The Final Account of the Dark Arts (Anniversary Edition)

Chapters

Chapter R1.3: The Factual Characteristics
Chapter R1: What Little is Left
Chapter R2: Necromancy
Chapter R2.2: Undeath
Chapter R2.3: Sight
Chapter R2.4: Domination
Chapter R2.5: Eternity

Chapter R1.3: The Factual Characteristics

The magic of our progenitors may be dangerous, but it is only as dangerous as the Sun above. Its discrimination is unjust; while a mare that may call the weight of the heavens themselves down upon those who have lost Her favor sits at the top of our world, there will always be a present danger. There is nothing more to fear from the manipulation of the body or soul than there is from She whom we hail as Goddess.

Dark magic does not corrupt, it only enlightens. As one learns of how life came to be, one will naturally grow jaded. Some lose their minds, or grow intoxicated of the power the arts grant. For the disturbing nature of some acts we make possible, it certainly seems to correlate with those raving lunatics that raise armies of the dead or see fit to bewitch a spurned love out of snubbed jealousy.

But there is no inherent fault within our arts that steals sense and compels evil. Those who are unable to handle the impossible responsibility we are all saddled with only carry the fault of ill temperament; they themselves should be singularly blamed for their crimes, not the tools they bring to bear, for those tools are well and truly benign. It is only magic, and as the lost Pillars of Equestria oft spoke, magic is the wheel by which our world turns.

If we are to be measured, then let us not be measured at our worst. Our greatest are paragons of stoicism; they who stand at the gates to Hell do so without care for their own safety, but know that there are many things that must be safeguarded. They do so without expectation of a reward; rather, they have grown to accept that they are hated. They do not care, nor did they care as the sun bore down on them with all Her fury.

For they fought so that the sun may rise in the morning.

Chapter R1: What Little is Left

In the year following our patron Mistress’ banishment, sworn through hushed breaths by the surviving few as the Anathematic Eclipse, the Solar Tyrant, in all Her brutality, saw fit to further extend our suffering. Her displeasure with what some would call unsavory arts, as some may further befit, was never so evident as in the time after the thrones were divided.

Sol Invictus, so named for Her unflinching cowl of cruelty even in the face of the many impossible woes laid at Her hooves, made the following decree: that any school of magic or spell of harmful effect that infringes upon the rights of sanctity, the self, and the soul are henceforth outlawed to varying extents.

Her farcical agenda was soon after made clear, her lies exposed for their revolting truth as Her dogged order of justiciars spread across the lands from Her seat of ill-gotten power, razing the existence of our arts wherever their soiled hooves met ground. No institution devoted to the other side of magic, large or small, was spared.

The Willful Sinners were all but annihilated; their discreet temple of mindfully forbidden knowledge hidden in the Hollow Valley was collapsed on top of them, burying lives and irreplaceable tomes alike. Their solemn statute to watch over the light from the dark was betrayed, and all they fought to protect was forgotten.

May She grant them peace.

The Precipice in the depths of the Smoky Mountains was torn asunder; its latent connection to the Underworld was disrupted by the Holy Archmagus, leaving its patrons on the other side with no tribute to offer. None hold hope for their return; there will be no pity for those who cannot pay the toll.

May She grant them peace.

They Who Opened The Door were ambushed in the night, their throats slit, and their minds lost to unconsciousness within the Dream Realm. If there is peace to be found in the formless expanse with the Dream Mistress, then may they find it, if only to spare Her the sorrow.

May She grant them peace.

The Thestrals in their entirety were driven from their homes and into the deepest hiding, though some whisper that their very race has been taken hostage. There is no price that would pay their bail; this persecution is a sole toll taken in hatred of our Lunar Patron, and there is little hope for a return to equality.

May She grant them peace.

We are now few and far between; the once merely reviled—now hated and hunted—scholars who survived have only done so by squirreling themselves away in impossible places, sworn never to let the tainted light of day touch their fur for whatever empty time they may yet eke out. I write this with no small amount of bitter irony, as it must surely be a mockery of fate that I alone would escape the attack that destroyed my cabal and stole the lives of my friends and family.

May She grant us all peace.

I am Sun Shadow, he who hid in the shadow of the burning sun that touched those unworthy, who was left to pass on what history has deemed fit to blot. To what little may be saved, I will dedicate what is left of my withering life.

Dark magic is not a mistake. It is hardly even a sin.

May She find peace.

Chapter R2: Necromancy

If there may be any prejudice or revulsion levied towards our decried dark arts, then it may very well be Necromancers who bear the weightiest brunt of hatred. For all that I and my kind may defend it as a sanctified pursuit of enlightenment, it may very well be warranted, for Necromancy is the magic that governs the soul itself.

To truly understand the weight their demesnes carries, it must first be understood how gravely solemn power over the soul truly is. There is no artifact that carries more prevalence to life than the soul; the soul is life as it is known. It is the be-all-end-all of existence; there cannot be true life without it, and with it, life may take root in places where it was never meant to be. Beyond and above any vital processes carried out by our earthly forms, the soul provides for our beings in a way that may not be superseded.

The soul is something we are all burdened with, and so we are all in danger from a Necromancer if it comes to pass that they have forgotten themselves. It is a valuable that only they may thieve, and it is a treasure to which only they may bear witness. Weapons may pierce our flesh, and words may break our minds, yet there is no destruction more complete than that of the soul. All that we are is summarized as the soul, and so without the soul, we do not exist.

And so, with the assisted continuation of the soul, existence is made eternal.

Chapter R2.2: Undeath

No longer is death a certainty, however, as it was the final will of the first Necromancer that Death be denied their cynical certainty. For what was once the ability to see became the ability to possess, and to reap that which was never meant for the living. There is no existence akin to that of a destined Necromancer, and by their power, they learned that their existence was crudely replicable; by that token, there are no spells quite like those of the school of Necromancy.

However the school has been explored, there is no methodology that science may follow to explain how Necromantic spells may interfere with the soul. It is a matter of will—of an impossible allowance Harmony has made for their breed to prosper and for life to regain ground rightfully lost. It is a very simple yet altogether inscrutable fact that Necromancy retains some measure of the divine, for it must be divine for their mana to flaunt Death.

Death’s call may not reach souls once grasped by a Necromancer, and in their manner of consumption, they claim them as their own. A Necromancer may take a soul into themselves in a method of existential harmony, and impossible though it may seem, this act empowers them. It grants them the vitality of the lives they possess seemingly without end, as has been the seemingly inevitable downfall of their ilk. There always comes a day when they must shed the weight of the lives they have claimed, and in their void, there is only the cold.

I, too, even in my most fringe dabbling, have felt the cold, and I feel it even now. For their kind, who must feel it to such an unbearable extent that I cannot possibly comprehend, there is only sympathy.

Yet, for many Necromancers, there is a grand pursuit that even supersedes the comfort they have become accustomed to. It was the gift of he, the first Necromancer, that souls may be manipulated in this way, and as was his will, they may be gifted as well as stolen. For if a soul is reintroduced through the simple act of transference, what once was dead may be allowed to walk again. For many, resurrection is little more than a foolish dream that captivates the grieving and envious, yet for Necromancers, it is their right.

The unfettered soul carries the existence that it was instilled with, and so this is the being that is present upon reintroduction to a body. The provided body does not matter, nor does its state; it is only the soul that determines whether resurrection will come to pass. If the soul is undamaged from its original state, then they will wake from death as they were when it was visited upon them.

This state is not the same as life, and so it is known as undeath, for retrieval from Death’s embrace denotes a dismissal of its rules; one kept in a state of undeath may only die through specific, concerted means. In this way, a body inhabited by a soul in undeath may indeed function as normal if undamaged, yet there is no need for the brain, heart, or any activity from any organ to perpetuate its existence. It is the soul that carries their being, and as their consciousness is not kept within this realm, the body holds no bearing on life.

I write this with a heavy heart in my last hours, yet even now, I feel shame for the past misuse of the most holy of all the magical arts. Necromancy will never know reverence again beyond those subjugated to the point of forced criminality, for undeath as it has been used has only been used to bring pain.

Those in undeath no longer need nerves to suffer, for the body is its cradle, and their cradle, once disturbed, may only cause restlessness and agony. There is a way to remove suffering from a soul, yet it is not common, and so those foul misdemeanors that have populated history have done so as storied tales of misery and misfortune. Those who were brought back were brought back to toil and hurt, and those they hurt were not given proper rest. Their bodies were forced to continue long past the point of breaking, and without the ability to struggle, to cry, or to beg for mercy, their eventual end was a sorrowful act of justice.

Undeath may give us back that which we held most dear, yet it may also bring pain not meant for the living.

Chapter R2.3: Sight

To possess a soul not your own is to know true dominance, though it goes far beyond simple pleasure. Necromancy’s original purpose was for sight, and though the sight is still an inherent gift of those destined, it is not as well known as their other gifts what the sight of a Necromancer may allow.

What is obvious is very little of what there is; of course Necromancers may see souls as most cannot, yet simply seeing them is a paltry feat. What is greater is truly knowing what one sees, as the soul is so much more than the sphere of light it presents itself as; it is an enduring being. Within each of the innumerable threads that comprise the soul are histories and information beyond common understanding. To truly see a soul is to read these lines—to understand them and to experience what they have experienced.

Those vastly familiar with the sight may tell at a glance which line denotes the very beginning and end of a being’s life, what was most important to them, or how they truly felt about any such thing as mundanity. There is nothing to know about an individual that is not recorded in the soul, and so Necromancers possess the unique ability to, in a sense, live the deceased’s lives at their leisure.

Yet it goes even further beyond reading information, as souls are yet more than the blank sum of their lives. Within them is all that they are, their memories, and even their perception. Necromancers are very literally able to connect with the intimate recollection of a soul—to close their eyes and become that which they are experiencing. This fugue may come to some as mere flashes of recollection, yet those who possess a profound gift for meditation have been known to synergize wholly with a soul and enter into a trance of parallelism. Within their minds, they are living another life many years passed.

Thankfully, reading a soul cannot overwrite one’s own, and when the fugue passes, so, too, do the memories. They may be recalled by the Necromancer as any other memory may, but neither do they intrude on what is right within their minds. It has been previously likened to the reading of a book, and indeed, if one were to possess an imagination so encompassing that they could place themselves directly into the scene of a story, they would not truly become the characters they are emulating. They are still wholly themselves after all is done, and the satisfaction of experiencing such profoundly different experiences is nothing but fulfilling.

For both of these abilities, there are no easy methods of ascension. There is no spell beyond that which allows for the sight in the first place for those commoners, and there is no mnemonic or exterior device that may bestow the ability. It is simply a matter of intuition and practice, and in the case of recollection, of will.

Chapter R2.4: Domination

Necromancy cannot be mentioned in these times without notice of its worst impulse: that of domination. For all the gifts that undeath and the sight may provide, on the opposite spectrum of desire verses discontent, more may yet be done with both of these powers. For knowing what a soul is comprised of, and knowing that the soul is the truest essence of life, the soul may be twisted out of shape and made into something else.

More accurately, beings may be made into someone else.

Will is, perhaps, the most important facet of spellcasting in any form, much more so in many of the dark arts, and so it is for Necromancy. Within Necromancy lies the power for joy and salvation, yet an equal amount of sorrow and heartbreak, for the threads that a being is represented by are not inviolable. It is only a matter of will and the correct pressure of mana, and these threads may be changed. The soul may be changed.

With the soul’s change comes change in the individual it represents; whether on a small scale or large, any correction made to a soul’s existence will reflect on its owner. There is no virtual or literal limit to the extent these changes may go, from memories to behaviors to entirely new beings erased and built again from scratch. If the soul may be regarded as the sum structure of individualism, then Necromancers possess the ability to deconstruct and reconstruct that structure in any way they so please.

All it takes is mana and the will to make it happen, and in this way, Necromancy is truly divine.

For there is nothing so divine as complete domination.

Chapter R2.5: Eternity

There is no escaping the final end of Necromancy, and of its ill-repentant Necromancers. For all my love and labor wasted on the soon-to-be-dead dark arts, this is still one of the few areas which gives even one as fanatic as I pause. There is no defending what has been done—what has been desired, though as I make my last home within these four walls under the land which forsook me, I cannot help but look beyond my protective gaol to the sky which I may never see again and wonder to myself.

There is no defense beyond that of Equine desire, and so, may I be blamed for wishing for eternity?

Undeath is a gift granted by Necromancy, but what of the Necromancer? Those living in undeath may not cease, so why may those who made it so? It seems unfitting, or perhaps unjust, to assume the wretches who have taken to calling themselves the true arbiters of a meaningless death should themselves find end. Should they not be allowed to circumvent that which they have denied? Is it not right? Is it not within their means?

Unfortunately, it is, though I consider it a great blessing that none were allowed to carry their eternity out.
As an intrinsic philosophy, the soul of one who commands souls is a truly special artifact, for their power is itself accounted within their soul. That is not to say there is any meaningful weight to a Necromancer’s soul; upon their death, their soul is escorted to the Underworld the same as all the rest. They are not given special treatment, nor are they reviled for their crimes against Death, thankfully.

But within that statement, there is a logical fallacy. For one to lose their soul, they must die, and to truly die, they must lose their soul. But what if, upon death, there is no soul present to be called to Tartarus? What if the soul was removed prior to death, yet was still in some way connected to this earthly plane? If death releases the soul but the soul does not leave, then would it ever? Can the soul be made to stay after death?

Of course it may. That is the phenomenon of undeath, and in this way, Necromancers discovered their most rarefied pursuit. It is no easy thing to bind one’s soul to something other than their living body without severing the link between the two entirely, yet if it is somehow achieved, then death no longer holds any meaning. The call cannot reach the soul. Whatever may come to pass, if one’s soul never travels to the Underworld, then they never truly die.

This is the way of immortality.

Yet it is not so simple as taking one’s soul and placing it in a locket. For one, a Necromancer is not able to manipulate their own soul in any meaningful way, for any such action would result in their immediate incapacitation. It is as though the soul itself actively rejects such a thing, and this block cannot be overcome through willpower.

If a Necromancer’s soul is removed anyway, perhaps through the aid of another, then that would simply cause their body to cease functioning. It would effectively create a simple state of undeath, and though replacement would bring about what is known as an imperfect lich, the Necromancer would still die upon complete destruction of their physical form.

Normally, souls in undeath are tethered to the will of a living Necromancer even after the failure of their physical form, yet this obviously fails upon the Necromancer’s own death. To achieve immortality, the soul must be made to retain its independence beyond even the death of its original body, so the most prevalent solution to enterprising Necromancers was to devise a physical vessel.

Objects are not ordinarily suited to containing souls, though this is relatively easily solved through a specialized spell. This is not the end of it, however, as then the Necromancer’s soul would simply reside within the object rather than their body.

There is one method to attaining immortality, and that is through creating an object which does not outright retain a soul, but calls for one. Upon death, the Necromancer’s soul would not travel to the Underworld, but would instead squirrel itself away within the enchanted object. This enchanted object is known as a cairn, and whatever happens to the Necromancer’s soul after, they have achieved a method of immortality. So long as the cairn remains, the Necromancer’s soul will never travel to the Underworld.

Perhaps there are yet cairns remaining throughout the world unknown. This thought should bring me some comfort, that the dark arts yet possess isolated pockets of resistance, yet I feel little more than dread. Of all of us, Necromancers are not they whom I would have chosen to carry our legacy, nor for as long as they may do so. If Sol Invictus is any measure, then eternity is not meant for the living.

Yet, even as I write these closing remarks, my mind continues to wander. For all of our storied history, there has been but one who achieved what I consider true immortality—not the simple persistence of the soul, but the perpetuation of the body. For a method to migrate or retain one’s original body, perhaps even restoring it after destruction, there was never any success among any whom I have known.

None but the First Necromancer. Only he was so gifted.

Yet even he was pulled back to the Underworld.