Chapters A Thaumaturge in Equestria
Success, the day was finally here. With the thaumium bossed silverwood scepter by their side with their collection of staffs and foci, they were finally ready to finish what the cult has started.
The thaumaturge before the obelisk had started out innocent enough, if a bit exuberant at the prospect of learning about the world around them. But such exuberance soon cost the poor mage their sanity as their mind degraded from warp and handling tainted magics. But no matter, the void calls to them and they must answer now.
They place the four opened eyes around the obelisk alter before focussing their scepter upon it, pouring vis directly into the eyes to open the Eye, to complete the ritual the cult had failed to complete, to enter beyond the mortal realm, to defeat the eldritch beings that clearly laid beyond the opened portal.
Oh, the portal is open now, and guardians are pouring through into the mortal plane. No matter to them as they hop through, the other thaumaturges can take care of them. Afterall, they had left plenty of weapons designed to kill the eldritch beings that call the plane beyond home. Of course they took the best weapons for themself, after all they were the one going directly into the stronghold, not the others.
Through the spiralling darkness they fall, and fall, and fall. They try to adjust their robes, dark as the void that was around them moments before. Now they stand in a forest, having dusted themself off from their untimely exit from the portal, which has disappeared. They take their thaumometer out of their bag and check the surrounding air for any trace of the portal. Nothing but aer and vitium. Of course there would be vitium in the eldritch world, though they had not thought that the eldritch world would contain flying hostile pastel ponies. Which after making contact with their void thaumaturge robes seems to be dazed. Which is understandable since they had infused void metal armor and their original thaumaturge robes to create the garments that would protect them from eldritch magic, much like the purple one is using on them right now.
Strange how weak these eldritch creatures are, they're almost adorable with how weakly they protest against his presence in their realm. Is this how the guardians felt when they protested their existence on the mortal plane? Strange how these ponies hold ordo as well, the eldritch keep strange pets. Perhaps maybe the eldritch weren't guarding precious secrets of the beginning of time and the true nature of the arcane, but rather their colorful pets which they in a way love. It's hard to think the eldritch would be capable of love, though these creatures are talking amongst themselves. The flying blue one has gone missing. Strange.
They pull out their thaumometer, taking a look at the local flora produce more vitium herba. Strange how it hasn't tried to take over the thaumaturge yet.
Perspective Change
"Twi, what is dat thing. It's just ignorin' my lassos and shrugged off Ra'nbow's attacks liken it didn't even notice 'er" Applejack gripes, glaring daggers at the black robed figure in front of them. Clearly it was what caused the giant blast of dark magic that Twilight had sensed in the forest, after all it's wearing all black. That means it's clearly evil... Right?
"I-I don't know Applejack, I've never read about anything like it before." Was Twilight's reply. The thing hadn't attacked any of them yet, even though they had attacked first. Either she was wrong about what caused the dark magic burst, or this thing didn't think they were a problem. "That's why I sent Dash to go send a letter to Celestia, maybe she'll know, or send us the Elements of Harmony to purify it like we did with Luna" She looks at the creature doubtfully "Though, this thing doesn't seem like it ever was pure..."
"I mean, it can't be all that bad Twilight" Rarity responds, looking a bit nervous at the way the creature walks around the clearing, flinching slightly when it held up a large golden ring with glass inside it to her face. "If something could design clothes so... impenetrable while keeping such a... 'nice' color scheme and overall regal design, surely it has some form of civilization to return to... no?" While the end of her sentence was meant to be rhetorical, it came out more as an actual question. Making Twilight raise an eyebrow at her fellow unicorn.
"Ya know Twilight!" Pinkie suddenly pipes up from the side, making the recipient of the comment jump slightly, as she wasn't there seconds ago. "The way they move, it's sorta like how you do around the library when you're studying super duper uber hard! You know, the kinda hard where we need to come by with food to make sure you don't starve and I sometimes have to set up a party to get you to socialize and-" This tangent goes on for a while, but most of the group tunes the rest of her rambling out, by now figuring out that Pinkie will be Pinkie.
The creature is suddenly in front of Pinkie, almost as quickly as Pinkie was beside Twilight, making everypony besides the mare in question jump. Pinkie instead seems to just smile wider and hop around the thing, rambling about "Taintacles" and "Research notes about cupcakes". The creature holds up it's strange ring and looks through it at Pinkie, rumbling out the first thing they've ever heard it say, and it hurts their ears to hear it speak.
It's as if the oldest language in their world had a child with the screeching of a foal and the cawing of a bird. If by 'had a child' means 'all at the same time'. Almost immediately, the four mares aside from Pinkie faint, Fluttershy not having peeped a single word before she was assaulted by the alien and eldritch language. Pinkie continues her hopping, her ramblings never ceasing. Through the haze of unconsciousness and the absolute eldritch nature of the sound coming from the creature, Twilight felt one word.
"I̺͙̠̥N̥̰̰͚T̵̛̰͖̳̺̩̖̳̱Ḛ̸͢͝R̖̻̣̕È̝͖S̤͈͈͍͇͝T͔̲͖͚̭͘͞I̡҉ͅN̡̦͖̜̩̫̳͠G͉̣͇͍̻̳̠̮͢"
Author's Note
Maybe I'll actually finish this one :P Don't plan for it to be too long. Maybe some misadventures with our warped thaumaturge going about the pure and generally untainted life of Equestria, not knowing that using brains is generally considered evil and infusing golems with said brains is morally reprehensible
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A Thaumaturge in Equestria
Chapter 1: The Plants here are Interesting or A New Aspect
"Interesting" Their voice isn't how they remember, but they pay no heed to that. What's in a voice after all? Though they suppose the fact that most of the ponies fell unconscious is a downside to their new voice. Are they what is considered eldritch? A being invading a 'mortal plane' who is an unkillable brute? Is that what the guardians were? Researchers who had been attacked mercilessly by thaumaturges for ages? The pink one though, it had a new aspect. They have no idea what it is, and are suddenly regretting the fact they didn't bring materials for a research bench. Maybe these creatures are thaumaturges too? Maybe they would have what they needed to continue their research.
The flower is strange, it holds praecantatio, potentia, and ignis. It almost looks like a sun had bloomed on top of a flower stalk. They need to pick it for future study but... It seems fragile. But it gives off a form of magic they've never seen before, but the sun hurts.
Oh, the sun hurts. They hiss at the sudden, scorching presence of the sun in the clearing, taking out a pouch of their cleansing salts and looking for a pool of water to bathe in. They had thought their warp would cease while inside the eldritch realm, but they suppose they had been wrong in that hypothesis. They mentally bookmark their surroundings and move into the forest, even a calm enough stream would do, though the darkness of this eldritch forest seems to calm their skin a bit.
The purple one continues its attempts at summoning magic around them. Strange how it can't even summon enough strength to break through the void metal, even the weakest of the cult could do it... Even if they were severely weakened afterwards.
The water feels nice, it almost brings her back to his senses, especially with the purifying salts acting to sooth the aches and pains of warp on her mind. The ponies were still staring at him though, which made her slightly uncomfortable now that his senses are returning slightly. How long ago did she do this? How long had he been suffering under the effects of warp? She supposes the last time he bathed, period, was her previous warp event, flux flu is not good when you're trying to enchant items in the arcane workbench.
His focus returning, proper nouns are still messed up but at least she isn't talking about himself as an 'it' anymore. But now that she was thinking straight, he realizes this most likely isn't the eldritch veil she was working towards. It defied all previous observations made by other thaumaturges and even the cult's 'Crimson Rites'. Something about this is wrong... But what?
During... Their they suppose, until they take off their robes to make sure which sex they are. During their bath, the ponies continued to stare. Obviously they thought they were strange. They should make bathing a more common occurrence, their sanity would be needed for the upcoming events. They clearly had magic, maybe they would have the proper elements for them to use to study and get back home to her fellows. Not that it matter, they had their thaumonomicon on them, as well as their research stamps, quill and ink, and of course their thaumometer.
Research would not be a problem as long as they could create proper work spaces.
Perspective Change
The creature's erratic movements seem to calm down as it sits in the river, the pouch emptied into it to reveal it filled with bathing salts. The way it made a beeline to the river was unsettling, as if it had a primal need to bathe at that exact point in time. It unnerved even Rarity, even though she was prone to seek out bathing implements on random occasions, the suddenness even to her to bathe in the middle of the everfree forest was disturbing.
It even seems more... aware of its surroundings now, noticing the stares of the mares upon it while it bathes with it's robes on. It quickly gets out of the water and looks down at the mares, in a way that says "lead on".
They slowly turn around, leading the thing out of the forest. Though Twilight has the foresight to not bring it to Ponyville quite yet, rather taking the creature towards the whitetail woods instead. Soon the dreary atmosphere of the everfree turns to the more orderly birch of the whitetail woods, the creature seems to notice this and pulls out it's strange device again.
Getting a good look at it now that the creature wasn't flitting about like a breezie on a sugar high, Twilight notices that it's clearly arcane of some sort. The idea of new magic that no one else in the world could even hope to know makes her mouth water, literally in this case as a polite cough provided by Rarity makes her realize her drooling state and Twilight shuts her mouth, blushing fiercely and shows an embarrassed smile. The mares around her smile knowingly at her, momentarily forgetting about the creature following close behind.
After a few more minutes of walking, they reach the edge of the whitetail and are in the open fields within the basin of Equestria. Northwards and a little east the giant spire of mt. Canterlot rises in the distance, the gleaming towers and buildings glowing in the early afternoon light. Far closer though is the town of Ponyville, within walking distance but still quite a bit aways.
Three specks can be seen on the horizon. Two larger forms alongside a smaller one that almost blends into the blue sky if not for the rainbow streak floating behind it. The largest form being a stark white, easiest to see especially with another rainbow trailing behind it. The other large form, though not as large as the white one, is also a bit harder to see, dark blue on the sky with but sparkles floating behind it. They're still too far away to really tell who or what they are exactly, but the mares could make an educated guess considering there aren't many forms like those three, that would be flying towards them at least.
Behind them, the creature speaks again. It's the same voice, but it seems less jarring this time. Still as horrific and they still faint. But as they fade they realize they might not be out for as long this time. Twilight once again hears the gist of the sentence that comes out of the creature's... voice... hole.
Ţ̰̫͎͖̬̲h͟͟҉̞e̸͙̦͇͈͕̜͇̰̤͢͞y͏͈̖̠̣̣̜̘---- ̷̥̝͝F̛̘l̴̳̟̝̼̼̘̳̺y̨̠̣̦̦̥͚̳͎
Author's Note
Due to how different time flows in the game I'm basing the Thaumaturge on, 'warp events' which last four minutes in game, would last closer to 5 hours in real time. So while a minor inconvenience in game, a real thaumaturge would want to take purifying salt baths whenever a warp event comes up. At least the especially bad ones. Such as thaumoria, flux flu, sun scorched, etc etc.
Also, the Thaumaturge has had both eldritch epiphanies. Hense how they are able to enter the eye. So by this point all they need to do is find a 'primordial pearl'. But since Equestria probably doesn't have those... Suggestions for a replacement item would be appreciated.
Like if you liked, explain why you don't like it, etc etc. Cya in the next chapter.
Also, point out inconsistencies that aren't clearly part of the insanities of the Thaumaturge.
A Thaumaturge in Equestria
Interlude: Future: Where Are my Salts!
Author's Note
As the title says, this is an interlude. It's basically a bunch of comedic half baked ideas that are floating around in my head.
You can skip it if you want, it doesn't have much to do with the story, I just thought it'd be funny to write some warp situations. Most of them won't be more than 2-3 paragraphs, so don't be disappointed.
Interlude: Future: Where Are my Salts!
It's a beautiful morning in ponyville, days have passed without incident and the townsponies are relaxing in the peaceful week that's sure to come. Afterall, if the first half of the week was easy, then the last half will be just fine.
That is, if the black robed creature from before wasn't currently glaring out from the darkness of Twilight's darkened basement like a foreboding shadow. A foreshadow if you will.
"Won't you come out Thaum? I don't know what's gotten into you but you need to get some sunl-" As soon as she starts saying it, a flurry of almost legible voices come pouring out of the creature in her basement. She caught things such as 'the sun burns' and 'it hurts my eyes down here'. Obviously she thought it was overreacting, though she didn't realize that the creature meant literally what it said.
Eventually, Twilight forces the Thaumaturge up and out of the basement and out into the light of the sun. It looks calm for a moment and Twilight smiles kindly at it, as if she had just helped out one of her friends. In fact she was just about to head into the library to write such a friendship report when the Thaumaturge suddenly ignites and starts screaming in its eldritch tongue, running down the straightaway, making ponies around it faint as it goes by them screaming.
Twilight then decides to just slowly go back into her house and close the door, pretending she didn't force her friend out of the safety of darkness into the burning purity of the sun.
Twilight stares, there's a mess in her house.
Twilight stares, a mess with warning signs around it.
The signs say "Don't touch"
The signs say "Especially you Twilight"
The Thaumaturge is cleaning it up.
The Thaumaturge is placing her good towels on the glowing purple puddles. Then burning them.
Those are her good towels...
What is that purple stuff...
Why can't she touch them.... Especially.
"Thaum, what did you do"
"M̤̹͚͎̀e̪͢ś̷̞̱̞͕͍̩s͏̢̯̱͞"
She realizes something then and there.
Applejack gets to take care of it next week.
The creature seems frustrated, looking over it's strange workbench, glaring at things she couldn't even hope to understand.
"What seems ta be the problem Thaum?" Applejack asks the black robed being in front of her, wondering why it looks so frustrated
It speaks and Applejack winces, the spell Twilight cast lets her at least semi understand what it's saying, but it still hurts quite a bit to listen to it speak. "F̯̩̬̲̹̞̪ͅl̶̡̙͓̬̹̀u̸͚̙̟̭̮͍͓̕x̺͙̝̜̯͠ ̸̖͓̕͠F̧̫̀l̗̙̠̭̝̥͙ṵ̸" It pauses. "N̶̶͓̬̝͕͚ͅo͏̞ ̶̫̪͡N̸̸̜͍͓o̗̤̜̟̻̞̻̥d͏̤͚̗̻͔͔̥͈e̸̜̺̫̹͓̲͜" It seems to frown. "U͏͙̤̦͍̖͕̞̖͎́n̛҉̫͈̭ć҉̙̹r̸͖̹̞̻̤̭͝a̧̖͚̟̩͡f̷̵̫͚͘t̟͉̖̖̝̲̬̥͜͞a̵̛̠̖b̟͚͔̝̠̻̹l̺̮͍̖̳̪͕͠é̸̡͕̳͕̻". Of course, whatever it said was actually much longer than what she understood, and even what she understood didn't really make sense to her. What is flux flu? A node? What did those have to do with whatever it was making?
It then grumbles something about salts and alchemy. But Applejack has had enough of the headache the Thaumaturge speaking gave her and simply walked away. Rainbow Dash should take it next, she might be able to stand it more since she did give two tail shakes about trying to understand 'egghead stuff'.
