11 - Arcanic Surveys
“Everyone here is staring at me,” muttered Charcoal. The air around her horn shimmered like a mirage. “I’m just a kirin.”
“Well,” said Bitterroot, “they’ve- never seen a kirin-”
“Canterlot wasn’t like this. Applejack and Fluttershy weren’t like this. And have you met those two?”
“Sorry,” said Amanita.
The four had reassembled back at the Cave. Everyone had the same result: nopony in Tratonmane had seen anyone like the pegasus. And Code was suspicious enough that she’d taken them up to their room for privacy.
“They’re either clueless or lying,” Code said as she paced around the room, half to herself, half to everyone else. “And I can’t tell which of those I dislike less.”
“But if they’re covering for somepony,” said Amanita, “why break in now? We were gone this morning, and Whippletree could’ve told anypony while he was gathering the rest of the militia-”
“Maybe they’re just stupid,” said Bitterroot. Aware of how that sounded a second too late, she quickly added, “Or not thinking things through. After High Gloss and the Maerhwolf, we really shouldn’t put it past them.”
“True, true,” muttered Code. “Although-”
“Um. Hey.” Charcoal raised a hoof. “Is this… really relevant? Nothing’s… really happened yet, technically, and I’m… I’m not a detector- detective, but I feel like we’ll just be talking in circles and forgetting the whole ‘ley line’ thing. The- thing I know about.”
“You’re right,” Code said, heaving a sigh. “Maybe someone was just looking for money. Until we know more… Keep your eyes peeled, but remember that we’re here for the ley line first.”
It was an annoying proposition to Bitterroot, but also the one that made the one that… made the least nonsense. They knew too little to split off from their actual jobs and go running off on what might be an opportunistic burglary. And technically, Bitterroot herself wasn’t part of their group, but she normally knew who she was looking for as a bounty hunter. If she broke into random ponies’ houses, she wouldn’t be a bounty hunter for long.
So instead, she said, “And on that note…” She whipped out her scroll. “I got all the deaths for the town.”
Code immediately brightened. “All of them?”
“All of them.” Bitterroot laid the scroll out on the floor so everyone could see it. “Going all the way back to 780.”
“Thorough,” murmured Code.
“There,” Amanita suddenly said. She pointed at the entry for 946. “Look at that. Nearly three times as many deaths for any other year. And… wow, they’re all violent?”
“Must’ve been a lot of animal attacks that year,” Bitterroot said.
Charcoal had grabbed a quill and was scribbling stuff in the margins. “And the attacks dropped off after that year… Slow drop- Look at it, it’s a smooth curve…”
“Let’s not be too hasty,” said Amanita. “They might not all be attacks. How many of those were mining accidents?”
Bitterroot ran back through her memories. “None.”
Amanita moved her head up such that you could almost hear her neck creaking. She blinked. “Someone’s lying,” she said flatly. “Mining is one of the most dangerous professions in Equestria. People die in collapses all the time. It’s- You didn’t see any? Not even any of these nonviolent ones?”
“…No,” said Bitterroot, trying to ignore the feeling of the uncanny slithering in her gut. “I never saw anything like that. Just attacks and old age.”
“Weird,” Charcoal said too casually as she scribbled numbers down in the margins. “Mountains don’t usually like being bored into.”
Amanita seemed distracted, frowning at Bitterroot’s marks, as she absently asked, “The mountain’s alive?”
“Metaphorically. Mountains are, they’re complex ecosystems, and a mountain with a ley line in it, even more so.” Charcoal began making little swooping gestures with her quill. “All the rocks have settled, but you start drilling into them, and gravity wants them to fall this way but the ley line nudges them that way… There’s a lot going on. There’s even an entire set of secondary guidelines for mines built near ley lines just to make sure nothing gets poisoned. …Metaphorically. A mine this close to a ley line with no accidents is amazing. Although… the trees draw from the line, so if they shore up the line with the trees, then the wood could reabsorb the ley energies…”
“On a similar subject,” said Code, “when we were visiting Pyrita, her sister said nobody in Tratonmane ever had black lung. Could that be a benefit of the line?”
“Not passively,” Charcoal said. “It’s, the line might make you healthier, but poison’ll still kill you. It’s like… It’s like watching- washing in a river. Just standing in it will get some dirt off, but you need to scrub if you want to get clean. Actually, for towns near ley lines, there are rarely any effects on the inhabitants, but the plants are a lot healthier because they’re actively pulling energy from the lean- the line… It’s really neat, once you start digging.”
“Very strange,” muttered Code. “No mining accidents, no black lung… Whatever techniques they use, they’d change the industry, yet it’s just another small mining town in the North.”
“Anyway, getting back to, the, uh, spike in 946,” said Charcoal. “If we assume that that was the result of a ley shift, then any animals might’ve passed going nuts down to their offspring. Maybe. We’re still studying that. Which normally would’ve kept the same amount of attacks in the next year, but if Tratonmane got those bunkers built or taken other anti-wolf measures, you see this slow drop in attacks over the next few years. Like so.” She traced the years to 949. “It’s really smooth, too. And something maybe confirming that is…”
She swept her hoof down the line of years before 946. “Did you notice that there’s barely any attacks before then? Like the animals were calmed because of the ley line and just didn’t feel like it was worth tangling with those weirdos who could fly or throw energy bolts or kick down trees. That’s kinda common around ley lines, actually.”
“I did notice that, but I wasn’t sure it was relevant,” said Code. Looking down the scroll, she stroked her chin. “Ley lines, a perfect mining safety record, grain mothers, peaceful beasts suddenly turning hostile one year… How does one of the most interesting places in Equestria just… drop off the map like Tratonmane did?”
“Maybe it wasn’t interesting before it dropped off the map,” said Bitterroot.
“I wonder what all this does for the ritual environment,” murmured Code. She grunted and straightened up. “But since we shouldn’t be doing that, back to the ley line it is. And before we were interrupted-” (Bitterroot’s wings twitched reflexively, even though it wasn’t her fault.) “-I’m afraid I couldn’t feel anything specific about what was wrong.”
“Me neither,” said Charcoal. “It’s really weird, the currents aren’t behaving properly, but only once you look close at it… Not to mention the energy itself, it’s all-”
Amanita coughed. “Um… I… don’t mean to… intrude or anything, but I… kinda…” She pawed at the floor. “…don’t really know what I’m looking for in the ley line. I, I can feel it, but I don’t know what I’m feeling for.”
Code raised a hoof, ready to say something, only to pause and frown. Charcoal promptly leapt in with, “Have you ever cooked pasta?”
“…Once or twice,” Amanita said, one of her ears drooping.
“You know how, before it’s done, it’s kinda floppy, but you know just from looking at it that it’s not floppy enough, even before you bite into it or throw it against the ceiling?”
“Yeah…” The ear went back up.
“It’s just… something you learn. Just feel the ley line, get to know what it does, and soon you’ll know what to look for.”
“Uh-huh,” Amanita said, nodding.
“Which… isn’t good advice right about now, because I don’t know what to look for. And this is, y’know, my job and all.” Charcoal grinned nervously. “But that’s what the geothaumometers are for, right?”
Amanita grimaced. “Are we really going to have to set them up?”
“I’m afraid so,” said Code. “Normally, we’d have a clearer picture of the problem by now instead of continuing to flounder. So if that’s what it takes…” She heaved a large sigh.
“What’s a geothaumometer?” asked Bitterroot.
Big, bulky, and a pain to move. That’s what a geothaumometer was.
More descriptively, geothaumometers were a combination of a surveying tripod, a planisphere, a windmill, a crystalline lattice framework mounted on the bottom, and a pendulum. Looking at one, Bitterroot couldn’t make head or tail of it, so she decided to leave that to the ritualists. The things were tall, around a foot taller than most ponies once fully assembled, and had a rather involved setup process. In spite of the crystals, Amanita insisted they weren’t fragile, just a pain to build.
A brief talk with Cabin had yielded several simple maps of Midwich Valley in the space between the mine and the forest, and Charcoal quickly picked twelve locations across the valley to place geothaumometers. A bit of work, and the ritualists had wrestled the large crates in storage onto a few sledges to transport north. The treeline was beginning to loom when the three split up, each one going to set up their own geothaumometers. Bitterroot found herself walking with Code to provide an extra set of limbs, as Code lacked a horn to give herself the equivalent of an extra set of limbs, and was very glad that she didn’t need to remember the steps for assembly.
Once it was up, though, it looked simple enough: a tall frame for the pendulum to swing in, with the windmill spinning on the top. The pendulum itself was almost ludicrously simple, nothing more than a small chunk of smoky quartz hanging from a chain. The pendulum swung over the planisphere, oriented by Bitterroot didn’t know what. All of this was mounted on the tripod and able to be adjusted separately so it was level. Finally, the crystals were stowed on the legs of the tripod.
Code had a pole out and was making some final adjustments to the windmill with it. Bitterroot looked up and down at the… device. It was a confusing mishmash of stuff she had no comprehension of. It was almost scary, how odd it looked. But it was helping them do their job, so she might as well find out. Once Code set the pendulum to swinging, Bitterroot cleared her throat. “So, uh… what does all of this do? What’s involved in geothaumometing?”
“Quartz is an excellent receptacle for magic, as you may know,” Code said. “Smoky quartz even more so, thanks to its creation. As the pendulum swings, it collects magic from the air and deposits it through the planisphere, down here.” She patted one of the crystals. “Once we have it stored, we can analyze it more precisely. Additionally, over the course of this process, it gets drawn into a parallel course with the ley line. Like a weather vane turning to face the wind. Once we have all of them swinging in the proper orientation, we can triangulate them for the line’s source.”
Once Bitterroot knew what it was meant to do, she could see it. Kinda. Sorta. Granted, the actual mechanics of it all probably required a doctorate in some field she hadn’t heard of, but it didn’t look quite so overwhelming anymore. Just a bit weird. “And magic keeps the pendulum swinging instead of slowing down, right?”
“The windmill on top gathers energy for just that, as well as preventing the wind from pushing it off-course.” Code closed her eyes, ate a mouthful of dirt, and breathed in deeply. After a moment, she budged the inner disk of the planisphere a degree clockwise.
“Does a change that small really matter?” Bitterroot asked.
“Almost certainly not,” said Code. “But I like to be thorough. Now…” Taking the pole in her mouth, Code traced out a circle around the geothaumometer with an easy smoothness. Returning to the box, she pulled out, of all things, a small tangle of thorns. She placed the thorns in the center of the circle right underneath the geothaumometer and took up the pole again to sketch out a rune, one that looked like a capital Y with another vertical line between the tines. (It was on the eastern side of the circle. Did that matter? Maybe.) Taking a seat on the south side, Code closed her eyes and started muttering rhythmically. Around them, snow stirred as grass started leaning towards her.
Something snapped minutely in the air, like the pop of the world’s tiniest firecracker, and the very tips of Bitterroot’s feathers buzzed. How did she know it was just the tips? Code nodded. “We’re done here. Let’s move on.” She began working herself back into the sledge’s yoke.
“Uh, what was that?” Bitterroot asked, pointing at the circle. Something magical had happened, and you always wanted to be careful when magical things happened around circles. (Heh. Around.)
“Try it out,” Code said a bit too cheerfully. “It’ll be a learning experience.” She adjusted the yoke on her withers.
A “learning experience”. From a ritualist. The High Ritualist. Great. After suppressing a gulp, Bitterroot carefully edged her hoof over the circle-
Out of nowhere, she suddenly felt the sharp tingle of a light electric shock zip up her leg; she yanked her hoof back on reflex.
“Shock circles,” Code said preemptively. “Basic ritual. Any living thing that goes over it gets a nice, small jolt of lightning. Quick and easy animal deterrent.” She dug her hooves into the ground and started tugging the sledge to the next setup point.
“That doesn’t seem like it’d stop a pony if they really wanted to get in,” Bitterroot said, looking back over her shoulder. Really wanted to get in, though.
“It won’t, not if they set their mind to it,” said Code. “But animals will do anything to avoid pain. The capacity for self-destruction is one of the gifts of sapience. …And that sounds far more morbid than I intended.”
“You think?”
It was supposed to be simple. Set up a geothaumometer, draw a shock circle around it, repeat until all the spots were accounted for. That was probably the first warning sign.
Amanita’s first geothaumometer had the misfortune of being on an incline just slight enough to throw off the balance a little. It could stand, certainly, but Amanita felt like a strong enough wind could tip it over — the wind being of the sort that Midwich’s walls magnified. Extending the leg anchors to drill in was easy enough, as long as the ground wasn’t too cold. Oh, wait. It took Amanita several minutes to get an anchor in deep enough that was comfortable with it. One anchor. And because the effort she put in was mostly the effort of turning a screw, it was unnecessarily fiddly when doing it physically and she didn’t even get the satisfaction of a workout when doing it physically.
“Everypony-” she grunted to herself with each painful turn, “always- forgets- what- goes on- in- the North.”
Which was why she and Circe had spent so much time there.
Thankfully, the rest of the tasks were much simpler. Get the planisphere level, get it properly oriented, scrub the osmotic crystals, get the pendulum swinging, draw the shock circle. Easy-peasy.
Except for the last one.
Unlike the mental projection spell, Amanita knew shock circles. They were simple ritual magic, something she had a very solid grasp of. Draw the circle to contain the magic (you didn’t even need any special media!), lay the thorns inside to stand for the deterrent, sketch a properly-oriented algiz for protection, and use a little bit of her own magic to draw out the deterrence for the protection.
But somehow, the deterrence didn’t want to come out. Amanita pulled and needled, but the reality within the circle just wasn’t schlorpy enough, and everything stayed right where it was. She growled at the thing that’d worked plenty of times before, then started pacing.
Her missing things seemed to be the theme of the week, didn’t it? Ley lines, grain mothers, this ritual she knew ought to be working… The second she stepped out of necromancy- No, that wasn’t fair. She’d made shock circles. They’d worked before. This circle was good enough to work. Which meant there was a problem with the environment, maybe? The ley line might-
The current of the ley line necessitated a slightly misshapen circle. Right. Grauss’s flux law. How could she have forgotten that? (By it being a specific edge case, applicable in only certain types of scenarios for certain types of rituals? The irrational part of her mind looked at that and decided it didn’t matter.) Nothing quite like letting simple laws of metaphysics like that get in the way of you doing your job, genius.
Shock circles being a simple ritual, the circle didn’t need to be perfect, which was good, because the precise nature of how it needed to be adjusted kept escaping Amanita. But there were only so many ways you could smoosh a circle, and she soon had a shape for which the deterrence semi-begrudgingly left the thorns. (If you touched the thorns now, they’d seem oddly blunt and flimsy.) The circle hummed satisfyingly, so she poked her hoof over the circumference-
Bzzt. -and yanked it back. The zap wasn’t large, but it was sharp and sudden and unhindered by her furs. It was also working, and ought to work for another twenty-two-ish hours. Fortunately, shock circles were metaphysical once running. Throwing away the thorns or breaking the physical circle wouldn’t do anything; you had to draw out the actual magic. Either no animal would be able to break the circle or the animals were smart enough to use focused magic, in which case the cavalry could be called. Hopefully.
Test again, because she was paranoid and wanted to be sure it was still wor- Bzzt. Still working. Ah, science.
Once that was done, she went to the next location, further up the hill but thankfully flatter. Set up the geothaumometer, make the circle, test the circle, get shocked. The location after that, though, she was busy adjusting the level of the planisphere when a chiropterus chirped their way over through the dark. Midwinter. She settled onto her haunches, watching Amanita with interest as she traced out the shock circle. “Evening,” Amanita said as she tossed the thorns in the middle.
“Evening,” Midwinter returned.
“Flipping rigatack!” Amanita returned back as she got shocked again.
Midwinter chuckled. “Don’t like the pain, do you?”
“Not really.” Amanita looped the harness back over her neck. “But I’d rather me get hurt than other ponies.”
“Hmm.”
Amanita pulled. Not being an earth pony, she was getting tired, but that was more than balanced out by carrying only a quarter of what she’d started with; only one geothaumometer to go. Midwinter followed along, watching her carefully. “Your… team has quite the project in the works,” she said. “How’s it going?”
“It’s going,” Amanita grunted.
“I believe I’ve never mentioned how grateful I am to have you here,” Midwinter said. “Having skilled ponies working tirelessly for them is a boon anypony should be thankful of.”
“I expect you get that feeling sometimes,” said Amanita. “You and your family work on the plumbing, don’t you?”
“Oh, not as much as you may think. Varnish is rather close to a brute, no matter how much he reckons himself a knight with his sword,” Midwinter said shamelessly, “and although she has her ideas, Carnelian couldn’t weave a genuine spell to save her life, I know that much. But you… I heard of that spell you cast on the bear. A form of psychometry, was it?”
“‘Thanatometry’ might be a better name,” said Amanita. Necrometry would scare ponies off, with its prefix of necro-, plus it didn’t roll off the tongue nearly as easily. And had she heard right? Varnish was also part of Midwinter’s family? Huh.
“Still. Seeing its death for yourself — and without any focus item, if I heard correctly. You must be an excellent mage.”
“I’ve certainly pushed boundaries,” said Amanita. Just- not all of those boundaries were ones that ought to be pushed. (Her breath nearly hitched. Had she said too much?)
“What form of magic do you study?” Midwinter’s ears were forward.
Amanita’s thoughts rushed for an excuse and quickly grabbed, “Well… it’s complicated. Let’s just say they haven’t figured out what to call it yet.” Which was true; there was still some debate over renaming the Necromancy Corps to the Thanaturgy Corps for better PR. “Mostly, it… involves different ways of experiencing the past.” There she went again, saying too much, potentially sounding interesting.
But Midwinter seemed satisfied. She nodded and started whistling.
They reached the position of the final geothaumometer. With a combination of hoof and horn, Amanita rolled it off the sledge and set about setting it up. “So what’re you doing down here?”
A shrug. “Curiosity, I suppose. I merely wanted to see how this was going, get a feel for its progress. Although if it’s merely ‘going’…”
“Eh.” Amanita adjusted the dials to get the planisphere lying flat. After three previous setups, she was developing a bit of a feel for it. “Still inconclusive. We’re running further tests to find out more. We’ve still got options.”
“Well, I wish to you the best of luck. I’m much too familiar with large projects for my liking. Particularly long-term ones where constant issues necessitate the scrapping of the project after moons of work.”
“Plumbing can take that long? I wouldn’t know.” Test. Last one. Bzzt. Mrglfrgl…
“It can when you’re upgrading. When it comes to… purifying liquids like water, there are a great many moving parts. Altering a single thing can have ripple effects, ah… downstream, so to speak.”
“Wah wah wah,” snorted Amanita.
Midwinter’s calm expression suddenly dropped. “...I beg your pardon?”
“Bduh…” Amanita quickly looked down, pretending to fiddle with the circle. “It’s a- Canterlot- thing. Because of your… pun, it’s-”
“Um, hey! Amanita!”
Charcoal came trotting up through the dark, her horn glowing and ringing. “Um.” She swallowed. “Amanita, can you help me?” she asked, slightly quiet. “I… can’t really get the circle-”
“Did you remember to account for Grauss’s flux law?” Amanita asked, standing up.
“…No, because I’ve never hearth- heard of it.”
Fair enough. Few non-ritualists had. “Alright. Let’s go teach you.”
Charcoal led Amanita, and Midwinter tagged behind; Amanita got the feeling that Midwinter was bordering on gawking at Charcoal, but in a dignified manner. Charcoal’s geothaumometers had been set up perfectly, so Amanita just needed to draw the circle a bit lopsidedly.
“That was it?” Charcoal asked, her ears quivering. “Code… never said-”
“She might’ve forgotten it,” Amanita said. She was already drawing the deterrence out from the thorns; might as well quickly finish up. “I know I forgot it until I tried the circle myself.”
Once the circle was closed, Charcoal prodded the air above the perimeter. Amanita actually saw the blue glow of the sparks this time, now that she wasn’t tensing up for the shock. But Charcoal was giggling as she shook her hoof. “Wow that’s weird,” she muttered. Bzzt.
“Is it the working sort of weird?” Amanita asked.
“Yeah.” Bzzt.
“What would possess you to… do that?” asked Midwinter, her ears back and her wings rustling.
“I dunno, I just like the felling.” Bzzt. “Feeling.”
“I hope it’s not interfering with your speech. You’re rather malapropist.”
Charcoal didn’t look at Midwinter, but she folded her ears back. “That’s not my fault, I was silenced for a long time,” she muttered. Bzzt.
“Can you do that at the next circle?” asked Amanita. “We still need to draw two more before we’re done.”
“Right.” Bzzt.
As they set off, Midwinter gave Amanita a look like she was about to say something, only for Charcoal to start talking. “Anyway, I was thinking that, if these don’t yield anything, we might want to run tests on the river, since-”
Midwinter sucked in a sharp breath. “As- I- said-” she half-growled, “our purification processes do not-”
“And I’m planning on that!” Charcoal said, not caring one lick for Midwinter’s reaction. “I hope you’re right! Because if you are, then the river’s pretty close to pure, and that makes it great for analysis.” She looked off into the dark, towards (what Amanita presumed was) the river. “Rivers are… They’re kinda the… blood of a place. Everything glows- grows around the river. They follow ley lines easily. And we didn’t find much in Midwich Forest, but we could still find something in Tratonmane. And you can work the water to get even more data on the ley line, if it comes to that. Nothing, nothing to do with plumbing.”
“Ah.” Midwinter’s voice was back to normal, although she was still looking at Charcoal oddly.
“Not until tomorrow, though,” Charcoal said, peering up. “It’s getting late.” Indeed, the sky was darkening from orange to blue as the sun passed below the horizon outside the gorge. Not that you could tell unless you looked straight up. Amanita wondered just how strange a wide blue sky would feel to her once they left Tratonmane.
“In any case, your specific niche has slipped my mind. You’re the, ah… environmentalist?” Midwinter asked.
“I am!” Charcoal said, a spring working its way into her step. “I studied environmental magical systems for ages. You know, used properly, they can sustain life where it really shouldn’t be. Like in here! Midwich’s agriculture is nuts. You guys have grain! This far north!”
“Yes, we’ve certainly made the valley work for us. It’s quite impressive.”
“So we’d better fix the line quick, or else…” Charcoal shuddered, all the way to the tip of her tail. “Can you imagine? Being up here without a ley line to draw from for food? That’d be awful. You wouldn’t get much food and the food you would get would be malnourished. Any village probably wouldn’t last the season.”
“Hmm. And you do not know how long you shall be here?”
“Not yet,” said Charcoal. “This line’s a doozy for some reason. We might need to get extra help from Canterlot, but I’d really not have that happen.” She laughed the laugh of someone just anxious enough to fret.
“Indeed,” Midwinter muttered. She gave the two a bow. “It was a pleasure speaking to you, even if you fumbled the words, but I’m afraid I have business to attend to.” And she winged into the dark.
Charcoal didn’t seem to notice Midwinter’s departure. “It kinda makes you wonder,” she said. “Just what does Tratonmane get from the VFC? I mean, FVC. The mine’s mostly coal, right? How is coal so valuable that keeping a village up here is profitable?”
“Who knows?” Amanita said with a shrug. “Maybe it’s not and inertia keeps it moving. Come on. I’m hungry, and the sooner we get those circles drawn, the sooner we can get dinner.”
“We still need to talk about sharing magic,” said Code.
“Hmm?” Amanita said through a mouthful of oddly delicious clover.
“Maybe ‘need’ is too strong. But I cannot believe we’ve barely looked at it since yesterday.”
Upon finishing up the geothaumometers and shock circles, it was collectively decided to turn in for the day, and now the team was having dinner in the Cave’s common room again. Amanita was having an excessively simple (but quite tasty) salad of arugula and clover. Bitterroot and Charcoal were deep in conversation about the Elements of Harmony. And Code was playing with her meal in the fidgety way of someone who’s hungry but thinking of something still more interesting than food.
“Well, you know.” Amanita swallowed. “Work. And after dinner, you and I had that- one conversation.”
“But we left it at that,” muttered Code. “We didn’t go further once we had the time. In Canterlot, I would’ve…” She picked up a leaf of arugula in her mouth and slowly chewed, drawing it into her mouth like a spaghetti noodle as she stared at her thoughts. Then, almost like a rope had snapped, her head whipped around until she was looking at the bar, mostly empty. One of her ears twitched. “Would you like to find out?”
“Wha- Sharing?”
“Yes. Cabin seems unoccupied at the moment. We could talk to her.”
“Er-” Amanita glanced over. Cabin seemed concerned mostly with wiping down glasses at the moment. But knowing Cabin, she’d probably have an excuse ready to avoid talking to them. Still, worth a shot. “Sure.”
“Excellent.” Without another word, Code set off for the bar. Amanita quickly scurried after her.
Cabin looked up as they took seats in front of her, then went back to cleaning glasses. “Need arythin’?” she grunted.
“Do you know how to share magic?” Code asked. “Between individuals.”
“Aye. Most everypone does.”
“Can you teach us?”
Cabin raised her head, looking like Code had asked her the best way to barbeque foals. Amanita squirmed beneath her gaze; Code didn’t blink. “Ye dinnae ken?” Cabin huffed out something that might’ve been a laugh. “There’re foals that outclass ye.”
“Correct,” Code said shamelessly. “And I, for one, feel it is never too late to learn. Can you teach us?”
“Lissen,” grunted Cabin, “I’ve got importanter things tae do then teach somethin’ that ought tae be foal’s play tae a buncha-”
Code slapped a high-value coin on the bartop. “Would this speed things up?”
“Pff. Ye reckon ye can buy yer way up?” Cabin tried to look incensed, but it seemed more performative to Amanita than anything. She was looking at the shiny too often. “I dinnae ken ’ow it works in Canterlot, but ’ere, busy’s busy.”
Code shrugged. “Well, if you’re busy, you’re busy. But then I’ll be taking this back.” She pulled the coin back an inch.
Cabin managed a full second before she gave the coin a telekinetic yank from beneath Code’s hoof. “Ain’t that busy,” she grunted reluctantly. She made a show of examining it, then tucked it away. After a moment’s thought, she pointed at Amanita. “You. Unicorn.”
“Amanita,” the unicorn in question said.
“Unicorn. Ye ken how, when ye’re magickin’ somethin’ up, ye’re… pushin’ it with yer thoughts and magic?”
Amanita assumed that meant levitating something. It was… not the greatest description, but not inaccurate. She nodded hesitantly.
“Push yer magic at somepony else. Nae thoughts, let ’em find those theirselves.”
And Amanita nearly clamped her jaw shut in horror.
That was very close to enthrallment.
When you made a thrall, you pushed your own magic and will on them, smothering the identity of the original pony as you bent your soul to your own. Amanita knew how to make thralls. She’d done it plenty of times before. Now, though, the thought made her guts churn. The realization of what enthrallment actually was had made her finally decide to abandon her lich master and run. She almost cut off any thoughts of sharing magic on pure reflex.
But.
But the important part, making sure their thoughts were yours, Cabin had specifically shot down. Let them find their own thoughts. Because that was how they shaped the magic, right? Otherwise, you were just using them as a complicated conduit and might as well cast the spell directly, since-
“Ye feelin’ alright?”
Amanita blinked her way back to reality. Cabin was squinting at her, not particularly worried. “Ye’re lookin’ woolgathered,” Cabin said. “Do ye-”
“I’m fine,” Amanita said quickly. “Just- thinking.” Technically true.
Okay. Okay, she could- She could do this. Nothing to do with enthrallment. She could do this. She could. She could. She could. (It was around this time it stopped sounding like self-denial and started sounding something resembling genuine.) She took a deep breath, paying close attention to the way the chill wormed down her throat. Keep her thoughts on that, and she wouldn’t go forcing them on Code. “I, I think I get it.”
One of Cabin’s ears twitched at some certain sound or voice. “Got work that needs doin’,” she said, pushing away. “Back in a few.” And she was depositing drinks on a tray for some pony in the common room.
Code leaned close to Amanita, her voice dropping to little more than a whisper. “I recognize that look,” she murmured. “Something wrong?”
“Just-” Amanita took another breath. “Just bad memories.”
“If you’d rather not, I-”
“I, I’m fine, they’re already gone. I just wasn’t expecting them. I can, uh, try to lend you magic.”
Code gave Amanita another Look, but settled back on her stool. “Very well. Hit me.”
Amanita nodded and reached inside herself.
When she normally used her magic, Amanita had an idea behind it. That idea shaped any spells she cast, any enchantments she wove, any rituals she invoked. This wasn’t out of any intent, but like the eyes focusing on an object: it was just how things happened. But now, she tried to unspool her magic like letting a limb go limp. No thoughts, just sort of wafting it in Code’s direction.
Something twitched.
Amanita felt a sort of metaphysical jerk on her… She didn’t know what. It wasn’t exactly her magic. It was something more… She didn’t know what. The feeling was so strange that she jolted in surprise, instinctively pulling her magic back in. At the same time, Code shuddered like an ice cube was rolling down her spine. “That was you, right?” asked Amanita.
“Yes,” Code said. But she said it absently; only a small portion of her attention was on Amanita. One of her hooves was drumming on the bartop as she muttered to herself. “…difference in kind… If you adapt the right ritual-”
“So-” Amanita cleared her throat. “So now what?”
“I’d like to try it the other direction, if you don’t mind.” Code still wasn’t exactly talking to Amanita, more at her. “If Cabin’s advice was sound, I think I can do it myself. Then… we’ll figure it out.”
Amanita’s track record with “figure it out” was… mixed. But she always accomplished something, at least. “Okay, try it. Whenever you’re ready.” She began taking deep breaths. Being calm and steady seemed like the best way to prepare for this.
After a moment, something curled around awareness and batted at her sensation. It was… not exactly the liminality of a ritual, but something bordering on it. It was… It was magic. Not her magic, but someone else’s, being pushed at her. Amanita tentatively reached out with her own magic and tugged it.
Code sucked in a breath like she’d been stabbed in the gut and the feeling was gone. She put a hoof on her chest, breathing deeply, gasping, “Mother of… That is… something.”
“You okay?”
“Absolutely. Merely shocked. I’ve never felt… my own magic moved like that.”
The phrasing made Amanita hyperfocus on Code. If they were wrong about this, if sharing magic felt bad- But Code didn’t look disturbed, just thoughtful. She was muttering something about rituals and sympathetic attunement. Which was certainly a route to follow, but a bit beyond the scope of what they could study in Midwich.
“I wonder how pegasus magic feels,” Code said. “Or kirin magic.”
“Everything Charcoal’s told me says kirin magic and unicorn magic are functionally identical.”
Code’s grin wasn’t a mad-scientist one just yet, but it was in the right neighborhood. “But we don’t know. And now, we can see for certain.” She looked across the common room, to Bitterroot and Charcoal. “Think they’ll be interested?”
Amanita knew that Code would proceed no matter what her answer was, so she just said, “Might as well ask them.”
Bitterroot and Charcoal were still talking about the Elements as Amanita and Code approached. “-bigger than she sounds,” Charcoal was saying. “Her mane’s kinda ratty and she’s… I can’t remember the word. Lean? Wiry? Something like that. I guess it comes from working outside so much. She’s definitely not what you’d expect someone named ‘Fluttershy’ to be like.”
“I thought-”
“Charcoal. Bitterroot,” declared Code.
Charcoal’s tail flicked in surprise. “Ehm. Code. Amanita.”
“Cabin,” declared Bitterroot, pointing across the room. “Wait, she’s not there anymore.”
“So, uh,” said Amanita, shuffling from hoof to hoof, “we… kinda figured out how to share magic-”
“Really?” Bitterroot’s wings twitched. “Neat.”
“Not all the way,” Amanita said quickly. “It’s not, Code can’t levitate anything with my magic yet. But between the four of us, we’ve got four different magic-using species, so we were thinking-”
Code’s grin was deeper into the neighborhood and now knocking on the door of mad-scientist-dom. “Before we turn in for the night, how would you two like to make history?”
“I’m a member of a long-forgotten species coming back to knowledge,” said Charcoal. “I’m already history.”
“And I’ve-” Bitterroot blinked and looked around. “I’ve… y’know… and I’ve done that twice. I’m also history.”
“Would you like to make history again?”
Bitterroot and Charcoal looked at each other. After a moment, they grinned.
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Did you mean "weren't fragile"? This sentence seems wonky otherwise.
In any case, hell yeah, magic science!
So, our precious bean likes electroshock therapy?
Interesting and intriguing!
Charcoal's description of Fluttershy, what little we get of it, is also quite neat. I wonder what she thought about Applejack?
There are definitely many weird things going on in Tratonmane. I'm curious to see how the magic borrowing will work out. Given how close it was to enthrallment there is certainly a reason to assume some kind of necromancer is hanging around in Tratonmane for some reason.
This continues to give me all sorts of theories and ideas. One that's probably not relevant but very funny is that in Equestria, in addition to Mines, they also have Yours, which is when a bunch of ponies work to fill up a cave with rocks.
quite malapropist maybe? Unless this was meant as a malapropism joke
11899960
It's the most important stage of the rock fermentation process, pioneered by rock farmers!
Fascinating stuff throughout… and more curious prodding from the locals. And yeah, feeling somepony else’s will guiding your magic will probably feel like their brain operating your limbs. Looking forward to seeing what further discoveries may yet be made. (And if sharing magic still works when further from a ley line.)
I wonder how no one has ever figured out magic borrowing before. I mean, magic seems to be a fundamental part of a pony's being and one of the main ways they interact with the world, something extremely basic and intrinsic to the entire species. Magic borrowing doesn't seem to require any magical knowledge at all, just a specific manipulation of something every pony innately understands and constantly uses. And ponies are extremely social, so it seems a bit weird that out of probably dozens of millions of ponies who have ever lived no two individuals outside of Tratonmane have ever done this, either by chance or while actively researching new ways to apply their magic. Here i had a thought that maybe magic borrowing is only possible in specific circumstances, like being near the origin of a lay line, but Amanita mentioned doing something similar as a part of a necromantic ritual, so it must be possible to borrow magic under normal circumstances.
Anyway, feels good to finally catch up with the story. I loved both "Hinterlands" and "Urban Wilds", and it's really great to see Amanita and Bitterroot again. Regarding the chapter, I can't help but feel that something bad and violent is gonna happen soon. The town is mysterious for sure, but aside from a single break-in that didn't have any consequences (yet) out group is largely proceeding with their quest uninterrupted. I feel like it's gonna change soon.
11900680
I suspect the first step might be somehow associated with necromancy, domination of another's will. Made going further with the idea icky over just asking for help.