"Mute, it is paramount to our continued survival that we do not reveal the full extent of our wards, spells, or the vulnerabilities of the shades to our captors. We tell those bottom-feeders enough so they can fight off lesser shades but not so much we'll become superfluous. Do you understand?"

Mute nodded at Zarathon's words and mimicked a ziplock over his lips.

"Now I shall do the talking—"

Mute gave the pebble an unamused look.

"Oh come now, Mute, you know what I mean. I will present the information to the Celestial soldiers and you will handle the diagrams. You will also show them one of the incantations. I suggest the blitz-flare spell since the non-casters would be able to use it as well," Zarathon said. "Also because it would be very funny if they accidentally cast that one on themselves."

The two of them were seated in the lounge area of the grand palace. Mute sat leaned over the mahogany table and he had scribbled down many diagrams of runes and layline circles. He labeled each paper with a number and a word such as: '1. Repelling' or '7. Incapacitating'. He also had several calculations under each rune and line with esoteric symbols as well as numbers.

"That is quite the handiwork if I say so myself. Not a single misplaced leyline or rune. Even the amount of arcana required has been calculated and distributed between the different parts of the wards. I am impressed, my friend."

Mute gave the pebble a grin and twirled his charcoal pen between his hooves. He then placed it in his mouth and shuffled together the papers.

"Now, I do believe that we have to address the yak in the room."

Mute tilted his head.

Zarathon's flame flickered in annoyance. "Our warden that is sleeping in the master bedroom, MY master bedroom. Do you have no sense of the amount of trouble this will bring? Imagine her defiling the palace plumbing with all that fur! Or how her presence will make experimentation impossible! I can not cast complex wards in these conditions! And the lady's snores are not becoming of a member of the nobility! There is clearly only one solution."

Mute gave the pebble a questioning look and he dragged his hoof over his neck in a slicing manner.

"What? No! We would never be able to hide the body! Obviously, you must seduce her instead!"

Mute let out a surprised grunt and accidentally swallowed the pencil. He gagged on it for a few seconds before he spat it out. The slime-covered pencil hit the table and bounced away. Mute took some deep breaths and wildly gestured in the air with an angry expression.

"It is the perfect plan! You seduce her with your ruggish martial charms and she'll give us information on the sun goddess! Trust me, my friend, mares love scars. After all, I would know," Zarathon said smugly.

Mute wasn't certain how the pebble could claim that scars attracted mares when for most of their journey all ponies had avoided them, mares most of all. Furthermore Mute was relatively certain that Zarathon did not have any scars, his pebble-self was in a pristine condition that glistened with an expensive polish through the ethereal flames. Said polish had been rubbed onto him by Henry the Third so that, in Zarathon's own words: 'All would be able to partake in his magnificent form.'

Mute just shook his head at the pebble and he grabbed a new pen. Mute wrote down his response on a piece of paper. 'I will not seduce any mare. I am not interested, and you KNOW that."

Zarathon gasped in realization. "Yes of course! Forgive my insensitivity, Mute. I sometimes forget."

Mute eyed the shrine in the corner of the lounge area. 'I wish I could.'

The two of them were interrupted by the sound of hoof steps descending down the stairs. Their warden rounded the corner from the hall and walked into the lounge area. She held a large brush in a white arcane grasp and she ran it through her pale mane. The mare was slim with sharp eyes—eyes that stared at Zarathon with a furrowed brow—and her mane almost reached the floor. Her ears did not stand up straight like most ponies but were rather curved to the sides and they flexed every few seconds. Her sharp snout twisted into a concerned frown as her gaze fell on the papers on the table.

Adamantine Will placed her brush on the mahogany table and she leaned over to inspect the papers with scrupulous eyes. Mute leaned back as the mare got close and her gaze immediately shifted to him with a glare. He froze. The mare glared at him and Mute couldn't look away, it was like she forced him to maintain the stare. He swallowed thickly and eyed Adamantine's horn and cutie mark, an adamantine shield encased in flames. The mare had been one of the two orange-clad guards that had escorted him to the princesses and being without her armor or weapon did not seem to mellow out her hostile personality.

Zarathon cleared his throat or at least made such a sound, and then he spoke. "Are there complications with the runes? Do you find the notes and calculations disturbing? Are you perhaps perplexed at my greatness for forging such powerful arcana?"

"The calculations are not correct. The leylines are not meant to curve or intersect, these runes do not exist, and the wards look akin to a child's drawing," Adamantine deadpanned.

That broke Mute's paralysis and he let out a low hiss at the mare. The calculations had been perfect!

"Perhaps not for the crude arcana cast by ponies or unicorns. This arcane is of the Qirans! It flows like water, each spell a different channel. It is my greatest feat to have expanded upon the arcane of my ancestors and created these intricate wards. By not selfishly keeping the ember to myself I managed to expand our domain of arcane knowledge a hundredfold! I made mages out of peasants overnight! I would like to claim that with my humble contributions my people must have flourished beyond anything this world had ever seen!" Zarathon exclaimed with a large burst of fire.

Adamantine gave a skeptical hum. "And where are they now?"

"I— Well that is..." Zarathon's flame flickered and grew smaller.

The mare huffed and gathered up the papers. "I have read about all the 'good' your contributions did, 'my lord'. It made warfare more destructive. It forced thousands into slavery. And it allowed you to subjugate free nations that had no wish to live under your rule."

"Resources were desperately needed! Iron, lumber, grain, manpower! If I had to enslave and colonize the entire continent then so be it! There was no choice, no other option. I either upheld my duty or there would be no continent."

"Clearly there was another option, since whatever threat your shades posed disappeared once you were vanquished. The princesses should have destroyed you back in Canterlot, but they still see you as useful. But know this, I will not hesitate to destroy you if I need to."

Mute glared at the mare with a hateful hiss. His sharp teeth glistened from the sunlight and he reared back to strike her. She knew nothing!

"Stand down, Mute. It is not worth it," Zarathon mumbled.

The changeling backed down with a huff and continued to glare at Adamantine.

Adamantine gave them a curt nod and then motioned to the door. "Prepare whatever things you'll need for the presentation. And don't make me wait."

Adamantine left them at the table. Zarathon's flame flickered back to its original size and he let out a small chuckle. "I believe my seduction scheme may have been a tad bit overzealous. I don't think that mare loves anything but the Equestrian flag."

Mute let out a snort in response.

The Ponyville barracks office had never seen such an odd sight. Placed on a pedestal, dressed in a white military jacket and cap, was a burning pebble. Next to the pebble stood a changeling, one with a large trinary horn structure and muscles which bulged the shirt he wore. The changeling held a piece of chalk in his mouth and he quickly drew complex symbols and runes onto the blackboard. There were six ponies in the office area that eyed the process warily. The lieutenant that had arrested Mute, Radiant Sword, stood by the podium and eyed the both of them scrupulously. Adamantine Will sat by the desk closets to the blackboard and podium. The other four, one of which was Holy Vow, spread out across the workspaces in the room.

"Listen up, you bottom-feeding, sun-loving, party-going, magots! This is Qiran runes and leylines! These are the tools which we use to weaken, capture, or kill shades!" Zarathon's voice carried to the other end of the room and it was filled with the gruff authority of an army general.

"What is a Qiran?" called a voice from the back of the room.

Mute peered his eyes and noticed the earth pony mare in the corner. She sat leaned on a chair and with idle hooves, she carved runic symbols over her desk with a knife. The mare had carved runes into her skin, some of which glowed as she breathed. The changeling cringed as he saw the runic scars and he nudged Zarathon.

The pebble's flames flickered with curiosity. "Qirans, the noblest and most powerful of all the sapient races, my kin, were the ones to forge these runes and map out these leylines. It was them who laid the foundation for how we kill shades. These spells are cast using ward circles drawn in the dirt, on parchment, or on oneself. Show them how one such spell is structured, Mute!"

The changeling hurriedly drew up a circle on the blackboard and he divided it into four parts akin to a pie chart. He filled each piece of the circle with a rune—one that looked like three jagged 'S's in a line, one which looked like a jagged half-sun, a third which looked akin to a rod, and the final rune was a hexagon with a line through it. Mute then drew curved lines over the divided circle which intersected and created even smaller rhombus spaces that encompassed the runes he'd drawn earlier. Each rune was placed in a rhombus but they did not mirror each other. Two touched the edge of the circle, one was near the middle of the ward, and another placed in the middle of the pie-chunk it was in.

"Normally one would draw the lines before the runes, but my compatriot is so skilled with the Qiran arcane he can do it in whatever order he wishes," Zarathon said. "As you can see, this artistic wonder is much different from a simplistic pony ward. It is not several circles with some frail runes interspersed between them! Each rhombus represents an arcane value that is either negative or positive. The four sections represent creation, destruction, light, and darkness. The old ward used the elemental system of fire, wind, earth, and water but that is irrelevant now. The ward Mute has drawn onto the blackboard is called: Flareblitz. This incantation will temporarily blind shades and force them to back away. It is useful against a group of shades or a singular individual."

"But what is a shade?" called Holy Vow from another part of the room. "Are they made from smoke or something?"

Zarathon huffed. "Smoke? Don't be ridiculous. The vile shades are made from the primordial darkness left over from the moment of creation, a gloomy reminder of the hollow void that once existed before life came to be."

"Oh, alright then," Holy said and sank into his seat.

"And what can they do? And how do you kill them?" asked a large earth pony stallion next to Holy.

Mute quickly drew a foggy blob on the blackboard and then drew a pony next to it. He then drew a tall sleek creature with a pony head and no discernable body except for an inky black mass with long tentacles. He pointed to the shade, then to the pony, and finally to the finished creation.

"You see, sun-lover, shades are parasites. They need hosts to grow in strength and to procreate. They are beings that possess living things and they try their best to entrap others with the same fate. Their strongest kin, the elder shades, can possess many beings at once, using them to grow in considerable power. This is what happened to the yellow pegasus. Though elder shades are rare to see, especially when the sun is still up. A lesser shade shuns any light and is only active during dusk and nighttime. A lesser shade can also only possess one creature at a time. To kill a lesser shade you only need to burn it with regular fire, to purge an elder shade you need my magic, which I can't give or teach you," Zarathon said.

The rune-covered earth pony mare looked up and nodded at Mute. "You taught him though, right?."

Mute gave the mare a half nod and then pointed to Zarathon's flames.

"I was able to teach him because I named him a Lord of Cinder. And there can only be two."

A young unicorn guard with a pink mane raised her hoof. She was seated behind Adamantine Will. "And how do you tell the difference between a lesser shade and an elder shade?"

Mute quickly drew a small blob and added a cat next to it. He then drew the same blob next to a pony and added them together to create a creature similar to the possessed Fluttershy, only smaller.

"As my fellow Lord has shown on the board: an ordinary shade is no larger than a house cat. An elder shade is as large as a pony. You can also tell by how a pony looks when possessed to determine what kind of shade has possessed them. If they still look like a pony but their irises are fully black and dark whisps come off their head they are possessed by an ordinary shade. If they take on a monstrous form of darkness then they are in the grip of an elder shade," Zarathon sighed as he said the last part. "And to remove an elder shade from its host is difficult, and it can end with the death of the host."

"What!? Are you saying you could have killed miss Fluttershy!" the large earth pony yelled.

Mute gave the pony a curt nod and wrote 'yes' on the blackboard.

"It was a possibility. She is incredibly lucky I am a teacher blessed with the patience and humility so that Mute was skilled enough with his wards. If I had been a lesser lord she would have been consumed by the darkness and become part of the shade's body."

"And you would have been fine with killing her!?" Holy Vow shot up from his seat and slammed his hooves onto the desk.

Zarathon's flames flickered. "Well yes of course. As long as the shade lived it would continue to drag ponies and all creatures alike into its body to grow its strength. They too would eventually have become its sustenance and with enough living beings consumed the shade would become immune to many of my spells. Our only option to save as many lives as possible was to purge the elder shade immediately. If that cost the life of one pegasus then so be it."

Mute added to what Zarathon said by writing on the blackboard. 'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, such is the law of the Hive, and such is the law in the war against the darkness.'

Holy Vow scoffed at Mute's and Zarathon's words and the larger earth pony stallion just shook his head at them. But it was adamantine Will that walked up to the burning pebble and leaned down to glare at him. "Neither of you will play fast and loose with the lives of Equestrian citizens, is that understood?"

"Like when the goddess of the sun and the goddess of the moon invaded my realm and 'played fast and loose with the lives of my people? Do not speak of things you do not understand, young one," Zarathon growled.

"You had to be stopped, it was a necessity."

Zarathon scoffed in amusement. "Was it? Then perhaps you can understand the necessity of the death of one pegasus for a town of ponies?"

Adamantine frowned at his words, but she offered no rebuttal.

Mute gave Adamantine a disapproving look and wrote on the blackboard again. 'Victory takes sacrifice. There can be no mistakes or distractions. Distractions are what lead to the deaths of innocents when every second counts.'

"Distractions such as compassion? Such as the need to save someone in need? Who gave you the right to determine if someone is necessary to sacrifice?" Adamantine growled.

Zarathon huffed. "What lady of the nobility and of the soldiery does not understand the need for sacrifice? We were able to save the pegasus, but if she'd died then that would have had to have been a necessary sacrifice to stop the shade. We did not determine if the pegasus was a possible sacrifice, the shade did that for us."

"And would you have mourned that loss?" Adamantine asked.

Mute nodded. 'She seemed nice, I think.'

"No," Zarathon said coldly. "I would not have mourned the loss of one pony life in exchange for hundreds."

The room seemed to grow colder. The ponies in the room glared at Zarathon and Mute. Adamantine leaned in even closer so her snout almost poked Zarathon. "What did you say?"

Mute shifted his gaze to Zarathon and shuffled on his hooves. He let out a grunt and the pebble's flames flickered in his direction. Zarathon let out a sigh.

"...I would have mourned her in the same way a commander mourns a singular soldier. It is a loss, but one must accept it when one goes to war."

Adamantine straightened her back. "We are not at war, lord Zarathon."

Mute looked away and swallowed thickly. Oh if only they knew...

"Oh, but that is the thing, honored Lady Will, we are. In fact, me and Lord Mute shall show this to you. The spell written on the blackboard, copy it on paper or in your grimoire in the case of you unicorns. You shall learn to use this Qiran arcanum against a shade once night falls. You will also set up a perimeter around the town with torches and lanterns so that no shade may enter it. This will allow us to fight the shades effectively."

Adamantine Will eyed the Qiran ward on the blackboard and nodded. "Very well. Show us how to fight this threat."

Zarathon's flame flared. "You hear that, soldiery of Ponyville? Tonight we hunt shades!"

Mute could not help but feel uneasy as he saw the guards write down the Qiran ward in their grimoires or on papers. The Qiran magic would no longer be a secret after this night. A squad of ponies would know it if only a little bit. It was with a stark realization that Mute came to terms with the fact that the war against the shades had returned to these lands. He looked to Zarathon and saw the pebble's flames flicker in deep thought.

Mute knew they'd regret it, but it was too late. Off to war they go, just like he had so long ago.

And so it begins. A much more serious tone in this chapter due to the fact that the shades are an existential threat and because Zarathon is a bit used to war crimes, but it will eventually get a bit lighter again. Let them acclimate to Pony society and we can have come fun.

Anyway, I hoped you enjoyed the chapter, have a good day now!