Ch. 01; Trixie Makes Impulsive Promises
“Ah’m tellin’ ya, there was a strange pony in tha Everfree, an’ he was bein’ all creepy like when Ah went by on tha trail.”
Trixie Lulamoon, showmare extraordinaire, paused and casually leaned against the wall to listen in on the foals around the corner.
“Most ponies in the Everfree are a least a little spooky, AB,” a second filly replied, “You gotta admit, even Zecora can be a bit odd at times.”
“Well, yeah, but Zecora is all cool an’ mysterious kinda creepy, this stallion was the ‘Ah’m goin’ ta do awful thin’s ta ponies’ kinda creepy.”
“Maybe you should tell your sister?” suggested a third filly hesitantly.
“Like that ever helped with Diamond Tiara,” grumbled the second.
“What do you suggest Apple Bloom do, then?” the third filly challenged.
‘Time for the Great and Powerful Trixie to offer some guidance to the younger generation,’ the unicorn decided as she gently tossed a packet of flash powder just past the corner and ignited it with a quick spark of magical energy, “The Wise and Helpful Trixie comes to you with advice in your time of need!” the illusionist declared grandly as she stepped out of the resulting smoke cloud, “If you are truly concerned about this strange stallion in the Everfree, and you doubt your sibling's reaction, than you should take the matter to the Guard.” Now that she could see them, Trixie recognized the trio of fillies as the “Cutie Mark Crusaders”, local rapscallions and well-meaning menaces, and the sisters (by blood or honorary) of three of the Bearers of Harmony.
“Ah don’t know,” protested Apple Bloom, “Do ya think tha Guard will listen ta us?”
“Of course, they will,” Trixie assured the farmfilly, “Calming ponies’ fears and protecting ponies is why they are here, after all. Trixie could even accompany you, if you’d like?” she offered, seeing the fillies’ uncertainty.
Shortly, Trixie was standing before the local sergeant while Apple Bloom explained her worries to the grey-coated earth pony stallion.
“Did this earth pony say or do anything to threaten you?” asked Sergeant Stone Flare.
“Well … no.”
“And it was just the one pony?”
“No, he was jus’ tha only one Ah got a clear look at,” Apple Bloom clarified, “There was two others keepin’ back in tha trees who joined him when he left, real big ponies, like minotaurs or bison, maybe,” the filly looked up at the stallion hopefully, “Are ya goin’ ta go after him?”
The sergeant sighed, “You are aware that you three have a reputation for gossip and exaggeration, aren’t you? That being said,” he leaned over his desk and patted Apple Bloom on the shoulder, “I’ll have a guard check around town, maybe somepony has seen your mystery stallion, or knows something about him.”
“But aren’t you going to send anyone to investigate him?” Scootaloo protested.
“Send my guardsponies into the Everfree Forest? On the word of one concerned filly? Without any evidence of criminal or even questionable actions?” Stone shook his head, “I appreciate that you’re anxious, but I need more to go on before I can act.”
Looking at the crestfallen foals, Trixie made a hasty decision, “If this matter is not sufficiently dire for you to examine directly, then the Great and Powerful Trixie will take it upon herself to investigate.”
The sergeant reached up a hand to rub the bridge of his muzzle, “Ma’am, do you have any idea how dangerous the Everfree is?”
“Trixie is The Great and Powerful Trixie!” the showmare threw her arms wide as she posed dramatically (with a minor charm to make her cape flare and swirl appropriately), “Student of the demoness HellCaller! The Everfree is Trixie’s home and classroom! And Trixie will take it upon herself to investigate the dangers of this strange stallion who lurks within it!”
‘Oh Trixie, you alicorns damned idiot! Trixie doesn’t know anything about tracking, and even if Trixie does somehow find this mystery stallion, what is Trixie going to do? Ask him if he’s planning to do anything bad or illegal?’ the illusionist berated herself as she stood at the edge of Ponyville her eyes fixed on the looming mass of the Everfree, ‘And how is Trixie going to face those fillies again after Trixie screws this up? Trixie is supposed to inspire foals, but this will be the Ursa incident all over again!’
“Miss! Miss Trixie! Wait up!”
Turning around, the confused unicorn saw a pair of vaguely familiar guardsponies, a bright orange pegasus mare and a reddish-purple coated earth pony stallion, trotting up to her, “Yes? How can Trixie help you?”
“Are you really meaning to go into the Everfree on your own to have a look at this stallion the Crusaders are so worried about?” the mare asked.
“The Great and Powerful Trixie gave her word.”
“And do you have any experience at tracking or investigative work?” pressed the earth pony.
The showmare pulled herself up to deliver a haughty reply … only to deflate into a dejected slump, “No.”
The two guardsponies exchanged glances, “We’d like to come with you,” the earth pony offered.
Trixie blinked at the pair, “But the Sergeant said ….”
“That he couldn’t spare any ponies to investigate without more information,” the pegasus waved dismissively, “But Radish Greens here and I are on leave, so if we choose to help out on our own time, well that’s completely on us, isn’t it?” she held out her hand, “So, anyway, I’m Firefly, want to go on an ill-planned adventure?”
“And if it turns out to be nothing?” the illusionist asked as she hesitantly shook the mare’s hand.
Firefly shrugged, “Then we’ll know for sure, and we can calm the CMC’s fears and prevent another misunderstanding like what we had with Zecora.”
An hour later found the trio deep within the Everfree’s canopy, “Well, have you found anything?” Trixie asked impatiently as Radish carefully searched the ground for tracks or signs.
“Patience,” the earth pony rebuked the rash mare, “Finding a trail based purely on a foal’s description is not as easy as it sounds.” After several more minutes, he rose back to his hooves, “A foal did pass down this trail early in the morning, and another pony did observe from the side before retreating deeper into the woods.”
Firefly glanced over at her partner, “Any signs of the two bovines the filly mentioned?”
“No,” Radish shook his head, “But she did say they were well back among the trees. Only other thing is that there is a faint trace of an old road heading off that way,” he waved off into the forest, “But it looks like that trail hasn’t seen any heavy use in a long time, maybe even centuries.”
“Something for another time, maybe,” the pegasus shrugged, “Well, let’s go and have a look, shall we?”
Trixie grumbled to herself as she glared up at the darkening skies from beneath the brim of her hat, “Of course, now it is going to rain,” she sighed.
“No pony ever promised that all adventures would be happy frolics among the flowers,” Firefly shrugged.
Trixie started to reply, only to be pulled aside with an undignified squeal by Radish, as a massive, insectoid, horror covered in chitinous armor burst from the underbrush, its snapping mandibles just barely missing the surprised illusionist. Shoving Trixie behind them, the two guardsponies raised their shields, their swords rasping from their sheathes, while the creature reared up its centipede-like body and flailed at the ponies with six long, segmented legs.
Firefly and Radish stood their ground, relying on their heavy shields and panoply to protect them from the creature’s spear-like legs and tearing jaws, as they methodically hacked and stabbed away, but, though their blades were soon covered in yellow-green ichor, the insectoid’s strength showed no signs of flagging.
Scrambling back to her hooves from where she had tripped and fallen into the forest muck, the showmare’s magenta aura flared as she shot an icy blast at the horror, swiftly followed up by a bolt of searing light, causing it to rear and thrash about as if blinded. The guardsponies quickly struck at the momentarily debilitated creature, hewing great rents through its body, while an arrow flew out of the trees to embed in the insect’s head.
As the beast’s thrashing slowly died, Radish and Firefly remained on guard, gazing about intently as they searched for the hidden archer. After several minutes, just when Trixie’s patience was about to snap, a buck, clad in homespun, a light shirt of darkened mail and with a bow in hand, stepped out of the sylvan shadows, “So this is what you Equestrians send into the Everfree?” he sneered, “You don’t even have enough sense to have your bows out!”
“And just how exactly would having our bows drawn have helped against … whatever that thing is bursting out right next to us?” Radish demanded as he and Firefly bound up their injuries.
The buck didn’t reply, instead turning his derision on Trixie, “And you! You didn’t even draw your sword!”
Trixie blinked and glanced down at the rapier hanging at her side, “Trixie forgot Trixie had it,” she admitted sheepishly, eliciting a groan from Firefly.
The pegasus turned back to glare at the buck, “So do you have a point to make, or are you just here to be a jerk?”
The deer returned the guardspony’s glower, “My point is that the last thing needed is ponies traipsing around the Everfree and getting into trouble, which will only serve to bring even more ponies causing more problems, so I am here to lead you out, or at least back to the zebra, before something worse than a Forest Crawler finds you … even if you are consorting with the abomination’s minion.”
“Trixie is no pony’s ‘minion’,” the illusionist declared indignantly, “Trixie is HellCaller’s student!”
“And we have a job to do,” Radish asserted, “So you can either help if you’re so eager for us to leave, or you can be about your own business and leave us to ours,” the trio of ponies turned away, leaving the flabbergasted buck staring after them as they pressed on.
Shortly after, the muffled beat of hooves heralded the deer’s return, “If helping you complete this divine’s cursed ‘job’ is the only way to be rid of you, then I will do it,” he muttered, “What is this job, anyway?”
“There is a pony in the Everfree who might be up to no good, or may just be the victim of a misunderstanding,” Firefly replied, “We’re investigating the situation.”
Trixie glanced over at the deer, “Hey, if you are going to come with us, Trixie wants to know your name, because Trixie refuses to keep calling you ‘you’.”
“Varun,” the buck grumbled, “My name is Varun.”
The addition of Varun’s tracking skills allowed the group to move faster, eventually leading them into the outskirts of an ancient, overgrown city, much to Trixie’s astonishment, “Ponies used to live out here?”
“Of course they did,” Varun said, rolling his eyes at the showmare’s ignorance, “You ponies used to have a city here before the Sun-Pony and the Moon-Pony warred with each other. Even after Nature turned against you for your hubris, ponies would still defile the sanctity of the Everfree to settle the occasional town or village, not that any lasted for more than a century or two.”
Radish shook his head at the buck before raising a question, “So what’s got you deer in a fuss?” seeing Varun’s startled expression, he explained, “You lot usually can’t be bothered to interact with ponies, never mind actually escorting them anywhere, so there has to be something going on to make you so eager to get us out of the Everfree.”
Varun drew himself up to glare at the stallion, “The troubles of the deer, if there even were any, are no concern of ---"
“The Royal Guard has every right to be concerned with what happens in the Everfree,” Firefly interrupted the deer’s tirade, “Especially if it involves Equestrian citizens be kept out of Equestrian lands by a foreign group who are only on those lands because of the Princesses’ tolerance in the first place!”
“Enough!” Trixie threw up her hands as she stepped between the three, “This posturing is not helping anypony!” she pointed at the two guardsponies, “The Guard avoids the Everfree except in extreme situations, which is why we are here in the first place!” the illusionist turned her glare upon the buck, “And the deer have no claims of sovereignty or ownership over the Everfree Forest! Nor has Trixie forgotten how your people harass Trixie whenever Trixie enters the Forest unaccompanied by Trixie’s teacher!” she took a deep breath, “Now, Varun, is there anything, anything at all, happening in the Everfree that might have bearing on what we are doing?”
The deer refused to meet the ponies’ eyes for a time, before finally relenting, “Several of the graves in the pony ruins have been desecrated … and some deer have gone missing … but there were no signs of them being attack by manticores or other predators ….”
“But you have nothing to link these events with our mystery stallion?” Radish pressed.
“I never said I did!” Varun snapped, “We just don’t want ponies wandering about willy-nilly and causing more problems, especially now!”
“Stop it!” Trixie demanded, stomping her hoof, “No more pointless arguing! If we work together, the sooner we all get what we want!” The showmare’s fierce expression was quickly ruined as the clouds choose that moment to open up, “Wonderful, and now Trixie is wet.”
Ch. 02; Necromancer of the Everfree
Their mutual suspicion restrained, at least for now, the quartet pressed on, hoping to find the mystery stallion, or at least his camp, before the rain completely washed away the tracks they had been following. After traveling a few blocks through the ruins, they spotted another group coming towards them, with both groups slowing down to cautiously approach each other.
Four deer, dressed and equipped much like Varun, lead the strangers, while an earth pony stallion in a black robe walked behind, flanked by a pair of yaks. “Those are some of the missing deer,” the buck hissed, his hand tightening on the haft of the axe he carried on his belt.
“And that pony matches the description Apple Bloom gave the Sarge,” observed Firefly, “How very convenient, that.”
Radish put a restraining hand on Varun’s arm, “Let’s not do anything hasty, now, for all we know, they’re ‘escorting’ that pony the same as you are with us,” he cautioned the deer, who reluctantly nodded.
As the two groups drew closer, Trixie stepped forward and raised her hand in greeting, “Greeting, good stallion, Trixie would like a word with … oh my Princesses ….”
The four deer were sporting obvious, if bloodless, wounds, while their eyes were blank and filmed, and the yaks’ eyes glowed with a pale blue radiance, while their coats were just as ragged as the tattered heavy furs and cuir bouili armor they wore, with exposed patches of dry, grey muscle showing through rents in their hides.
“Well, well, how fortuitous!” the lemony yellow stallion exclaimed as he smiled nastily at Trixie, “Here I am, telling myself, ‘Coffee Cake, old colt, you need to find more resources’, and four volunteers just walk up and offer themselves to me,” he glanced over at the deer, “Kill them and bring the remains back to the crypt,” he ordered, before casually turning and walking away, flanked by the two yaks.
The showmare stumbled backwards with a yelp of “Zombies!” as the undead deer silently lunged for her, Trixie's horn flaring as she desperately conjured multiple illusionary doubles to distract her attackers and buy her time to fall back behind the guardsponies.
For themselves, Radish, Firefly and Varun were holding their own, albeit not without some difficulty; the zombies still knew how to use their weapons, but at only a basic level of competence, and had no concept of defense, making them much easier to defend against and strike, but the sheer strength of the undead, and their indifference to the wounds they suffered, made them difficult to bring down.
Having recovered both her breath and composure, Trixie drew her rapier and hurriedly threw a trio of enchantments about her companions, causing them to seem to shift and waver, making it even harder for the zombies to aim at them. Thus bolstered, the buck and two guardsponies neutralized the undead in short order, although they had to literally dismember the zombified deer before they finally stopped moving.
“What were those things?!” demanded a shaken Varun.
“Zombies,” Trixie replied distractedly, as she wrapped her companions’ injuries in bandages and dosed them with her small supply of medicines, “One of the most common forms of necromantic servants.”
“Wait, that can’t be right,” Firefly objected, “I’ve seen zombie movies, and these things didn’t shamble, or groan, and they knew how to use weapons!”
“Trixie only has a cursory understanding of necromancy,” Trixie shrugged, “But Trixie remembers Trixie’s teachers saying something about both personal power and the ritual or charm used affecting the resulting undead.”
Radish glanced up as a lightning bolt split the sky and the rainfall intensified, “That’s a concern for tomorrow, we need to find some shelter now.”
The next day, the group awakened to a cold, damp morning, after a cold, damp night. Stretching and stamping to work the feeling back into numb hooves and calves, the quartet stumbled from the ancient ruin where they had gotten a fitful sleep.
“Do you think we can find Coffee, after all that rain?” Firefly asked, sipping from her canteen.
“I suspect so,” the buck replied, “He was arrogant enough to assume that one zombie would suffice for each of us, so I doubt he has bothered to make even a token effort to hide that ‘crypt’ he mentioned.”
“They weren’t the normal, shambling, pawing, type of zombies,” Radish pointed out, “Maybe he has good reason for his confidence? Everything alright over there, Miss Trixie?” he added, glancing at the unicorn who was standing with a forgotten bar of pressed fruits and oats halfway to her mouth as she stared off into the ruins.
“Trixie thinks Trixie is watching … a diamond dog wizard? Opening a store?”
Curious, the other three joined Trixie to observe; down a crumbling alley, a golden coated diamond dog wearing a stained robe and pointy hat, both covered in crudely made stars and moons, as he hung a sign over the door of another ruin, one which had been so overgrown by trees that the inside was probably more cave than building. The sigh proudly declared, “Fido’s Magick Stuffe, Great Open”.
“Okay, this I have got to see,” Firefly declared.
The diamond dog smiled at the little group as they entered, “Welcome to Fido’s Magick Stuffe! Fido gots oceans of potions, rolls of scrolls and mounds of wands! As Fido’s very first customers, Fido gives you ten-percent discount on everything in store!” the cur noticed Trixie and her own star-bedecked garments, and his tail started to wag, “Hello, hello! Fido gives you another ten-percent discount as fellow magick doer!”
Trixie looked around the, surprisingly well-lit, shop and saw that its stock fell well short of Fido’s grand assertions, although it did have some of everything the diamond dog claimed, as well as a small supply of alchemical items. Exchanging shrugs with her fellows, the ponies and deer split up to examine the store’s offerings.
“So,” the illusionist said, her purchases sitting on the counter wrapped in a scrap of sackcloth, “Trixie wonders if you have noticed a yellow earth pony stallion around, probably accompanied by a pair of yaks?”
“Ah, him,” Fido replied with a nod, “Yes Fido has seen pony from windows while getting Fido’s store ready to open,” the cur shuddered, “Fido never tried to meet pony, he and yaks smell of dead things, bad dead things, not good dead things Fido would want to roll around in.”
“Just as well,” Radish observed, “We have personal experience that’s he’s a necromancer and not particularly picky about where he gets his ‘resources’ from.”
“Did you see where he was staying?” the buck asked, “Was he spending a lot of time anywhere in particular?”
Fido idly scratched at one floppy ear, “No, Fido not particularly watching bad-smelling pony. Fido did see him coming or going off that way, though.”
“Why did you setup out here, anyway?” Firefly asked, setting two flasks of a thick, pink, liquid on the counter, “Not like you’ll be seeing much business in a mostly forgotten ruin.”
“What? No! Ancient ruin in magic forest bring all sorts of explorers and adventurers to buy from Fido! Fido just needs to get advertising going,” the cur asserted confidently.
“O-okay, sure,” Firefly shrugged, “So what’s this stuff? The shelf was only marked ‘medicine’.”
“Ah, Pink Stuff,” Fido said happily, “Fido not come up with better name yet, but is very good for soothing unhappy tummy.”
“I’ll take both flask!” Firefly declared eagerly, “What?” she asked, seeing Trixie and Varun’s raised eyebrows, “I have a sensitive stomach.”
The diamond dog’s vague directions, coupled with finding yak tracks in the new mud, eventually led the quartet to a crumbled and overgrown graveyard, and to one small tomb in particular. “Looks like we found Coffee’s crypt,” Radish grunted as he peered over the stump of a long-fallen wall, “You never did say how many deer are missing,” he added, glancing at Varun.
“Six,” Varun reluctantly admitted, “Including my cousin.”
“So, we have the yaks, Coffee himself, and possibly two more zombie deer,” Firefly chewed pensively on a shoot of grass, “And that’s assuming he doesn’t have anything else down there.”
“Trixie hates to say it, but should we go back to Ponyville for more guards, maybe send to Canterlot for a magus?”
“Can’t afford to,” Firefly sighed, “Coffee knows that ponies are looking for him now, so he has plenty of reason to simply up and move, and Princesses know how many more he’d kill before he was found again.”
“And a warband of ponies roaming about the Forest could rouse far worse things than one necromancer,” Varun pointed out.
“Besides, there’s a chance Varun’s cousin is still alive if we go now,” Radish added, drawing a small, thankful smile from the deer.
Varun glanced over at Trixie, “Unicorn, could you put your spell upon us again? The one that made us hard to see?”
“Yes,” the showmare nodded as her horn began to glow, “But Trixie must warn you that such illusions only last minutes, even with the Great and Powerful Trixie’s mastery of the art. Depending on what Coffee has hidden within the tomb, the enchantments might fade before we reach the end.”
“Then we best hurry,” Radish replied.
The glow from Trixie’s horn and Firefly’s lantern revealed a shadowed crypt, its sides lined with empty stone biers, while at the far end, a stairwell, its mouth half blocked by vines and brambles, plunged down into the earth, “Well, this is disappointing,” the pegasus grumbled.
“Everypony must be downstairs,” suggested Trixie .
“Past that?” the buck protested, pointing at the overgrown stair, “There’s no way the yaks could have gone through there without leaving some sort of sign.”
“Then we’re obviously missing something,” Radish snorted, “Everypony have a look around … carefully.”
As they slowly spread out around the chamber, Varun frowned as he neared the vegetation blocking the stairwell, “Something’s wrong wit—” the deer flung himself aside, barely evading the vine that lashed out from the foliage, as the flora drew itself together into a vaguely bipedal mass. The temperature in the back half of the crypt suddenly plummeted, the quartet’s breath misting in the cold and hoarfrost spreading across the ancient stones, even as Trixie pulled the buck back to his hooves, and Firefly and Radish raised their shields and surged forward.
Varun swore as his arrows bit into their woody foe to little effect, while the two guardsponies hacked away at vines and brambles, the lashing creepers tearing at armor and flesh alike, seemingly indifferent to the illusionist’s charms, while blood oozed from cuts and scrapes that appeared seemingly at random across the ponies’ bodies.
Carefully moving off to the side and behind one of the empty slabs, the showmare raised her newly purchased wand and unleashed a gout of flames into the botanical monster. While the mass of dried flora immediately went up like kindling, the animate plant lashed out past the two guardsponies and across the slab to knock Trixie sprawling, thorns raking her skin as the edges of the wounds instantly went necrotic.
The buck quickly fired a pair of arrows, while stallion and mare hewed away with their swords; darts and blades plunged deep into the flaming mass, causing the murderous plant to shudder and rear up to tower above the ponies and deer.
Before the vegetal guardian could strike, however, the quartet fell upon it with blades, arrows, and a magic bolt from Trixie, and, with a loud crackle of flames, it crumpled into embers and smoke.
“I thought your spells were supposed to protect us!” Varun griped.
“It was a plant!” Trixie protested, biting back a scream as Firefly scraped away necrotic flesh before applying medicines and bandages to the cleaned injuries, “Plants don’t have eyes to trick or minds to deceive! Trixie doesn’t know how it was even detecting us in the first place!”
“So, Coffee Cake has some tricks up his sleeves,” Firefly said as she pulled Trixie to her hooves, “Best we don’t give him more time to get them prepared, then.”
The stairwell plunged down to a small antechamber, its floor covered in dust and crumbling bone shards, while flickering torchlight spilled from an open archway. Beyond the arch, a short stair lead to a wide room; lit by everburning torches, it was much like the mausoleum above, lined with slabs that had once supported coffins but were now empty. The yaks, massive clubs in their hands, stood near the center of the tomb, flanked by a pair of zombie deer, while Coffee stood near the far wall amongst several ritual implements and some camping gear, “About time you got here,” the necromancer grumbled, “Do you have any idea how hard it was to create that dreadweed? How many rituals it took? Well, at least I’ll get your corpses out of this.”
Firefly and Radish started forward, shields raised and swords at the ready, “Sorry, pal, I’m no pony’s consolation prize,” the pegasus retorted, as Varun loosed an arrow that glanced from one of the yaks’ armor.
“I am Coffee Cake, master of the dead!” the earth pony sneered, “You are whatever I want you to be, and what I want you to be is …” he raised a hand dramatically, “Deceased! Arise my minions!”
Trixie would have, reluctantly, given Coffee credit for decent theatrics, even if his name lacked a certain villainous flair, but she was distracted as the dust and bones she stood in swirled up into a pair of decrepit looking skeletons, that promptly started clawing at her and Varun.
Varun’s armor protected him from his attacker, but the showmare was left with a gashed cheek and nicked ear as she dodged aside. “Levnim Kaegro” she chanted, hurling a bolt of warm, golden, energy at one skeleton while she lunged at the other with her rapier. Much to Trixie’s surprise, both undead collapsed back into dust from a single solid hit.
Back on the front line, the two guardsponies were grateful for the protective spells Trixie had cast earlier; while the zombified deer were much like the ones they had fought yesterday, the two yaks, in addition to being bigger and stronger, retained greater skill with their weapons, and still had some sense of tactics and teamwork, making them far more dangerous. Still, the ponies’ combined efforts, supported by Varun’s archery, had already destroyed one of the deer zombies, and was making progress on dispatching the other.
Coffee, seeming more annoyed than anything else, waved his hand and unleashed a blast of purple and black energy that left the guardsponies covered in septic-looking cuts and bruises, while several of the zombies’ wounds faded away.
Trixie dropped over the side of the stairway, a quick charm conjuring up several illusionary duplicates of herself scattered across the crypt, and headed off to the side, giving her a clear line of fire for her spells.
“Cheap conjurer’s tricks,” Coffee sneered at the showmare, “Minions, arise!” and at his command, the dust and decay of the ancient past coalesced into another pair of skeletons.
One dropped almost instantly, an arrow through its breastbone, while the other lunged for Radish Greens, only to collapse into charred cinders as Trixie enveloped all four of the undead in a spray of flames from her wand. Firefly took advantage of the situation to hack the weakened, burning, zombie deer’s head from its shoulders.
Coffee’s scorn soon faded into anger, and even a little fear, as the two guardsponies, aided by Trixie’s fire wand, reduced one of the yaks to a pile of dismembered, smoldering limbs, while one of Varun’s arrows sunk deep into the stallion’s left bicep. “Enough!” he roared, “I’ll not be beaten by a few soldiers and a divinesdamned magician’s tricks!” a wave of dark energy rolled out from the necromancer, knocking Firefly, Trixie and Radish from their hooves, extinguishing all of the illusionist’s mirages, and leaving the ponies covered in wounds.
Staggering back to her hooves, the showmare wiped the blood from her eyes and glared at the enraged earth pony, “You want to see tricks? Then the Great and Powerful Trixie will show you one! Behold!” sweeping her hat off, Trixie reached inside and pulled out … a full-sized manticore!
Coffee recoiled in surprise from the snarling beast the unicorn had just summoned, only to give a startled cough and drop to his knees, blood seeping from his mouth, as Varun’s arrow buried itself in his throat. With a final, faint, gurgle, the necromancer toppled.
Looking up from where she and Radish had been busy destroying the last yak, Firefly frowned uneasily at the growling manticore pacing beside the other mare, “Uh, Trixie? What are you going to do with that?”
“Oh, this? This is but another of Trixie’s figments,” Trixie explained, dismissing the invocation with a wave of her hand, “The Knowledgeable and Studious Trixie cannot truly summon such creatures,” her blood-smeared muzzle turned the unicorn’s sudden smile nightmarish, “Yet!”
Having cleaned and bound their injuries, set Coffee Cake and his yaks to the torch, and carried the remains of the deer back out to the surface, Varun’s cousin sadly among them, the four paused to catch their breath, “So, what was with the magic words?” Firefly asked as she stretched her back.
“It is part of the new magic that HellCaller is teaching Trixie,” Trixie explained, “Trixie is rather grateful that her mentor considers a charm against the undead a basic cantrip, although Trixie never expected to actually need it.”
Radish looked around, “Well, I guess that’s that. Only thing left to do is head back to Ponyville and report in.”
“Not just yet,” Trixie demurred, seeing her companions’ confusion, the unicorn clarified, “We must return to Fido and convince him to move to Ponyville, or at least much closer to the town or to the deers’ villages. The Compassionate and Helpful Trixie cannot just leave the poor cur to spend his days all alone in a nearly forgotten ruin, waiting hopelessly for customers that will never come.”
“Fine,” Firefly sighed, “Let’s go have a chat with the diamond dog,” she gave a small laugh, “Maybe I can make a standing order for that stomach medicine of his.”
Author's Note
The Magus Corps is the creation of Chengar Qordath. If you are curious about more Magus adventures, I suggest checking out his Freeport and Lunar Rebellion stories.
