Selena: (muffled) Looking for a quantum sonic link amplifier. Outlawed in sixteen galaxies. With my sonic amp crystals I can turn sound into physical force, but with a QSLA you can do kinda what granddad can do with music, with the same rules of my Amp Crystals. That guy outside the bar earlier, he used music to open a door to somewhere, dunno where, but it was powerful. Edmond: (interspersed with coughing.) Sword. Backup processing, and auto diagnostics. It can help.
"Smells vampiric as buck," Asmo commented to Nightshade. "Heh. Fitting. Seeing as you're a bat pony and all." Maya nodded. "Hope they have it then. Wish we had a tour guide, or an index."
Nightshade flapped her feathered pegasus wings. "Dude, I know you're blind, but you've known me for three years. How has this not come up?" Blackout dug through a crate of unlabeled tech, pulling out an old electric hairdryer, the carburetor off a Volkswagen Jetta, some sort of bizarre alien nosehair trimmer, and a quantum sonic link amplifier. "Is it one of these things? We have a lot of unidentified junk that ends up in here." *********************************************************************************** Staal nodded, and one of the guards outside the door went to get Edmond's weapon. He was back in a few minutes, and returned the disguised sword to its owner.
"Well you smell more bat than pega," he clarified. "Least to me you do. Oh, and also, *squee!* you and the horse you rode in on."
Edmond: (Touches the sword and holds it) *When Edmond held the sword, it flashed, and its former electronic katana appearance returned, and Edmond's cybernetics started to stabilize.* Selena: Hmmm? (Stops routing through the box, and looks before smiling and moving closer.) Yes it is. Thanks! These are so cool.
"I'm half bat," Nightshade replied, ignoring the insult. "And I hang out with a lot of bats. But seriously, you can tell species by smell? How good is your nose?" Winter, who gathering up a variety of explosives, stopped and listened in. It occurred to her that if demons had particularly strong noses, she'd need to make her scent undetectable, too.
Selena: (Pulling out an Amp Crystal, and screwing it into a hole in the QSLA, before attaching the QSLA to the guitar she is borrowing.) Not gonna try it here, but it can do some cool stuff. Especially if the song used holds a lot of power, most that I use, have a ton of power and emotion behind them.
Winter nodded, then remembered that Asmo couldn't see her. "Good to know. I can erase my scent, but it's complicated and I usually don't bother."
Winter shrugged. "Probably not a good idea to take chances. I'll be following you and Cricket the whole way, so the last thing we need is for me to blow your cover." ********************************************************************************** Blackout had been mulling over an idea since they'd left the bar. It wasn't something he was keen on trying, but he realized that if things went south, there might not be a choice. He glanced at Maya. She seemed like the most experienced of the group. "So... how do you feel about blood magic?"
He nodded. "An old spell. Very old. It's been in my family since before Equestria was settled." Heaving a sigh, he looked away and continued. "It's something of an open secret among the Canterlot elite, but the Blacks are blood mages. All of us. My father. My aunt. And me. Hope has probably inherited it, too." Blood magic was taboo in Equestria. It didn't rely on emotions or willpower like most Equestrian magic, but instead drew upon the life energy of the user... and sometimes those around them. It was said that a single blood mage could defeat an entire army, a claim that was not without merit. "I don't want to use it. It has certain... consequences. But if it comes down to it, we need to win whatever the cost."
Maya put her hoof on his shoulder and spoke sternly, being as direct as posdible. "If you've gotta draw from somepony here, you do it from me. You're not gonna do it from anypony else in this little party. Understood?"
Selena: (Shivers visibly., obviously feeling that something is off.) woah...hey everypony....I-i have a funny feeling. *A faint whisper of energy, flickers along a quantum path, somewhere far away. Hard to detect, those with a deeper connection to this energy, such as by relation as Selena technically was, would feel this.*
Winter glanced over at Selena. "What's wrong?" ***************************************************** Blackout shook his head. "That's not how this one works. You remember how devastatingly powerful Apophis was. You saw what he could do. But what if I told you that Apophis, among the gods, was weak? That there are other, older, stronger gods? What if I told you that these Elder Gods will, under the right conditions, and for the right price, lend that power to mortals?" ***************************************************** The Luna cloaked as soon as it entered the atmosphere, and with coordination via radio from the castle, settled into a docking bay usually reserved for the massive airships of foreign dignitaries. After the obligatory disbelief and security checks, Silver granted the entire Dracaryn crew twenty-four hours shore leave, and instructed them to say they were from southern Equestria if anypony asked.
Maya sighed. "I'd say that sounds crazy, but not too crazy put next to all this. I'd also say, what I've heard, blood mages draw from ponies around them. Life energy. Why's yours any different?"
"We usually draw from our own energy, or steal it from bleeding foes," he replied. "It's an extremely brutal and painful process for the victim. But this one spell, it goes beyond that. Blood magic is simply the catalyst for something darker." He sighed. "The spell is a pact. A call to the Elder Gods. A mortal gives up a portion of their soul, and in return, they are granted the power of the gods for a brief moment. The power to unmake anything."
He shrugged. "I have absolutely no idea. This spell hasn't been used in two centuries. The last one to use it was my ancestor, Black Plague, to destroy a pair of rogue Omega-class dragons. I know he lived out the rest of his life and never felt any effect, but Faust only knows what happened... after."
