of the many things she had read about was the idea of a void where there is nothing but nothing. "Well this place certainly feels like a void" Dawn thought, still she kept walking. On the horizon Dawn thought she could see something, "buildings?" she thought "shelter!" Dawn galloped of in the direction of the buildings, only to stop when she heard a spine tingling growl.

Suddenly monsters leapt from all side's three wolf like creature's made of stone with glowing green eye's. Most ponies would panic but Dawns first thought was "I wonder if there distant relatives of the timber wolves". One of the stone wolves leapt for her, Dawn barely dodged leaving the wolf open to attack, Dawn focused her magic in to her horn and fired an arcane bolt. unfortunately the bolt was conjured too quickly, while it did strike home it had little affect against stone.

The three wolves, sensing weakness in there pray began surrounding her ready to pounce and have supper. They lunged as there outstretched claws slammed in to a large purple barrier flinging the wolves backward. Dawn had manage to summon a shield spell giving her precious few seconds, she couldn't out run her opponents and had little actual experience with combat spells thinking them to dangerous to cast indoors, but she could outthink them.

The wolves crashed against the barrier it would not hold long, quickly Dawn tried to remember what she read about timber wolves "if these are distant relative maybe they share the same weakness's" Dawn thought. Unfortunately the only weakness that came to mind was fire which would not work against stone and the shield began to break as the wolves growling became louder. *smash* *crash* The barrier gave way leaving Dawn open to her doom.

Only then did the wolves notice the purple glow surrounding her horn, just then Dawn unleashed a very focused blast of arcane energy, but this was no bolt. The wolves fell to the floor, they stopped glowing and collapsed in to piles of rubble like they had never even existed. While this may sound like some sort of extraordinary feat of magical prowess, but in reality it was just about knowing your enemies weakness's.

Dawn was right these stone wolves are distant relatives of timber wolves, at least they used a similar magic matrix. Timber wolves aren't actually alive they are complicated magical matrixes created long ago by a powerful wizard in the depths of insanity. These magic matrixes float around gathering timber until it can be formed in to the body of a wolf, then it acts like a wolf with only difference being that they make more wolves by cloning themselves from magical energy.

These magic matrix's are however a little to complicated, they can be disrupted by a strong magical force target specifically at the matrix's (yes the wizard who made this was very insane). These stone wolves matrix's where replica's of the timber wolves magic matrix's, using stone instead of timber meaning that the same weakness's still applied. It would take a powerful mage to edit the magic like this, but it could be done.

Dawn was very proud of herself and with a skip in her head and a song in her heart she galloped of to the distant buildings. Little did she know that her lack of experience and foresight would lead to her own downfall. But until then she was ignorantly happy, unaware of the green glowing magic forming behind her.

"Hello?" Dawn called out, it turned out most of the buildings were in ruins and there was no one to be seen. "Hello?" Dawn called out again, she could hear a harmonica being played in the distance, hoping to find any pony Dawn galloped forward. As she ran towards the music she passed a message written in coal on a wall "hive alive" it read, Dawn didn't pay much notice to this.

Soon Dawn found the source of the music, a small foal sitting out in the middle of nowhere playing a harmonica like there was no tomorrow. "Hi little filly my names Dawn, Shimmering Dawn what's your name?" The foal didn't seem to notice Dawn and if he did, he didn't care. "Erm hello?" Dawn kept trying to get the little foals attention, she couldn't for the life of her figure out why she was being ignored like this, but the foal seemed to keep playing the same happy tune.

*Groooowwwllll* That sound bounced around in Dawn's head, she turned around and came face to face with very large very angry (well as angry as a magic construct can be) stone wolf. Dawn was too confident with victory that she had let it gone to her head, if she had thought about it more in the aftermath of her battle she would have realised if someone did make a stone based replica of a timber wolfs magic matrix they would also be able to modify some of its other properties.

When you think about it, being able to be destroyed by just focused arcane energy is a big weakness, somepony else must of thought so as well because they modified the arcane matrix allowing it to slowly fizzle out excesses arcane energy and reactive after a small time span instead of just over loading. This meant that wolves came back and they had combined there matrix's to make one large stone wolf too powerful to fight or overload. This all may sound extremely unlikely to happen, but at end of the day it was still something that could have happened and a tactical blunder.

"Run!" Dawn yelled grabbing the small harmonica playing foal or trying to at least, the foal wouldn't budge like he had locked himself away from the world and denied its very existence. The wolf began bounding down the street splitting the pavement as it landed "go go please!" Dawn practically crying to the little foal who was still dead on the inside. Dawn had no choice she galloped away tears threatening to flood from her eyes as the stone wolf landed upon the small foal.

Dawn herself was still far from safety, moving as quickly as she could the wolf bounding after her. She turned left at an intersection only to find herself in ally way the wolf coming ever closer leaving destruction in its wake. Dawn took another left finding a dead end with the words "h*vE AliVe" written in coal. Dawn was trapped walls on three sides large magical stone wolf construct on one. The wolf pounce spreading itself wide filling Dawns entire vision, suddenly, something grabbed dawns leg pulling her down in to darkness.

The last thing she remembered was a hurried fluttering of large insect wings.