The Game: Aether and Mind

Mist Path

Now this really is something the academy couldn't have prepared me for. I thought with a frown while standing on my hindlegs and looking across a lot of ponies crowding the prince's room, or the shambles that were made of it, that was. "Alright fillies, that's enough. Pack up the evidence and place them on the table, I didn't come all the way from Manehatten to Canterlot to inspect guards’ hoof prints."

I could feel the many kinds of magic wash over the room, basking it in blue light to those especially sensitive to magic like myself. All traces needed to be preserved, even if it was as unimportant as the toilet paper, however now this room was as well preserved as preserved fish, something I still cannot remove from my poor mind after visiting Pridestone last summer: What a dump.

"Hello Mist Path"

"Pop"

"Keep talking like that and I'll outlive you." Pop, although officially known as Agent Silent Glider, was one of the older active members of the military of Equestria, and if he was continuing his patch, he'd have good chances of becoming the oldest pegasus yet to date. Despite the milky white claiming his scarred left eye, and deep talon scars forming nearly a sort of checkered design on his trunk, which he hid by always wearing something concealing in, every day he appeared as nothing more than a very grey, old, and bulky pegasus stallion.

"Sure, Glider, did you talk to the witnesses yet?" I asked while turning my back to him.

"Witness." Silent Glider said with a cleanly cut and cold tone while trotting towards me with silent steps. "And I can't quite tell if she is hallucinating, has gone mad, or we're dealing with something very uncomfortable."

"Do tell what you found out." I said slowly while looking at the evidence that was crudely ordered in the middle of the room on a golden silk mat, while illusions of these objects were placed in their original location. "The fight was fierce, but very short-lived."

"Will you listen, or monologue to yourself?"

"Just talk, old stud, we don't have much time 'till the princess takes whatever paltry evidence we have and does whatever in Celestia's name she wills." I said forcefully, before pulling out a small flask, an energy potion of some sort. I haven't slept the last twenty or so hours, a case kept me going, and then as I was about to hit the hay I'm being pulled out of my hotel window and into a carriage to Canterlot. "What did they say?"

"Strong Will, an earth pony mare from Appleloosa was found in extreme conditions at about two in the morning, missing three limbs, an eye, part of her muzzle, and suffering from several other sources of damage, however doctors were able to reattach two of her limbs, the third one is on ice. We could find out that the source were many clean, but devastating cuts."

"I've seen the pictures, you'd think a minotaur went to its last glory, but it's far too precise and straight, although other corpses were found as minced meat in the halls." My stomach turned at the thought of a corridor of shredded meat and walls splattered with blood, but not a single detail about the aggressor being damaged, well, other than a bit off the finger with a unique ring laying before me. "A strong sense of ammonia and boar tallow, several scents of dirt, alcohol, and, what's that, truffle and cream?"

I attempted to levitate it, but it bore resistance, not quite unlike a distortion field, but it was more inert: Wraith metal, nothing you'd find in Equestria, at least, not legally or without quite a large capital. On the ring, a lion's face was engraved, one that I didn't recognize, but perhaps a librarian could shed more light on the symbolism.

"The last meal of the prince. Must've gone for seconds." Glider said dryly, and I could never quite tell when he was joking or being sarcastic.

"Do go on." I said slowly, before putting the finger down, giving the nearly ripped window space a glance, and staring at the second greatest mystery.

A spear of ice, there were not a lot of ponies, unicorns even, with ice-related cutie marks I might add, that could conjure an ice spear spell without preparation, much less in combat, but the most intriguing detail was that not only did it not melt, but it also exudes an aura at the front while remaining stable several hours later. Creating an ice spear, not a literal spike of ice, but the cryomantic spell, was a highly classified and dangerous spell, simply because if a pony were to actually be able to use it, then many less concentration-intensive and widespread spells of arctic destruction would be within their arsenal as well. Bluntly put, to this day most mages deny the practiced art of cryomancy, partially due to Equestria's history with the wendigoes, but also because it was frequently used by enemies of the state to the point that its seen as a near insult to the nation as a whole. This also had the effect that the magic school has become blunt and near-forgotten, but to see one with this efficiency did make me wonder: Who cast it, and how did they learn it?

The closest, publically available spell would be cooling, but the sheer gap would make this connection absurd. Though I assume that the perpetrators took this matter more seriously, seeing as the ice spear was either the cause of the crossbow bolt being embedded in the wall behind me or a reaction to it. But whatever was the order, the assassins were not cheap nor flimsy, firing live wrath iron bolts.

'But then again, the documents did specify how Impressive the Prince is.' I thought, while looking at several small chunks of griffon beak, snot and blood splattered at the hoof of the bed. What did they teach him, and why?

"Strong Will stated that the trio of griffons appeared out of nowhere in the corridor leading to the prince, and the sound or rather, sensation of air cracking, sounded at their entrance." He said, before sharply looking behind him, seeing shaking and gagging personnel of both maidens, the morgue, and the biohazard department of the Magic Tower walk past the open door. "After that, her Info is... fuzzy."

"Fuzzy, you say?" I repeated while picking up a small piece of cloth, but I could already sense the strong scent from some distance away, and I had no intention of killing myself. It was highly concentrated chloroform, but there was also an underlying smell, something much more potent. "Watered down, or even mixed manticore poison, it becomes harder to see if they wanted to take the prince alive or dead." Or between, after all, manticore poison was an intense neurotoxin, usually used to hunt cragadiles, bog boars, or juvenile hydras, not ponies.

"Once they infiltrated the halls, the Guard said that, and I quote 'The world lost all sound.' The griffons started to vibrate, became blurry and distorted, warped, she told me. It was like time and space were distorted." Glider walked up to me and stared with an intense look into my eyes. "They jumped around in all places, through the ceiling, the walls, the ground, in ponies. One second they were behind them, then there where they arrived, and at one point they were briefly hovering outside with wings folded to their side, akin to how some unicorns place barriers below their hooves to garner ground in the air."

"End of the interview."

"And then the fight which alarmed the entire castle, before a yak-sized portal appeared next to the window through which all four of them went. But where?"

"That is the question, and the eggheads are not getting much off the readings, the signal is too far away. The princess has requested several high class ingredients and tools to attempt a scrying spell."

"That desperate?" I asked, but despite my rather poor choice of words, at least when the tightened look of Glider was to say anything, I was not taking this easy. Scrying was not everyday magic, it was dangerous and borrowed attributes from several schools of magic, including soul and dark magic, despite these usually seen under one banner, as well as high-class location magic. The sheer drain of magic was intense, and several powerful mages are gathering to use the spell, though more meant less stability.

"This isn't just some random runt getting lost in Las Pegasus, Mist. This is the first crown prince since the founding of this country, heir of princess Celestia, the first pony to rival the status of an alicorn in strength, control over all the realm and longevity by royal researcher H." Glider said sharply. While the arrival of the prince was met with mixed results, some worrying about the changes to come, many did embrace the presence, even if some glass panels depicted in the unofficial church of the sun were rather... unsettling.

"Stop speaking about him, you haven't met this mysterious doctor H yourself, you're starting to sound like those maniacs calling him a giant owl." I said in response, searching for any more evidence, but it was hard to follow a crumb trail if starving crows were released just hours prior. "I'm just saying that going from dispatching specialists from all around the country to prepping agents with relics for various purposes, to casting spells of these sizes- I'm just worried how highly this will escalate." Equestria has lived a near millennium in peace with only a few, sparse, military interventions through the centuries, and I did not wish to witness the streak being broken, this was the reason I chose this career in the first place: Prevent disaster.

"Escalate?" Glider said, sitting down next to me, but I doubt it was for comfort, he was just tired of standing on the carpet. "You know very well what the death of a royal by a griffon has meant in the past."

...

"War."