Late Evening/Midnight
March 21st, 71 BNM
Equestria, North midland mountains
10 miles north west of the Citadel
‘Colossus Valley’

Darkness, only a few outlines and very black silhouettes of trees and distant mountain ridges discernible against the starlight, half clouded night sky, the half-moon’s white glow poking through the cloud banks to give even the faintest of illumination across the mountains.
Gasping as he slid down the slope, his badly bleeding leg giving out, Starswirl tumbled into a heap onto a ledge, running along a ravine where he’d miraculously lost the massive creatures searching for him.
The earth trembled rhythmically, as the two creatures, one like a tortoise, the other like a sleek, 6-legged lizard, both 100 metres in their massive height, and larger in their body length.
There was a reason Siral had chosen here as his fortress, and it was in legends that these Stone Giants, known as the Colossi, were said to reside in the north midland mountain ranges of Equestria, and in other remote regions in the world. Older than any known beings, simple but immense in their presence.
That simplicity in their minds made them a contrived race for those wishing to ally, or subdue them. They had very few desires, very few dislikes, no fears, as simple minded as any animalistic creature could be.
But Siral had swayed them, and by their simplicity, he swayed ALL of them. These two were but a mere handful, there were possibly dozens, maybe over a hundred if they were better hidden then Legends told.
Yet the main reason nopony before in history had swayed them, was that no need for such overt forces existed. Siral had them at his beck and call.
The only upside to these immense beings under his command was that they could be easily seen coming. These were not weapons of attack, but something to ensure what was seized could never be retaken.
Sentinels, not Vanguards.
And with pain flooding his system, Starswirl could not focus enough to teleport anymore. And if he could not even do that, he could not muster enough magic to even scratch their rocky cliff faces of bodies.
Hiding in the ravine, thankful for the night preventing him being as easily spotted, Stasrwirl’s eyes widened as he heard a foot stomp rather close by.
Peering around, he could see it rearing up in the night, its immense jagged stone head blotting out stars and the moonlit night sky as it turned. Out of its pinpoint grey eyes there now shone a beam of light, swinging from side to side.
Ducking inside as a beam swept close to his hiding spot, Starswirl tried to muster any magic he could, and in a feeble blue glimmer from his horn, he turned invisible.
Glancing out from the rock hiding place, as he looked around in the dark ravine path stretching ahead, and a distant roar of a waterfall up ahead.
Glancing down, he saw that the path headed towards a canyon, likely with a river carried from the waterfall’s base further along the steep canyon.
Looking back, he saw that even the 100-metre-tall 6 legged Colossi had to step down into it, as the barely visible outline of its form now lay below and behind him, its grey spotlights scanning the canyon walls and river in wide sweeping arcs.
Still invisible, Starswirl rumbled aloud:
“At least they’re so loud that I won’t make noise to give myself away.”
Maintaining his invisibility, Starswirl looked west, and saw he had to get across the Canyon.
“I can’t go up this canyon forever, they’ll find me… Across, then a clear run while they’re busy scouring for me, through the woods and away…Please.”
In a bid to stifle his leg bleeding for his attempt now, Starswirl first focused his magic on the bleeding leg, stemming its flow for a few moments as he then began to focus his blue magic.
As he focused, he noticed the tortoise shaped Colossi turning a half mile away, its silver eyes glinting like stars as he could have sworn it felt his magic building up. But in a flash of blue, he was somewhere else.
His eyes had turned to the other side of the canyon, seeing a ledge the other Colossi’s sweeping grey eye spotlights had passed over, one that marked the end of the grassy grounds he could walk, and not have to climb through, and a denser treeline to hide in.
As he vanished to it, he felt his focus slacken as his leg began to flare in pain again.

With a painful thud, Starswirl’s heart leapt as he found himself scrambling for grip. He’d teleported a few feet short, and he found half his body out over the edge of the cliff’s lip. His forehooves gripped the long grasses desperately as he hoisted himself up, his rear legs kicking some stones down to tumble to the forest floor.
Gasping for breath, Starswirl felt his invisibility field fade while lying on the ground. Peering out, he saw the air growing slowly brighter, and his heart nearly jumped with the spotlight about to land on him. A quick flare of invisibly, and he was gone right as he was about to be spotted, but not quite fast enough.
As the other tortoise shaped Colossi surveyed up ahead, still as the mountains around it except for its head moving, the other slender, 6 legged Colossi stomped over to the canyon ledge, its legs clambering, shaped like tree trunk bases in their splayed ‘toes’, crushing trees and bushes beneath its immense weight.
A faint hum filled the air as its head passed over him, its silver glinting eyes like dots on its face flickering with each rumble. If it was even possible, the air grew even darker above him, Starswirl frozen in place in fear of being detected in his weakened state. A head the size of a castle rampart passed over him, a few loose bits of dirt landing on him from where it had reared from somewhere in the earth.
Glancing around, as a faint breeze began to pick up in the night, Starswirl’s eyes widened at an immense foot slamming down a stone’s throw from him as the giant creature seemed to sense the air. But after a few tense moments, it moved again, its foot picking up to shuffle up the slope.
Looking back, Starswirl nearly yelled as he saw another leg come up towards the ledge, the head passing over him already. Scrambling forwards, his invisibility fading briefly, Starswirl was showered with pebbles and dirt fragments as the ledge was obliterated by the creature’s shuffling leg.
Hiding himself, Starswirl was deathly quiet as the mountain sized creature passed overhead, its torso and tail going directly over his head to scout out the slopes ahead.
As the immense beast lumbered ahead, many trees levelled beneath its footsteps, Starswirl quietly grit his teeth while pulling his bad leg from a pile of dirt and pebbles that had showered it.
“Infection among other things…”
Shaking his head, Starswirl’s mind then felt something coming.
From the west, his mind hued red, as he sensed Wrath itself coming in pursuit of something.
And from the north west, a yellow hue, Greed, also moving to meet with the being of Wrath. Strangely though, Greed was going to Wrath, not to him, as if pursuing something else headed his way.
“He must have called them both…” Starswirl lamented. Ahead of him, he saw the 6 legged Stone Giant turning slowly, its head reared up to look towards the distant tortoise shaped one a mile away, and then with a moment of pause, it reared further up towards the sky, its silver eyes glinting brighter all of a sudden, its head lighting up like the moon overhead, a dim light basking the Cliffside.
At that moment, it let out a sound of such volume that Starswirl didn’t think was possible to achieve.
A bellowing groan, like thunder bursting directly overhead in such quick succession that it became a continuous noise, emanating from the massive creature. It shook Starswirl to his core, overwhelmed by the noise, and something else, as if a magical force was prickling his skin from the inside.
The Colossi’s area attack, a roar to sound its position, to overwhelm any foes, and in the darkness, even help see better.
But against magic users, as Siral had too discovered, Stasrwirl found that by sheer overwhelming of his senses, it unmasked his disguise.
In the night, he re-emerged, his body reappearing on the shattered cliff edge as his focus was broken from his invisibility spell.
A second later, a second roar a mile away came, this one shorter.
Peering around, Starswirl saw the other Colossi staring right at him from a mile down the canyon, its 2 glinting eyes fixed on him.
Scrambling up, Starswirl heard rumbling, as he span around, his bad hoof shaking as he stood, to see the silver light from the other beast’s eyes shine on him from up the slope. A tree crashed over into the river in its silver lighting of the canyon’s lip, the Colossi planting its foot on the edge as it glared down at the Wizard in its eyelamps.
A deep rumbling groan escaped it as its head came closer, tilting slightly on seeing the Wizard.
A quick glance around, and Starswirl’s heart sank at seeing the Tortoise shaped Colossi actually charging towards him with a groan of unearthly anger, a minute from stomping him beneath its mountainous bulk.
Staring around at the other, its head actually hinging open in two hinges at the side to reveal some jagged spiked ‘teeth’, Starswirl bitterly lit his horn in the night, the feeble blue light overpowered by the Colossi’s silver eyelights. If he weren’t wounded, he’d have fled already.
Rearing back slowly, the Colossi’s head came forwards, the air roaring as its immense jaws rushed towards the Wizard on the cliff edge.
Preparing to fire a desperate spell in a last stand, Starswirl shut his eyes.
But right before his end, as he was engulfed in a blue light that was not his own, they snapped open. He felt a hoof wrapping around him, and the blue light seized him again.
The Colossi’s massive jaws smashed into the cliff edge, the creature slipping to slide belly first into the Canyon’s depths, more like falling into a ditch for its size. No Wizard was dead by its attack.
While the slim Colossi shook itself free of the River and rocks it had dammed and loosened in a landslide, the Tortoise Colossi reared around mid-charge, its slow movements as fast as a pegasi’s flight when it got going, but ponderous when turning.
It sensed the two intruders rescuing the first, but also the two apprentices to their master coming in pursuit of those two as well.
There, a mile down the canyon, a brief flash of blue, as a pair of ponies vanished in a teleportation chain.
Letting out a bellow into the night, the Colossi charged through the canyon, knocking aside walls of rock and forest in its wake.

12 miles north west of the Citadel
‘Colossus Valley’

He had teleported twice before he was released, as Starswirl wearily collapsed on the ground while the two unknowns rushed around him.
“-arswirl! Starswirl, wake up, please wake up!”
Grunting, he looked to see a blue face over his own, to which he remarked blankly:
“Luna?”
As the younger princess nodded, Starswirl noted their attire, no crowns, not even their collars. They must have come here fast. Glancing back, Starswirl saw Celestia running some yellow healing magic over his leg, a worried look on her face as she spoke to him:
“What happened? We got your dream for help, how did you end up against those things?”
“I was-.”
Starswirl cut himself off, as did Celestia, while Luna also went quiet too. The Colossi’s immense roar sounded, as it was heading their way, treelines crashing audibly from afar. Maybe 3 minutes away at most.
“We have to leave, now... There is worse on the way here, I sensed them coming.”
“Sensed, but we came as well, we didn’t see anything else as dangerous as them.”
“Wait… They’re following you, that’s why they came.”
“Who is following us?” Celestia demanded, while Stasrwirl looked around while he spoke urgently:
“Siral, he has beings, living weapons of destruction and evil. Some of them were in Canterlot, they killed your father, have wreaked havoc, and two of them are coming here, they followed you!”
Luna asked Starswirl quickly: “Can we stop the-.”
“NO! That is how I got this way, now we leave! Take us back to the palace!”
Celestia saw how fearful Stasrwirl was right now, as she looked at Luna with a nod, before she remarked:
“Back to the Palace.”
As the distant stone colossi approached, the sister readied their mixed magic to make further teleport jumps than could be done solo. As they were enveoloped in a yellow and blue glow, Starswirl noticed something on the forest mountain ridge above them.
A pair of yellow glows, and a long serpentine shape against the moonlit mountain face.
“Get us out of here!” Starswirl yelled, as Luna and Celestia focused, though they saw it too. But the world swirled as they saw the beams about to hit them, and a strange but foreboding looking grey creature atop the mountain ridge the other creature had flown over. All the while, the charging Stone Giant was still a half mile away.
A pair of yellow beams shot down, as Golmov found them and made an attack instantly. Further back, a grey, stone bodied Earth Pony hung back, peering over the mountain ridge with a small grin on his features.
But as they vanished in a blue and yellow flash, Odi-Viscer’s grin faded. Staring at the now dark base of the ridge face below him, he quietly muttered in annoyance as he leapt down, the massive Stone Giant nearby slowing to a plod as its silver eyes lit up where the Wizard and two Princesses had fled from.
The ape shaped beast, no fur except for his backbone ridge and stone ‘bones’ protruding in spikes and armor plating, landed in a cloud of dust on his 4 limbs, the figure examing the ground where the Colossi’s silver eyes lit it up to be seen.
Overhead, the centipede legged dragon landed in a bitter growl, his gryphon wings retracting as his dragon wings and hands pounded the ground in anger:
“Blast it! They were that close, Starswirl and the two Alicorn brats in one night, we could have solved so many problems!”
Ignoring Golmov’s venting and his vendetta against the Royal family, Odi-Viscer stomped over to quickly grab Golmov painfully by the wing with brute strength:
“Siral didn’t say to attack the princesses, idiot! Just the Wizard!”
Releasing Golmov, Odi-Viscer let the Dragon calm down, as he spat back:
“Hey, we’ll be going after them at some point, I see no reason to hesitate.”
Brushing off Golmov’s good point, Odi-Viscer shrugged as he looked away into the night:
“I don’t know about you, but I am returning to Nokotaford. They’ll be heading there anyway, I was told to keep an eye on anything the Royal-.”
“Not anymore. We must alter our plans. Starswirl’s intervention revealed to Gaudium what happened to his family, he is no longer loyal to the cause.”
Hearing Siral’s voice in their heads, Odi-Viscer and Golmov looked at each other, while nearby the Colossi merely shuffled slightly on its massive feet, blankly awaiting a command.
“He will go, and likely reveal what he has found. As it stands, his truths run even a small risk of rallying both factions against us. We must keep them divided, keep the Nationalists on side, by weakening the Royalist military effort. The attack on Tartarus is happening ahead of schedule. I have sent word to my contacts in the Nationalists, they’re readying and messaging to mobilise the armies that will be there as well. I require all on board with this that can be spared. Iena and Satio shall remain within the Trumane influence, to strike when needed. Ave-Dol will come around, but for now is not to be informed of anything. Gaudium, he shall come around as well. But you two and Teal, you will ensure Tartarus falls.”
“Return to the Citadel, no more spying for you two, prepare for war.”
As Siral’s mental call ended, Odi-Viscer’s grin suddenly returned, the mixed Ape/Earth Pony and stone giant skinned behemoth looking as if he had just come into his own little heaven. Golmov meanwhile, plodded the ground with his feet, as he mused:
“Raiding a fortress, what much is there in Tartarus. Dungeons, vaults, …filled with valuables…”
Golmov trailed off, as the centipede dragon hybrid flapped his 4 gryphon wings with a gleeful look at Odi.
“Can you wait for this to come?”
“No restraint, no holding back... gimme.”
Turning around, as Golmov began to flap his wings and fly off towards the Citadel, Odi basked in knowing there was no more boring spying on his part.
Oddly, he saw the Colossi still staring at him, its silver eyes unflinching. Suddenly growing irritated, Odi looked at his skin’s stone plating parts, remarking suddenly:
“Oh, you think we’re similar do you?”
The Colossi tilted its head, as if understanding. Odi’s face then fell as he began to walk towards the Colossi’s leg:
“Well, one big difference. I can catch a wounded Unicorn. I also doubt you can do THIS.”
His hand wrenched out, claws piercing in a shallow depth to the Colossi’s ankle rocks. But a red glow came from the claw marks, engulfing the entire Colossi briefly.

1 mile away

Flying towards the Citadel in the distance, Golmov heard a rumbling below him, as a slim bodied, 6 legged Colossi walked back to its ‘nesting’ ridge. But further back, a more pleading sounding bellow echoed in the night.
Looking back, wings flapping, the being of Greed stared dumbfounded as a silhouette of a flying Colossi flew up, a red glow dissipating from its body, before coming down, a good number of seconds passing before impact in the canyon below.
A massive crash sounded from a distance as the Colossi broke apart in its few limbs on impact, and further back in the valley, the being of Wrath that felt incompetence from a guard as massive as this was placated.
It was fortunate that the giant could reform its body, slowly, over the next hundred years or so. But it wouldn’t be defending any time soon.
Incompetence was a pet peeve of Odi-Viscer it seemed, even from what could be compared to a guard dog in role and intelligence.
And to think Golmov had heard tales that Gaudium was intended to be perhaps even more powerful, but he could not comprehend what that would entail.
Although by the sounds of it Gaudium wasn’t going along with their plans anymore. What that entailed for the Alicorn was entirely unknown to him, though he was certain Siral had his means of getting things back on course.

Midnight
Citadel, underground dungeons
Holding cell

Restraints covered his horn and wings, heavy iron shackles on his hooves as well preventing him from moving much beyond the small bench in the cell. His mouth was gagged by an iron mask as well, only his eyes able to freely move.
The light brown Alicorn’s eyes flickered to the main doorway, where he saw a presence he hated and feared more than anything else come through.
His scarred visage burned into his mind as a monstrous label to the Unicorn who deceived him and ruined his life.
The cell door shut behind Siral, the darkened cell somehow growing darker with him inside. On the walls, a torch flickered on magically, a silver flame illuminating the cell as Siral came to stand halfway between the cell and the Alicorn youth’s restrained position.
“A lesson I have learned, never admit secrets to an enemy when an insubordinate servant is eavesdropping when he shouldn’t…”
Enraged, Gaudium tried to move, his red eyes flaring while the restraints blocked his purple magic with ease. But Siral got the general idea of what he said.
“You will be my servant, despite your protests to it. Once you are enhanced, the last traces of Gaudium will have vanished…”
Hovering a pair of small vials from his grey cloak, Siral gestured to the one filled with a strange transparent liquid, thick like nectar but clear as water.
“Years of work, until finally I have a potion which can distinguish between memories and skills within the mind. It can grant each or both…”
Hovering it closer to Gaudium’s face, he finished coldly:
“Or remove them forever. And only the one that brewed the potion that did so can undo it.”
Bringing the vial back into his cloak, Siral remarked offhandedly:
“And if it works on you, well… It will work on many others as well.”
Gaudium’s face was stark behind the restraint mask, but it was the second vial of blood, small as it was, that was more puzzling.
Hovering it, Starswirl remarked with a blunt fact about the destiny he’d never remember being told of:
“I will let this in on you however. To truly show how flawed a pursuit of destiny to a slavish degree is, and how flawed serving tyrannical Alicorns was, you will have Starswirl’s blood in your makeup. His legacy, in confronting me who would accomplish more for greater peace, will be to contribute to my greatest creation.”
Yanking Gaudium’s restrained head closer however, Siral admitted with a more airy tone: “But, also my own blood. My legacy as well. The moment you awaken, you will be a servant of my will. Gaudium Valhoof, from this point on, you are gone and forgotten, even by yourself. For you, there will be only MY will.”
With a sudden wave of his hoof and horn, Gaudium felt Siral use magic to put him to sleep, as darkness took him in the prison cell.
As Siral left the prison cell, the Alicorn dreamt of his last memories of Siral, declaring his life as his own ended.
Gaudium never awakened before he lost everything that he was.

Next day
Early-Morning
March 22nd, 71 BNM
Nokotaford, Royal Palace
Queen Aurora’s office

Queen Aurora had been very alarmed to hear her daughters had taken off in the night, and had returned very quickly in a dishevelled state, with a very badly wounded Starswirl in tow.
After the Wizard was hauled off to the infirmary, having passed out from exhaustion and blood loss, the Queen turned to questioning her daughters about the details. And very soon after the details of the rescue, and what little they knew of Starswirl’s ordeal in the canyon and mountains, she questioned their sanity.
“What were you two thinking? You could have been killed!”
“Starswirl was in trouble, we had no choice, he called out for help and we heard him through the dream magic he taught us!” Celestia defended, their white and black/pink maned mother now angry at them after the initial relief. Beside her older, pink haired sister, Luna kept quiet.
“He went there without help, from what I hear to solve a problem. He was foolish enough to go without backup, and I see that foolishness has rubbed off on you two!”
“We weren’t losing Starswirl mother! We refuse to let him die!” Celestia exclaimed, to which Aurroa shot up from her desk, forehooves slamming on them as she roared at them:
“AND I REFUSE TO LOSE MY DAUGHTERS AS WELL!!”
The pain behind Aurora’s anger was evident, as Luna also understood. King Nova was still just about half a year dead now, it was still rather fresh in grief for all three to varying degrees.
Staring at their mother, Celestia and Luna waited calmly, before Aurora sat down, the pale Alicorn waving her hoof in a softer voice:
“Go… You best see how the infirmary is handling him. I’m, sorry I shouted, you were right to help him.”
“Mother...” Luna began, but she cut herself off herself. There was nothing more that could be said now, not until things cooled down. Beside Luna, Celestia saw this moment of softness from her mother as a sign to leave her alone for now.
“I’m certain he’d appreciate you visiting in the infirmary, when he gets better.” Celestia offered. With a quiet nod, Aurora offered a smile, rare nowadays, to her daughters as they quietly left the office.
Left alone, she heard the details of some of the attackers and had fretted more than she’d thought she would. The yellow hued monster was there, the one that killed her husband. And a red eyed accomplice watching, all in the company of beasts the size of mountains, at Siral’s beck and call.
Rubbing a hoof through her mane, she couldn’t help but let out a very painful sigh at everything going wrong in recent times. She was unknowing of how things would change in the next few weeks, for better or worse being up to interpretation.

Late Afternoon
Citadel, Underground levels
Forging chambers

News had been sent to the others. Satio and Iena would remain within the Trumane residence and court as chef and courtier/seductress each, whilst Ave-Dol was ordered to stay in her home in the forest.
Elsewhere, Odi-Viscer and Golmov were off on travels, as the Natioanlist armies gathering elsewhere for an assault on Tartarus’s stronghold would need a week or two to gather and move out for the attack. That left only Teal Quirt here with Siral.
But as she saw, and had heard, some aspects of Gaudium’s enhancements gave her pause.
Gauidum was told he would be the most powerful, she felt insecure of her command over the others by authority by this, even jealous of his power. Whiles others had more power, they had less ingenuity, impetus and intelligence than she did when it came to using it. Gaudium had bright, and now he would be as driven as Siral and more powerful than she.
A replacement for her if she falls short even…
Gaudium would have no memories on birth, just basic skills, by way of a potion addition Siral had been working on for years. This gave her the most pause, what was stopping Siral from mass producing enough for more?
She was loyal to his cause, his vision, but of her free will. She was a loyal follower, not a slave like Gaudium would be. She would be better than him in this regard.
But the implications of being able to wipe the minds of anyone, even someone as powerful as Gaudium would be, were unnerving.
She watched from above in the walkways, as the massive vat filled with a murky grey potion brewed ahead of them.
A few servant ponies gathered around as the components and host were dropped inside.

Animals parts were dropped inside the vat’s pool of murky grey ‘base’ potion as usual, these ones a wide selection.
Dragon, Gryphon, Lion, Deer stag, goat, donkey, Bat, Thunderbird Eagle, and all imbued with a hint of captured demon essence as well.
Now, the servant ponies pulled the unconscious Alicorn over to Siral, who then ordered them to leave. With wordless bows, the ponies all left, as Siral remained ignorant of Teal Quirt watching from afar in a walkway further back and up in the chamber.
Taking the vials of Starswirl’s blood and the mind wiping potion, Siral placed the mind potion aside for now on the walkway. Uncorking the vial of Starswirl’s blood, he trickled it almost mockingly over the unconscious Alicorn’s light brown face, speaking to Starswirl indirectly:
“How appropriate, that you help me one last time Starswirl. You’ll contribute more to peace, through my methods today…”
Putting aside the vial, Siral then pulled out a small cutting knife he’d sterilised already, and with a small grit of his teeth, slit a small cut on his lower leg, enough to get a few drops of blood.
Angling them to fall on Gaudium’s unconscious face as well, Siral shook his head while remarking:
“My Seventh… The Oracles spoke in fear of you and the others… You being the greatest. They had that part right. Pushed aside by your family for not being good enough, if only they could see you when you emerge.”
Using his magic to seal the slit on his hoof, Siral then used his black hued magic to slip Gaudium off the walkway, onto the deep pool of potion that slowly engulfed him, the liquid thicker than normal water swallowing the unconscious Alicorn at a tantalizingly slow pace.
Uncorking the vial of mind wiping potion from nearby, Siral looked at it, thinking to himself that he had plenty more, but this was all he needed.
“Gaudium, no more…”
From afar, Teal Quirt saw the vial tip over, the liquid spilling into the potion vat as Gaudium’s body vanished into its contents. That was it then, he was gone.
Siral focused his magic, as he conducted the dark magics as usual to begin the ‘brewing’ process of the transformation. But there was an issue this time.
“So I was right, the mind wipe potion will slow its progress…not too much thankfully. He will be worth the wait.”
The potion was now fluctuating in colours as expected, while the Black Wizard slowly walked along the viaduct walkway that meandered between the vats, gathering all his equipment.
Up in the walkway, Teal Quirt sat back, her scorpion/centaur hybrid wrapping its dragon arms around herself in comforting thought:
“He was working on that potion for years… But Gaudium was known to him for less. He was planning that memory wipe potion before he had us all acquired.”
Seeds of doubt began to enter her mind. She believed in Siral’s vision, his goals.
But now, she doubted his means, all his preaching of unity and trust between each other. There was useful deceit, and then there was removing one’s free will.
Deep down she felt as if a line had been crossed somewhere.

Author's Notes:

I took inspiration for the Colossi valley from the Yellowstone National Park canyons.
And it wasn't like two princesses teleporting out from under his watch would go unnoticed by a Wrathful spy outside the palace walls. And as he gives chase, Gaudium senses and becomes opportunistic, to no avail.
And because of how things went, and of Starswirl not ending up dead, plans in place already have to be moved up, be it the Tartarus attack, or Gaudium’s enhancements.
In a bid of ironic cruelty, Starswirl’s own blood goes into Gaudum’s enhancements, as does Siral’s. More magic imbued into his new form in the end. But because of the mind wiping potion, his metamorphosis takes longer than normal, about 2 weeks or so. More on that later.
The use of a mind wiping potion sows the seeds of doubt in Teal Quirt’s [Envy’s] mind. And suffice to say they’re not exactly good implications.
As for some upcoming chapters, Starswirl’s leg wound and the amount of dirt/rocks and stuff that it was exposed to in the Colossi chase will give rise to a temporary, but expected hindrance. Infection and Fever, bit problem in medieval times if not careful, or if magic one has is compromised by exhaustion and blood loss.
Next chapter will also see the return of a friend of Starswirl’s, from Everfree Forest’s depths.