The Warlock

Twilight explained how the humans had betrayed the world, terrorized its people, and utilized the blackest of magics to keep their army of monsters equipped. She told me how most of the countries in Antera swore off technological advancement, as most of them believed that it was the advanced sciences that had caused the humans to fall. My host was not one of those ponies, and was in fact, trying to unravel the mysteries of how some of the old human tech worked.

How the most powerful magic user outside the sisters, a unicorn by the name of Starswirl the Bearded, had aided the Celestia in fighting the humans. The way Starswirl was described had been depicted had led Gareth to believe that he was not getting the full story. Tales of magical discoveries and amazing adventures, yet no real meat to them, no substance. Children's stories at best. There was no factual evidence on how he had come to these powerful gifts, he had always just had them. The only reason the ponies even knew what he looked like, was that there was a single statue in the Canterlot gardens. I was told of his stories on how he had revolutionized magic. He was the first perfect enchanter in the history of the world. He could do amazing things with magic. Imbuing objects with immense magical power. And unlike the human enchanters, his only required a material sacrifice, instead of a soul sacrifice. He was credited with developing thousands of spells, and creating hundreds of extremely potent magical artifacts in his time. He was, however, mortal. The princess lost her best friend on the last day of the human war, haven fallen to an aging curse cast by the human king. The humans had killed the princess's best friend, and they had paid dearly for it. They had been decimated.

Their entire society for a thousand years revolved around lies, deceit, and black magic. They lived deep underground, far away from prying eyes, to conduct their unnatural rituals and augmentations. The very souls of captured solders were used to power the armor, weapons, and the magic they utilized. The humans began much like him. Through the course of four millenia, they transformed into nightmarish beings of unnaturally augmented muscle, deadly fighting skills ingrained from infancy, and ruthless disregard for any from of mercy.

Deciding that I did not want to be grouped with these pseudo-drow, I told her that I was an elf.

“What's an elf?” She asked me.

“An elf is a semi-magical creature. They can use magic, but they mostly focus on their knowledge of nature. They are also known as proficient marksmen with a bow. I have focused more on the physical side of elven culture, rather than the magical.” I bullshitted. I had no idea how elves worked. Phelan was a halfling monk, and rarely even fought elves, let alone got to know one. I was using my own experience in the wilderness, and my marksmanship skills with a gun (the last time I used a bow, the arrow got lodged in the dirt four feet in front of me, and I cut my cheek open on the string, so I did not use a bow).

“That's amazing! You're going to have to tell me everything!” She excitedly spoke whilst levitating a quill and paper to her. “What is your society like? How many more of you are there? What do you eat?” The questions came too fast for me to answer. The mare kept firing more and more questions without letting up, and kept going on for close to five minutes before she noticed I was not paying attention.

I had been awake for a good 18 hours, and my body was letting me know just how stupid an idea that was. Stifling my yawn, I wiped the tears it had caused from my eyes, and stared bleary eyed at her.

Twilight had noticed my exhaustion. “Oh, my gosh! I didn't realize how tired you were! Do you have a place to stay?” She asked.

“Nah, I was just going to dig myself a shelter in the forest tonight.” I said in a nonchalant manner. Snow was very good at insulating.

“In the winter? No, I can not let somepony sleep outside in the winter, regardless of how close it is to being wrapped up. You can use my guest room for tonight.” What ever wrapping up meant, I neither knew nor cared. I had been offered a bed and I was gonna take it.

“Thank you. I was not looking towards the digging I had left. This means a lot to me.” I thanked her.

Twilight lead me up a flight of stairs off to the side of the main library. We went down the hall, and entered a small room. It had a window, a dresser, and a short bed. It was a very basic room, but I did not care.

“I know it's not much, but I-”  She started.

I cut her off before she could rant about something or another. “It's perfect. Thank you Twilight.” I pulled off my pack and placed it on the floor next to the bed. Twilight bid me goodnight, and went back down stairs.

I did not even bother to take off my vests or boots, I just lay down into the straw mattress My feet dangled a bit, but that was alright. It was not long before I fell asleep. But just as Morpheus was hauling me off to his realm, Twilight was talking to her assistant, Spike.

“Spike, take a note.”

O0o0O

I do not know what woke me up that night. But what ever it was, I was thankful for it.

I woke up much earlier than I would have normally. I had been asleep for probably only an hour or two. The first thing I heard was the sound of two mares arguing in hushed tones. I had no idea what they said, because they were speaking German, of course. But what ever it was, I could somehow tell it was about me.

I had a bad feeling about this.

I sat up and quickly shouldered my rucksack, knowing that this was not going to end well. I pressed my ear to the door and listened for any sounds. Hearing none other than the arguing, I slipped out. I could tell that they were arguing in the front room, so the front door was out. I turned down the hallway in the opposite direction of where I had come from.

At the end of the hallway there was a window. Pushing it open as quietly as I could, so as not to alert the arguing mares. Luckily, the tree had a lot of branches sticking out of it. I situated myself on the branch just outside the window and closed it. Thinking about it for a moment, I open it back up and place an ounce of silver on the windowsill in thanks for letting me use her guest room, however short that time was.

An interesting thing I noticed going down the tree, is that there were always branches where I needed to stand. The branches continued down until they were about six feet off the ground. Looking back, it dawned on me that the tree had grown a full set of emergency exits.

Not quite sure how they managed that, but with no time to think about it, I fell the last few feet. My boots made the soft 'thump' that Vibram soles do on hard, frozen soil.

“Hörten Sie etwas? (Is someone there)” A male voice asked from about 30 feet to my left. A stallion in dull grey armor rounded the corner. He must have heard the thump I made. I held my breath and waited for the worst.

“Du sorgst dich zu viel (You worry too much). Wenn es jemanden gibt , würden wir hörten ihre Hufe haben. (If there is someone, we'd hear their hooves)” A female voice called. The stallion looked in my general direction for a moment longer, before sighing and admitting defeat to the mare. It must have been too dark for him to see well. I could not believe my luck! He had just walked away!

From what I could tell, the entire tree was surrounded There were troops on the ground, at least 30 from what he could see, most of them being unicorns. There was also ponies on top of the roofs surrounding the tree, at least another 50 or so. And at least a couple dozen pegasi patrolled the sky's around the town. And everyone of them were armed with at least one bladed weapon, and a crossbow mounted to the right shoulder or their armor that swiveled with their heads. And all of the weapons were glowing an ominous magenta.

The only good things about the whole situation were that a lot of the soldiers were chatting and loudly joking with each other, and that they all seemed to have a hard time seeing in the dark. A couple of the ground soldiers had stumbled over a root of the tree, or a rock. Some of the pegasi had flown and clipped branches. Even one of the officers (judging by the 'high and mighty' look and the differently colored armor) had face planted directly into the snow.

I just might survive the night. I began my slow and methodical trek to the forest, in hopes that I could shake the ponies in there. Keeping a constant lookout for any twigs (don't want to step on one now) or anything I might trip on. The edge of the perimeter on the tree extended only a dozen or so yards. But it took me over an hour to get behind the lines. Still taking it just as slowly, I worked my way past the snipers on the roof.

I sped up a bit once I passed the first few rows of houses, but kept it slow because of the patrolling pegasi. I was almost halfway out of the town when a shimmering green bubble sprang into existence around the tree with a sharp buzz-click. I could hear the ponies around the house start cheering and stomping their hooves. I had no idea what that meant, but I did not want to stick around an find out.

O0o0O

By the time I made it to the edge of the forest, it was almost morning. I had some close calls. There were a few time I had to ghost past a guard who was only inches away. The rock against a garbage can trick still works here too.

I had just made it to the original camp I started when I heard a scream of rage. I could tell it was not anywhere near me in origin, but was still loud enough to hurt a bit. The scream had double tones, so I am not sure if two ponies were screaming at the same time, or if someone had angered a ninth level demon.

I figured it was the former when I looked back to the town and saw the guards begin marching out of the town in formation. They must have discovered my vanishing act. Judging on how fast they were marching, I only had a few minutes to figure out how to keep them from following me.

What I figured was by far the most ghetto escape plan I had ever hatched. I took two long strips of bark and cut them down into two foot strips. I then taped them together and reinforced them with sticks. Attaching the ghetto snow shoes to my feet, the sticks barley held my weight. Taking a few tentative steps, I discovered that I still left a slight boot print, though not as sever as it was at first.

I heard the faint sound of armor clanking in the distance, so I knew I did not have the luxury of time. I slipped the spam can of 7.62X54r into my heavy sleeping bag and tucked the thing into my belt. Tugging a few times to make sure it was secure, I began running as quietly as I could.

It was more like waddling, but it was something. I kept up the jog-waddle for as long as I could. I eventually reached a cave in the rear of the woods.

The cave was massive. The entrance alone was big enough for a combine to drive through. The floor was snow free, so I put my bag and ammo back in the ruck, and tied the ghetto shoes to the outside of the bag. I pulled out my Orbez Mosin and stepped in.

Thankfully the cave looked bear free. There were some outcroppings of stone coming out from the walls. There was one about 100 feet back that looked low enough that I might be able to climb up onto it. I had just barley got my footing on the wall to start climbing when I heard someone yelling in German outside the cave. In desperation I lunged for the ledge, got a good grip on the lip and hoisted myself up.

My right shoulder exploded in agony.

I was up, but I had managed to pull my rotator cuff. Swearing, I pulled my duct tape out and, with a bit of difficulty, taped my right arm to the front of my plate carrier vest, behind the load bearing vest. Doing this made me vomit in pain and nearly pass out. But I had bigger worries. One of the pony scouts had found the cave.

O0o0O

I had been laying on the ledge for a good two hours. I was far back enough on the ledge that they could not see me.

The entire contingent had to be here. The din was just that intense. I dared not look though. I was managing to keep quiet about my shoulder Mike was right. The flask did come in handy. The blurred vision that came with the consumption of alcohol was a side effect I was willing to deal with. The lack of inhibitions, however was something I was not willing to deal with. I had taped my mouth shut after a few swigs of liquid fire. Good thing too. I felt the need to tell the ponies exactly what I thought them.

The ponies had been snooping around the cave for a while. They checked every nook, cranny, and crevice in search of me. They did not think to check the ledges. Probably because the lowest ledge (the one I was on) was eight feet above the ground. That was almost three times the height of the soldiers, and as none of them had ever seen a human they had no idea how tall one is and assumed that I was only a few inches taller than them.

My leg had fallen asleep at this point. I had been sitting cross legged for hours, and my leg was driving me mad. Shifting my leg slowly and setting it down in front of me was agonizing, a billion needles stabbing me, but I kept quiet. My leg was just starting to get feeling back into it that was not white hot agony. Pushing my leg out, I tried to keep them limber in case I had to run. My foot hit something with a click.

The section of wall next to me glowed a dangerous red hue. With a flash, the glowing red stone was reduced to a wire frame model of the rock it once was. In a second, the wire dissipated, revealing a passage way behind. It was kind of hard to miss, as the flash filled the whole cavern.

Unfortunately, the ponies noticed it too.

“Da ist er! (There he is!)“ One of them yelled.

Shit.

Having no other option, I stood and stumbled into the opening just as a bolt sailed through space my head just occupied. I leaned against the wall to the right of the entrance, 1911 at the ready. As I aimed it swards the entrance, my hand brushed something. That something emitted a series of high pitched beeps and chirps.

The edge of the entrance hole began to glow that same dangerous glow as before. In the matter of seconds, the entire process from before played out before me in reverse. Where a moment ago the entrance stood before me, there was now solid stone. There was some kind of biolumenecant mushroom growing on the walls which allowed him to see the panel. It would not have been out of place on the Death Star. Gloss black screen pared with a chrome outline that connected to the stone wall. Fearing that the ponies might try to get in and seeing only one way to possibly stop them, he did something that would prove to be a bad idea.

He pulled his 1911 and fired. The pistol rocketed back in his hand, the pistol's backward momentum halted by a strong hand. The copper and lead .45 round slammed into the control panel, sending forth a shower of steel, glass, and sparks. The only sound in the whole cave was the near imperceptible tinkle of the brass case hitting the ground. I holstered the sidearm and released the breath I had been holding.

Reaching down to pick up the case for later, his hand brushed against something. He grabbed the case, then examined the unknown item in the light.

It was the front half of one of those shoulder crossbows. A pegasus must have flown after him and was just a half second away from getting him. The flash must have cut the front half off. Without the firing mechanism, or the rest of the quarrel, the item was rendered useless.

Tossing it aside, I turned my attention to the rear of the passage. Engraved upon a gate was the words 'Mzark'. The two halves of the gate were no longer attached to the frame in which the word was engraved. One half had been flung a dozen feet back, the other looked as if it had been melted.  The one that had been melted was still emitted heat for some reason. Stepping around the still radiating slag heap, I spotted a strange platform in the rear of the cave.

It was a simple looking thing. Round platform with a large lever in the center, surrounded by four gears that notched into slots carved into the wall.

Seeing no other way out of here, I hobbled over to the lever. With a pull, the lever moved towards me. There was a mechanical hiss and a groaning of ancient metal, the lift slowly sank into the ground. I had no idea where I was going, but one thing was for certain.

The wonders of Mzark laid ahead of me.