Thu-Thump. Thu-Thump. Thu-Thump. Constant and strong, her heartbeat, it was all she could hear, flashes of light and spikes of pain came with the beat but they were soon dulled to the point of being forgotten, all she knew was her heart.
Thu-Thump. Thu-Thump. Thu-Thu-. Something was watching her, distracted from her heart she tried to look around herself, finding little but flashes of purple light and darkness, it was the darkness that was watching her.
Thu-Thump. Purple, that was her, she had her heart and her purple. Purple was her Magic... The darkness was still watching, not that she minded that much, it's not like the darkness was doing anything bad, she just wished it would introduce itself.
Thu-Thump. Thu-Thump. Thu-Thump. Purple was her Magic and the Heart was her... Something important, she liked it even if she did not know what it was, not that she knew much if she was being honest with herself, not that she knew herself if she was honest at all.
Thu-Thump. Her Purple, Thu-Thump. Her Heart, Thu-Thump. Herself, Thu-Thump. That Darkness over there. Does the Darkness know what she is?
'Despot, Lord, Keeper.
Thu-Thump. She did not know exactly what that meant, it was not a single thing, more things that could describe her, the definitions of the words came easy but the meaning eluded her. But it was nice of the Darkness to give her an answer.
Thu-Thump. She sent some of her Purple to the Darkness mostly because she did not know if she was able to do anything other then think and Purple, the Darkness seemed to absorb her Purple but she could feel the Purple returning to her faster then the Darkness could take it, knowing her Purple would not run out was comforting.
'You are Twilight, Despot of Tartarus.'
Thu-Thump. A name, title and location, Tartarus was the world under... something else, a place where bad things where, she was the Ruler of Tartarus? Looking around Twilight did not see anything to rule over.
'Blind, I can help you see.'
Thu-Thump. Twilight would like to see things, that was an important sense, touch too was important, and smell but she was not sure how important that was compared to Sight, it might be a bit less important when you wanted to know where one was.
'Occulandius Evoros.'
Thu-Thump. It was an offering, something given to her that she could use, it was more then some words or the meaning, it was knowledge given form, a Spell, it just needed some Purple.
'Occulandius Evoros.'
Twilight could see. Dark and damp she was in some kind of dirty cave lit by dim purple light. Sudden excitement filled her, she began to look around the cave, right before her was some kind of brown bag on the ground its contents spilled out. A book, some rotten bread a glowing white stone. Looking closer she could see it was bone rather then stone, the grooves that ran around it in a spiral where glowing purple. No, wait, glowing Purple, her Magic.
Looking beyond the contents of the long discarded bag and into the cramped cave she could see dozens of minerals she could identify filled the walls, a lovely seam of gold ran from the ground into the solid rock overlooking the cavern, small blind fish swam in a thin placid stream that ran through the ground almost transparent, small cracks and gaps in the titanic rock where too dark to see into without the light from the bone but promised more interesting things to see.
Inspecting one such crevice that was still within the range of her meagre light she found a skeleton wrapped in tattered red rags. A single bony hoof reaching out for the dropped brown bag in desperation. Unicorn, a squat bony spire sticking out from its yellowed skull, much shorter than her own horn.
Horn, looking back at the bag she looked upon the glowing purple bone once more, it was her horn, she was a Unicorn. No, not now and not before, she was something else with a horn but Unicorn was less than what she was. She pondered for some time until the glow began to fade from her horn.
Thu-Thump. Suddenly darkness overtook her once more, she had returned to the place with only her Heart, her Purple and the Darkness, there was almost no Purple around her, but before she could panic it began to come back.
'Weak, you were once stronger.'
Thu-Thump. Honesty, the Truth of the statement struck her, she was once much stronger then she was now, she was also very sure she was once more then a small hoofull of glowing bone. She had to be if she was Despot of Tartarus.
'I can teach you how to be strong once again Despot.'
'I would like that.'
'In nomine asthma mortuus viscerum luce'
Thu-Thump. Another spell, this one was tricky and took some time before enough Purple had returned and she could use it. The spell was beyond the last one she learned, something greater, still if she was a Despot she was more than capable of any magic.
'In nomine asthma mortuus viscerum luce'
'AGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!'
Agony, unceasing pain and torment inflicted upon her the moment the spell was cast. Her pain was unceasing and without reason. Twilight could do nothing but scream into the Darkness, the passive, cruel unkind Darkness.
It almost seemed to grin at what little Twilight was wrathed about in agony.
'Let us begin Despt.'
Time had very little meaning to Twilight in her current state. She was aware of what it was of course and knew it was passing, but at what rate was a mystery. She spent her time looking beyond her horn to carve simple strengthening and mobility runes into the skeleton in the crevice and learning from her Mentor when she ran short of Purple.
What could have been hours or years past her by in the cycle of activity that seemed rather sudden to Twilight, but might have been a slow awakening by the reckoning of, for example, the blind white fish in the slow stream. Knowledge it seemed, was an abundant resource that she could hardly use. There was almost nothing that she could say she knew beyond things that came to her without any reason or measurable trigger, memory however eluded her.
Slowly, she began to finish her work on the Skeleton. Runes ran along the four legs, spine, skull and petrified flesh where it had not degraded to the point of unusability, some to preserve what was left of the corpse, others to hold it together and more still to form a crude nerve system.
‘Incradia Hositorus.’
Her mentour reminded her of the spell it had given her, what had spurred her to begin slowly using low level magic to carve into the preserved bone of the long dead unicorn. A spell that would allow her to gain control of a body.
Of course what the spell defined as a body had been picky enough that the corpse had not come close to fulfilling the role, she had instead spent a good amount of time possessing the body of one of the small fish. Entertaining, if rather unhelpful if she was honest with herself. At least her mentor had seen the humour in her aquatic adventure.
‘In the next decade Despot if it pleases you.’
It was hard to tell if her only friend was being totally sarcastic or if she had just been musing for a decade. It was best not to tempt fate reguardles.
‘Incradia Hositorus.’
Stiff, Twilight felt like she was frozen and coated in a thick starchy substance, she also felt like she was crammed into a small hole in the wall. Extracting herself from the wall was an awkward affair, lots of wiggles and stretches that lead to Twilight dropping unceremoniously onto the cavern’s wet floor. Picking herself up the animated corpse glanced around and began to canter around the cramped space.
‘Enjoying your newfound mobility Despot? Now that you have pulled yourself from that hole you can take stock and make a plan of action.’
‘Of course’
Trotting towards the brown bag and inspecting its contents again she found a waterlogged book, some rot that was once rations and a dozen or so gold coins. Opening the book was enough for what paper had survived to turn to mush so it was simply dropped and twilight picked up the relatively well preserved brown bag.
On the face of the bag was a purple crescent moon surrounded by three light purple diamonds, two on the right and one on the left. Shrugging stiffly Twilight collected a few of the coins that had dropped from the bag and her horn from the floor and put them into the bag settling it onto her back and pulling the strap as tightly as she could, given the lack of flesh it was still rather loose but it would do.
‘I believe a change in scenery is in order Despot, the places between realms in the underworld are vast mazes of tunnels no bigger than a rat and rare sections like this, big enough to swing a cockatrice comfortably’
‘Between realms? Do you think I will find cities or villages? Someone to help us?’
‘Tartarus is littered with magical artifacts and tomes of forbidden knowledge that can be used to recover your former glory Despot, its best we focus on finding a place for you to recover at least some of your power before we go out looking for allies.’
Taking one last look around Twilight quickly found that she did not have terribly much nostalgia for this cave or even its fish. Turning to the wall she had just crawled out of she cocked her head.
‘Whoever used this corpse last must have come from somewhere’
‘Excellent use of deduction Despot, it's certainly worth a try, I hope you are not claustrophobic’
Twilight looked into the dark and cramped tunnel she would have to crawl through, the tunnel that had claimed at least one life.
‘So do I’
Shuffle, Squeeze, Shimmy and try not to scream. Twilight made her way through the twisting tunnel, she had pulled herself in a few dead ends that would have no doubt trapped her if she was in a living body, what reason anypony could have for crawling through this cave in the first place was beyond her, it was a shame that book had rotted away in the damp environment, a convenient jurnal explaining the presence of the corpse would have been very illuminating.
Still reality did not see the need to explain itself very often and so Twilight simply pulled her corpse though the maze of damp tunnels in the hope of reaching, well, something at some point. Some of the runes carved into the bone where able to trap and store enough magic in invisible lay lanes to allow her continued use of some of her spells, she could not fathom how long it would take her to traverse this maze if she had to wait with her Mentor to recover her own magic and begin moving again.
After an indeterminate amount of time Twilights borrowed head popped into a large dusty room. With only the faint purple light from the runes inscribed into her bone it was impossible to see more then a faint outline of the rather more dry and even furnished room. Wiggling forward and out of her hole turned out to be a mistake as Twilight fell down from the crack in the roof of this cavern onto a tattered moth eaten rug placed over hard compressed rock.
Getting to her hooves Twilight use her bodies horn to cast a very simple lighting spell so she could investigate the room she found herself within. Books, well preserved in a roughly hewn stone room, they were stuffed haphazardly into alcoves or piled next to decayed but comfortable looking chairs and cushions.
‘A Library, a perfect place for Sorcerers and Wizards to relax and chat while pretending to work on uncovering arcane knowledge, it seems rather run down however, clearly this was built a long time ago, I sense we have entered into one of the very lowest realms of Tartarus, I had hoped we were closer to somewhere more entertaining.’
Picking up and flicking though some of the books, while interesting, did not help her current situation. Her Mentor did not seem to have any desire to tell her anything it did not find immediately useful or interesting, asking her about her origins had gotten her nowhere, exactly as far as asking what she should be doing.
Well she was in a dry and far more interesting room, her Mentor had gotten her this far. Trotting around and poking at books gave her a host of interesting little spells and musings on the flavour of goat cheese but after the second dozen of tomes read she was getting rather board, the room was roughly square with a single large wooden door almost three meters tall and just as wide, she had poked at it when she first came into the room but with all the books about she had not seen a reason to struggle with opening it.
What little magic her horn and her borrowed body had within it proved to be entirely too little to move the door more than an inch at a time. Spending time pushing at the door and then reading more books as she rested she eventually opened the door just enough to slip her skinny from though.
Rubble, a pile of rubble and rotten flesh in a large square room with a door on each wall, she had come though one of them of course and besides a deep impression in the middle of the floor she found little of interest in this room.
‘Is that so?’
Her hoof in mid step Twilight stopped, there was mirth behind her Mentours voice, it was testing her. Turning towards the middle of the room she carefully stepped over shattered carved stone, glinting melted gold and rotten amorphous flesh until she was in the middle of the room.
Then she felt it.
Thu-Thump. Thu-Thump. Thu-Thump. Magic, she was standing upon a wellspring of magical energy, stagnant, as if it was sleeping, the magic was concentrated in this very spot and spread outwards, she could almost feel the rock pulse around her.
‘This is the place where you will be reborn Despot’.
Something compelled her to pull her saddleback from her back and pull her horn, glowing a deep wonderful purple that seemed to flash with each pulse of the slowly awakening wellspring around her.
‘In nomine asthma mortuus viscerum luce’
The harsh and sudden memory of pain and suffering filled her, but that spell, that promise had given her the power to crawl out of the hole she was trapped inside, pain was a temporary passing thing.
‘In nomine asthma mortuus viscerum luce’
Thu-Thump. Darkness once more. Thu-Thump. More Purple than she could ever remember. Thu-Thump. The pain too, sharper, more wonderful, more alive. Thu-Thump. The pain passed her by, waiting until it was just a faint memory.
‘Its ready, why don’t you take a look Despot.’
‘Occulandius Evoros.’
Thu-Thump. It was louder, and followed her here, looking about the room Twilight first noted her skeleton, discarded at the edge of the room as if it had been thrown away, the rubble and flesh was also gone. Turning towards the middle of the room she saw why, her horn was held in the middle of a pulsing orb of powerful magic. A great talon like a colossal dragons hand that seemed to shift and move as if it were alive had grown from the ground and held the orb in its grip struggling to contain the power of the maelstrom orb of power.
‘You are a potent figure Despot, with just this abandoned realm alone you should find enough power to recover somewhat and begin planning your next move.’
Power, she had power that was certan. She felt an innate connection to the walls around her, the huge wooden doors and even the carpets and bookshelves in the library she had explored. A spell later and Twilight was picking herself up off the ground in her borrowed body, looking around and getting used to the feel of the corpse again Twilight made her way over to one of the other doors in the room.
‘All things that live have within themselves a heart, in addition that muscle you are thinking about.’
Trotting way from the eastern door leading to the libbery Twilight approached the door to the north, with a modest creek for such a massive wooden door it swung upon as if by itself but Twilight could feel the very faint pull of magic to animate the wood and metal.
‘It is the expression of there will to live, to exist in this or any world.’
Warm and pleasant with candles and dimly glowing crystals, the room before Twilight looked to be some sort of living space. Turning to the door to the west and trotting through with confidence twilight found herself looking upon some kind of damp mushroom farm with brightly coloured fungus and strange hive like structures dotting the walls, looking closer she could see dozens of giant beetles and bugs crawling around the room and feeding off the abundant fungi contained entirely within this room.
‘Now within the wellspring of this realm and contained within the Covenant of Armageddon your heart has become the heart of this realm itself, a Dungeon core is the epicenter of your being upon this realm of existence, it's also where your magical power resides.’
One last door, trotting south Twilight stepped through the last door into a grand, well lit room, magical crystals and gold chandeliers hung from the ceiling shining light upon the fine soft sand floor and the many piles of gold, gemstones and silver.
‘It looks like this realm was a contingency or an outpost for another Despot, they will no doubt disapprove of your intrusion.’
‘What?! Another Despot? I did not know what I was doing, what will they do?’
‘Oh they will no doubt enter this realm, establish secondary dungeon core to contest your claim and send wave upon wave of diabolic minion to destroy your Core, this will destroy you once and for all.’
‘What am I meant to do now?”
‘Ready yourself for their arrival of course Despot, I sense no intrusion as of yet but that will change eventually, you must expand this Dungeon, claim resources and strategic regions within this realm and build a force to defend yourself.’
Twilight looked beyond her borrowed body and found she could feel more then see her new Dungeon core, it was a powerful thing power it seemed, was intensely familiar to her. With her presence and claim she could feel the cracks in the Dungeon heal, the cave she had crawled through to enter the Library had sealed shut and the walls seemed to hum with her magical influence.
‘A good first step would be to dig through the rock to to south Despot, I sense there is deposits of gold and some kind of shrine in that direction.’
Digging though the rock? She could do it with her current power but it would be very time consuming, trotting through the Grand Treasure hold Twilight collected power to herself and struck at the solid stone wall, infused with her power a good section of it crumbled to dust and rubble.
‘A rather hooves on approach Despot I adore your independent attitude but I think this is a task better delegated to a minion of yours.’
‘Minion? In case you have trouble perceiving the world around us I am alone down here!’ Twilight stomped her hoof in irritation at the mocking tone of her Mentor.
‘Within Tartarus there are plenty of weak and half faded spirits or demons about, I bet if you focused you could sense them yourself, with the power of your dungion core you could give them a body to inhabit and set them to work, your limit is of course how potent you want your menial workers to be, the better the body the more magic it will take to maintain. I have a few designs I have seen used in the past if you want to be spoonfed.’
Twilight had been ignoring them if she was honest with herself, dark sprites and half forgotten ghosts where abound in this place, too weak to bother anypony, somewhere faint enough to be little more than ambient magic to be formed into spells. Turning away and towards her Liberry Twilight begin to pull books towards herself on the topic of summonings and minions.
A dozen or so books later Twilight relaxed in one of the soft chairs within the room thinking. Imps, quick if rather stupid and with a nasty drinking and smoking habit they did not require maintenance beyond a little magic however so she could have a large number of them without worrying about resources.
Goblins, Much sharper and with a will of their own with a form that was rather similar to Imps, much more magic intensive however and they required food to function long term, they would eat almost anything however and she did have a mushroom and bug farm.
Petite Dragons where the most expensive option, around the same size as an Imp or goblin but with small butterfly wings and four grasping limbs they were a tempting option, combined with their ability to use simple spells they could be a defensive force as well as a workforce.
It was a hard choice and without any real memory of her experiences in the past it was hard to judge what would be the best choice, but her Mentor was right, she needed a workforce to expand and help fortify her dungeon while she worked on recovering her memories.
