Author's Note

29/07/2022: Since its been a while i'm going to put the chapter up. i did write it a while ago, but was going to go over it more later when i had written more stuff for the future. But since i have procrastinated so much i have looked over it again for obvious mistakes and put it in.
its a bit of a more relaxed chapter anyway, so nothing intense like a cliff hanger.
thank you all for your patience!

Introductory magic lessens (7)

Sleep came easy to Alexander after the emotional exhaustion she had felt throughout the day. Leaving her back in the same dreamscape she had found herself in the night before.

Not wanting to feel like she was awake in any way at the moment, Alexander made her way into the dream’s recreation of her house and went to the bed inside. Thankfully everything inside was exactly the same as she remembered it, a small comfort with everything she had been through so far. The idea that this was only the beginning filled Alexander with dread.

“Time to see if I can sleep in a dream,” Alexander thought. Still full of mental exhaustion Alexander covered herself with her blankets and buried her head in the pillow.

It took no time at all for her to fall into an even deeper sleep.

/---\

breakfast was about the same as it had been on the first day; though a little quieter as Alexander refrained from conversation, eating a recreation of the previous day’s meal. It was apparent that world of her outburst had not spread, as none were acting any differently than the day before in her presence.

Rime Rose, Night Ray, and Mister Dare had been a bit quieter on the other hand, at least for the short time since she woke up. They were still polite and friendly as ever, though they had picked up on the fact Alexander was not enthusiastic about talking to them. Too bad she would have to for her magic lessens. “I wish I could just go back to sleep and talk to that imaginary Twilight. Would be a lot better than all this.”

Alexander ate her breakfast at a slow pace, allowing the cultists to slowly filter out of the room and go about their business. By the time she was done, the only one left in the room with Alexander was Rime, who sat patiently as she waited for her to finish.

“I hope your meal was to your liking, Mistress?” Rime asked as Alexander set her fork down.

Alexander shrugged. She still felt a bit emotionally fatigued. “It was the same as yesterday.” She then leaned back in her chair, sighing while closing her eyes for a second. “You said earlier that you wanted to do magic lessens after breakfast?”

Rime nodded. “Yes Mistress. I think it would be more beneficial to learn sooner than later. We have no idea how soon knowing magic will become necessary for you.”

Alexander looked towards Rime, feeling a little suspicious of her intent. “And why would I need to know it so soon?”

“Self-defence obviously. Though just knowing a few utility spells will be quite helpful for just about any situation you find yourself in,” she said with a smile. Rime then took a final sip of her tea before putting the cup down on the table. “So, if you wish Mistress, we can go get started right now.”

“Sure… Lead the way I guess.” Alexander then got up from the table. She left her empty plate where it was, seeing as one of the cultists would clean it up like last time. “Practicing magic will give me something to do while I’m stuck here I suppose.”

With a nod Rime Rose lead Alexander back down to the basement complex where she was first summoned. The central room had been cleaned up by now, leaving it empty compared to before.

Rime then led her into a side room she had not been in before. It looked a little like an office, containing a basic desk, chairs, and book shelf. It also was in the process of being packed if the half-filled boxes were anything to go by.

Rime went over to the other side of the desk and sat down, waiting for Alexander to sit as well before speaking. “Last night I wrote a few basic spells down. It will help you with the basics of magic, even if no one else is around to teach you.” Rime the picked up a brown book with a blank cover, sliding it over to Alexander.

Curiously Alexander picked the book up and skimmed the pages quickly. The vast majority of the book was blank, but the first few pages were covered in writing and obvious arcane scribble. Alexander was a little surprised she was able to read some of the general text, even if it did not look exactly like English; same structure but different symbols. She even felt some vague familiarity with the more abstract parts.

Alexander did not want to think about why she was able to read it so easily. Suppressing a shiver she focused more on the lesson to come. “Ok, so I guess I will be writing things I lean down in this? What are we starting with?”

Rime nodded, pulling her own spell book out and putting it on the table. The blue book with a rose made of ice on the cover looked a lot fancier than what Alexander had. “Until we can find material for a better spell book, yes. As for where we start- You already know how to access your magic since you can use basic levitation. Is that all you are aware of?”

“Yeah, I have only had magic for just over a week, and have only been practicing levitation for a few days,” Alexander said. She lightly taped the table with her fingers.

Rime nodded again. “Let’s start with the two basic areas of magic. Technically three if you wanted to split one into passive and active.” Rime took a moment to compose herself, thinking of what she needed for this short lecture.

“The first kind of magic is commonly referred to as sorcery. Night Ray will help you figure out what you can do specifically in that area, but it’s something everyone has if you have magic. Sorcery is in reference to any natural ability a creature has that uses magic. A Pegasus’s ability to walk on clouds, or a dragon’s breath weapon for example. These can also be considered as passive sorcery, since they are done casually without being thought about.”

Alexander just nodded and listened to what rime had to say. If she had to guess her own abilities they would most likely have something to do with dreams at the very least; maybe something with shadows as well. She could not remember if the Nightmare Moon from the show had done anything more than shapeshift her own form.

“Active sorcery is when you manipulate your innate magic in more complex ways. Doing things that magic allows you to be capable of, but requiring practice to get it right. To use pegasi as an example again, some learn how to manipulate electricity and the wind as a natural extension of their innate magic. While any creature with magic has access to sorcery, it is naturally very limited to whatever powers are innate to you, and nothing outside that.”

Alexander nodded. It seemed a simple enough concept to her. “Ok, what of the other type of magic?”

Rime grinned, looking down at her spell book before speaking again. “While sorcery is limited in its diversity, it’s usually easier to learn. Arcane on the other hand is the opposite; with increased complexity you have a lot more diversity in what you can do with it. As long as you have the right formulas, materials, and amount of magic, you can do just about anything you want with it. Thought that’s easier said than done.”

Rime pointed at their spell books. “What arcane magic does is take your raw magic energy and allow you to use it to do things beyond what your sorcery is capable of. You do this by picturing a magic formula in your mind, sometimes needing to preform chants or physical actions as well, and then channel your magic through a magic focus.”

Rime then pointed to her horn. “For creatures such as unicorns, our horns act as natural magic focuses. Many take that fact for granted, but having some sort of focus is required for arcane magic to work. Even if that focus is a simple material component related to that spell. Mana infused crystals are a common enough magic focus for creatures without a natural one.”

“Ok.” Alexander said, looking back down at the pages of her new spell book. She flipped through it lightly, looking over the pages more. “What spell will we be learning first?” despite Alexander’s reservations about her situation, she had to admit she was getting a bit eager to learn how magic worked, and how to cast it. It was a similar feeling to what had led her to looking into how machinery worked, as well as many other facts she had searched up online out of curiosity.

Rime smiled. “We will get to that. But first, how good are you at math and literacy?”

/---\

Alexander sighed, mental exhaustion evident in her tone. She did not know what she had expected, but a spiritual repeat of school was not it. Rime had spent a lot of the day just teaching her about arcane spell formulas, wanting her to actually understand what each component of arcane script actually affected in a spell’s casting.

Alexander knew that was useful to know. It was tiring though. The alternative was trying to follow the formula without understanding what it meant. It was a bit like mimicking someone talking in a different language. Sure you could copy what they said and understand its general meaning to get results, but that did not mean you understood what any of the individual sounds and components meant, or how it would look in writing.

The advantage to leaning the finer components to arcane magic meant she could potentially develop her own spells by herself, or at least that’s what Rime had said.

The only actual spell they had practiced was the glow bulb spell. It was relatively simple, but still complex enough to be good for beginners practice. Alexander had managed to pull it off by the end, much to her own wonder. The spell created a small floating orb of light the size of a light bulb, which floated above the casters head by default and followed them around. Naturally its brightness and how long it lasted was partly reliant on how much magic she used. Later Rime said she would show Alexander what to add to the formula so she could change its colour.

The whole thing had been a good distraction from everything else, and had helped cheer Alexander up a little. Still, the feelings she had about the last few days did not go away that easily.

Now she was being escorted outside by Night Ray. The quiet unicorn cultist wanted to practice outside as it began to get dark.

Alexander looked around as they walked around the mansion. She felt a little sick in the stomach as she looked at some of the surrounding houses. Images of the dead blacksmith came to mind, following by imagining what the other victims would look like.

Alexander felt a spike of anger again at what they had done; but it was quickly replaced by disgust at herself as she remembered just how good the souls felt when they had been shoved into her body. “I got turned into a monster, didn’t I?”

Thankfully Night Ray was leading them away from the rest of the houses. It seemed the mansion was on the edge of town, the only thing past it being fields.

Around the side of the house Alexander saw a few carts and carriages lined up. A few cultists were packing boxes into them, stopping to bow as she passed. Interestingly, an animal that she had never seen before was hooked up to the carts.

The creature was some kind of furred lizard with the body structure of a horse. As odd as it looked, Alexander supposed they had to find something to take the traditional roll horses filled.

As they got past the mansion, her mind still lingered on the townsfolk. Alexander finally got the courage to say something. “What… what are you going to do with them?”

Night Ray stopped, looking back at her with a raised eyebrow. “Do what with whom?”

Alexander looked back towards town with a little nervousness before quickly turning back. “All the people that died… are you just going to leave them there?” She did not feel like just leaving them all there was the best thing to do. Alexander did not want to do anything herself though. She did not think she could look at another body so soon.

Night Ray looked towards the town with a neutral expression. He did not seem to show much emotion in general. “If you’re suggesting we try to bury them, Mistress. We don’t have the time or ponypower to do so. A small number that were well known by some members of our group have been buried. But there is too many to do that with more, and burning the houses would just attract too much attention to quickly.”

He then started walking again, leaving Alexander to stumble a little to catch up. She felt like she should say something else, but nothing came to mind. From a brutally practical point of view he was right, which still did not quite sit right with her. Both of them continued to walk in silence for the next few minutes.

“This should be a good place to practice, Mistress” Night Ray said, suddenly stopping.

They were on the edge of where a wheat field intersected with the edge of a forest. The fencing along here had broken down, rendering its useless in what it was designed to do. By now it was beginning to get dark. Long shadows were cast over everything as the sun set over the horizon.

Alexander took in a deep breath as she admired the surrounding scenery. Everything was quiet and peaceful. Nothing hinted at the horrors that had went on in town. “What do we start with?” Alexander asked, turning to Night Ray.

Night ray nodded. “I will start with an explanation of sorcery before getting onto demonstrations. That is alright with you, Mistress?” he asked.

Alexander nodded, leaning back against one of the more intact pieces of wooden fencing. “If this is anything like with Rime, I’ll be here for a while.”

Seeing as she was ready Night Ray started his explanation. “As Nightmare speaker Rime has already explained to you the basics of sorcery, I will try not to repeat what she has said unless you wish for a reminder. Each type of sorcery is usually universal to a species or subspecies of creature; though exceptions that give individuals unique powers beyond their species natural capabilities exist.”

To show his point, Night Ray held out his hand. Just above the palm of his hand, all light vanish, creating a ball of pure darkness the size of a clenched fist.

Alexander watched this curiously. Her new dark vision made the sphere look transparent, where almost everyone else would see solid pitch black. Everything seen through the sphere looked grey, as if it was a lens that drained all colour from the world. “That looks cool. I wonder if I can do that?” “I’m guessing it looks transparent because of my darkvision?”

Night Ray nodded, dispelling the sphere. “Darkvision is a form of innate sorcery that many nocturnal creatures possess. It normally does not allow one to see through magically created darkness however. That form of darkvision is generally obtained through the practice of shadow magic. Demons and Nightmares are the only ones that I am aware of to have this innately.”

Alexander suppressed a wince at being told demonic creatures have the same ability as her naturally. She did note that he said Demons and Nightmares separately though. “Ok… so what can I do actively?”

Night Ray held up his hand briefly. “We will get to that. First I want to go over all of the passive abilities of each pony tribe. You appear to have the form an alicorn, a creature that legends states contains the abilities of all three pony tribes. So it’s likely you have all of those abilities as well in addition to what you get for being a Nightmare.”

“I have really got him taking with this. I wonder if it’s a subject he is interested in, or is only talking so much because it’s actually necessary,” Alexander thought. While not exactly emotionless, he had been doing quite well to remain calm and show little emotion beyond that.

“Passively from unicorns you gain the ability to levitate objects, fire beams of pure magic, and your unicorn horn, which acts as an innate spellcasting focus.” To demonstrate Night Ray picked up a stick with his levitation, before shooting it out of the air with a thin beam of purplish blue magic.

“I cannot demonstrate the other two, but there not complex to get the idea of. Pegasi have the ability to interact with clouds, being able to both walk on them and manipulate them into structures. Their passive magic also makes them a lot lighter than they should be for their size, as well as allows them to fly despite their wings not being big enough. They also resist blunt force trauma, which makes hitting them with a weapon such as a hammer less effective. Though they are not so resistant to it that they can’t take damage if hit hard enough.”

“That’s pretty much what I expected from the show.” Alexander thought. “Is he just going to only repeat what I already know?”

“Finally we have earth ponies. Their passive magic gives them both physical strength and endurance enhancement, as well as what we call plant enrichment.” Night Ray took a deep breath. He did not talk this much very often. “Would you like me to clarify anything, Mistress?”

Alexander shook her head. “I have the general idea. I’d like to figure out what I can do. How would someone go about learning about what they can do and then improve it from there?” she asked, hoping to be able to learn how to do something before going to bed.

The sun had fully set by now, leaving them both in complete darkness. Both Alexander and Night Ray could easily see each other thanks to their darkvision.

Night Ray nodded. “As you wish Mistress,” he said before taking a bit to compose his thoughts on the subject. “Active sorcery is either obtained by someone trying to tap into the innate magic of their species to expand upon, or completely by accident, commonly through a stressful event. For ponies in particular, they may discover active sorcery unique to them when they discover their cutie mark.”

“Once you have discovered it, all you need to do is practice using it, as well as push its limits. Sorcery in general is build up like muscle, without it decaying from disuse; at least when it comes to raw power. You limitations are your creativity and force of will, as well as the limitation of what your sorcery encompasses. Some have trouble coming up with new ways to use it after they become too used to what they can already do.”

Night Ray then stopped, silently standing there and waiting.

“Is this is?” Alexander questioned, seeing he was not saying anything else.

“Yes Mistress, when it comes to general knowledge anyway. Now we just have to figure out what you can do in particular. The only thing I can attempt to teach you is shadow sorcery,” Night Ray said.

Alexander nodded again. “What do I need to do then to lean shadow sorcery?”

Without a word Night ray held up his hand again. With a grabbing motion he seemingly clung to thin air. What happened however was that some of the shrouding shadows seemed to become more solid, distinguishing them from the surrounding darkness. The shadows Night Ray was holding looked a bit like how floating water would except more misty, being distinct from its surroundings but still see through.

“To learn shadow sorcery you first need to be able to feel the shadows around you so you can identify what you are trying to control. To do this, first concentrate on your magic. Then try grabbing onto some of the surrounding darkness until you are able to feel it. Closing your eyes might help as well, as being blinded temporarily is often used to get in tune with shadows,” Night Ray explained.

Taking a breath Alexander closed her eyes as she started following Night Ray’s instructions. She felt for the cold warmth of her magic and tried directing it like she had when she had figured out her levitation, only this time directing it to her hand instead of her horn. “It does not sound like it would be too different to levitation.”

She reached out and tried grabbing at the surrounding shadows. However, as much as she tried to, all she could feel was thin air. “How am I supposed to grab something that’s not supposed to be ever solid? I probably have to have the proper mindset.” Despite knowing that, Alexander found she was having trouble picturing darkness as anything but a lack of photons.

After more time than she cared to admit trying and failing to grab onto the surrounding shadows, she let out a frustrated growl. Alexander jumped slightly from the unexpectedly feral sound and the fact that she even made it in the first place.

Taking a deep breath to calm down she opened her eyes again and looked at Night Ray. He was watching her calmly, standing straight and professionally. More frustration and sorrow built up insight of Alexander for a moment as looking at him reminded her of everything that has happened so far.

With a sigh, Alexander asked him a question, “do you have any other piece of advice for me that might help?”

Night Ray looked thoughtful for a moment. “Well, one technique used to help get in touch with an element is to remove your clothing so your entire body is expose to the element you want to attune with; naturally this means being surrounded by it. In our case that would be shadow, which the night of quite useful for.”

Alexander gave him a blank look. “Seriously?”

Night Ray gave a short bow, looking at the ground as he responded. “Of course mistress, I am only giving a suggestion that might help.”

Alexander gave him a stern look, not sure what to think of his suggestion. “It does sound like something one might do, but that’s more just because I’m ignorant to how this actually works. I have no idea if he or any of the other cultists have any ulterior motives. That said, out of everyone I have met so far he has been the most professional and straightforward about everything…”

Alexander continued to think it over before coming to a conclusion. She did not think any of the cultists would try doing something to the object of their obsession without her consent. At least she hoped so. “Fine, but you are going to go behind a tree and face the other direction until I say otherwise, understand?” she said sternly.

Night Ray bowed again, more deeply this time. “Of course Mistress, I will follow your command to the letter.” Night Ray then turned around, waking toward a particularly thick tree before taking up a standing position behind it; quietly waiting for Alexander to call him back.

Alexander paused to make sure he was not trying to peak before she hesitantly started to remove her clothing. “I guess I really am doing this in the name of learning how my magic works.” Blushing, slowly her body was revealed to the cool night air, sparkling black fur illuminated by her glowing mane and tail.

Alexander found that the cool night air did not bother her in the slightest; in fact it was quite soothing to her senses. She was reminded of when she had the random thought to go outside nude while she was still on earth, which caused a sense of home sickness to swell up inside her.

Pushing the feeling down she instead focused on the sensations of the cool night air. Oddly enough it felt right to be complexly nude, having the elements exposed directly to her fur. “That is strange. I am definitely not an exhibitionist, so where is this feeling coming from?” for a moment as she thought, Alexander felt like she would prefer to walk around like this from now on, only for her normally sense of nudity to come back shortly after.

Curiously she crabbed each of her breasts with her hands, holding them up and feeling their weight and softness. She found herself admiring her own beauty again for a second. “I get the feeling if I ever did decide to go about without clothes no one would complain…” It felt surreal that this was her body, the odd sensation washing over her. Alexander then shook herself off, trying to dislodge the strange line of thinking from her head. “I need to focus on figuring out shadow sorcery, not that.”

Alexander then relaxed her body, letting her arms fall to her sides as she closed her eyes again. She started going through Night Ray’s instructions again in her head. Only this time she tried to feel the shadows over her body.

She tried to picture them more like a blanket over her body. As Alexander could not completely disassociate herself from the scientific technicality of what shadows were, she instead tried focusing on the feeling of being stuck in a dark place.

At first Alexander was not sure she was going to feel anything except the cool night air blowing across her body. It felt like minutes had passed as she concentrated. Alexander reminded herself that it did take her a while to figure out levitation, so this might not be that different.

After a while though, Alexander felt a mild weight settle over her form, weighing her down ever so slightly. It blocked out much of the wind like a thin cloth, feeling somehow both dry and wet at the same time.

Opening her eyes Alexander held up her arms to look at them. She could see the shadows covering her body, looking the same as what Night Ray had grabbed. It seemed to waft off her body like steam as it clung to her. Alexander even felt some of it get into her mouth, the shadows having a strange airy texture to them along with the mix of wet and dry sensations.

“Well I can feel it now. What do I do next?” Alexander thought. Curiously she tried to get the shadows to do something in a similar manner to how she got her levitation working. Alexander only succeeded in pushing the shadows off of her body and losing her current progress.

She gave off a frustrated sigh before trying again; then thought better of it. Turning to look where Night Ray was, Alexander was not sure if he was still there from how quiet he was. “Well, at least he is not peaking.” “Night Ray, are you still there?”

“Of course, Mistress. Do you need any assistance?” Night Ray said as calmly as ever.

“I have gotten the shadows to cover my body. How exactly do I control them?” Alexander covered herself with her wings just in case Night Ray accidentally looked around the tree.

There was a short pause before he spoke again. “I would suggest to try grabbing a ball of shadows in your hand. Now that you know how they feel, try picturing it as a substance that is malleable, such as clay. At the same time concentrate on your magic and allow it to flow.”

Nodding, even if it was not seen, Alexander followed his instructions. Concentrating, she focused on the previous steps, only focusing it more on just her right hand. Now that Alexander knew what the feeling was she was able to grab onto some of the shadows as she tried picturing the substance like clay.

It seemed that mixing how she had originally used her magic with what she had learnt tonight was what was needed. With effort Alexander took the shadows she had managed to grab and press them into a small ball. It was straining to do so in a way that was hard to truly describe, like the shadows were not all there, partly slipping through her fingers at times.

There was a bit of a strain from it, but the task was not draining her magic in any noticeable way. Alexander could not help grin happily at the fact that she was able to learn how to use more magic. “The basics anyway. This is going to take a lot of practice. He did say this kind of magic is built up like a mussel, so like my levitation I’ll just have to keep practicing this to get anywhere significant with it.”

“I got a ball of shadows in my hand now. What’s next?” Alexander asked, looking from her hand back to the tree.

“May I see, Mistress?” Night Ray simply said.

“Um, yeah, just give me a minute to get dressed,” She said. Alexander let the ball of shadow dissipate before putting her clothes back on. She then concentrated on creating another ball of shadows, something that took a little bit longer than she would have liked. But it was more fun now that she felt like she was getting somewhere. “Ok, you can come back now.”

Obediently Night Ray came back around from the tree. He walked over to Alexander and examined the orb she had made. “Well done Mistress. Quite well for never having tried this kind of magic before.”

Alexander liked her success, grinning as a result. Though her mood quickly dropped when she reminded herself of who was in font of her. “I wish I could be learning this kind of thing from someone that was actually nice and not a cultist capable of mass murder,” she lamented. Definitely a mood killer. “So… what next?”

Night Ray took a moment to think before taking a step back and bowing. “I believe it would be a good idea to retire for the night if that is all right, Mistress. While you have made good progress, you will need to practice more getting a feel for shadows before we can get to any practical application of them,” he said.

Yawning lightly, Alexander found that she agreed with the idea. “That sounds like a good idea. Lead the way then.”

Nodding, Nigh Ray started leading Alexander back into town. He went back to being just as quiet as he had been before.

As Alexander got closer to the mansion, and subsequently the rest of the town, she could see the rest of the cultists had already gone to bed, leaving the town dead quiet except for their footsteps.

The quiet reminded Alexander of just how many people had died here. She started feeling sick in the stomach again at the reminder. She shivered a bit as the long shadows cast by the moon and the houses added even more to the creepy atmosphere.

Alexander’s mood quickly plummeted from there. She had been able to mostly distract herself from what had been happening to her with her magic lessens. Now as her bed time was approaching, those feelings were creeping back up to the surface.

Starting to feel a few tears in her eyes, Alexander sniffed and started walking a little faster. She tried not to think about any of it; being summoned here, finding so many dead, and all the souls that she had unwillingly consumed.

Alexander put her hand on her chest as her breathing started to increase. Ignoring the cultist looking to her, she took a deep breath to try and clam herself. Alexander then forced herself to focus on her path back to her room.

She quickly closed the door behind her, not caring what the cultist following her did. Alexander flopped onto the bed, mental tiredness creeping up on her from everything that had been going on.

Alexander remembered that she had not eaten that afternoon, or the previous one now that she thought about it. As she was not hungry however, she did not find that she cared.

Giving off another yawn Alexander slowly went off to sleep, trying not to cry as she tried to stop herself from replaying the past week in her head as well as worrying about the future.

“I’m going to die here aren’t I?” she muttered before finally falling to sleep.