Prologue
Infinity Blast
Prologue
story by: Porqupine
After all this time it is finally over. Three years of pushing myself to my limits and beyond and for what? We won this battle, but did we really win the war? I think I might have to explain myself a little here. I should probably begin our little story three years ago, when it all started. But, let's start with the little things such as... My name.
My name is Soft Touch. No, I'm not a mare. I'm not a Unicorn or a Pegasus either. I am, in fact, an Earth Pony Stallion. My Emblem, or Cutie Mark as some old fashioned ponies like to call it, is that of a stone slab engraved with several runes. Runes are what I live for. They make up most of my lifestyle, even though not many ponies actually know about them. They're either not interested when they come across them or are just too unobservant to notice any.
Runes are everywhere. In every door frame, every piece of furniture, even in the plants all around us. Most runes that exist are natural runes, created by Gaea, god of all that is nature and life. That's at least what the books tell us. The natural runes are pretty difficult to find, which is probably why not many ponies see them, but there are several other types of runes in the world as well.
The most visible and most used ones are the Aether runes. They show whenever a Unicorn does magic. The magic circles that form around their horns to cast a spell are Aether runes. If a pony does not have a Focus, like a horn, then it's impossible to create these runes. The have the potential to contain lots of power, but that purely depends on how big the magic reserve is of the pony casting the spell.
Secondly we have Aeric runes. These are really difficult to find, as they only show traces of what they originally looked like after a Pegasus interacted with a cloud. I have yet to document one.
Then we come to the runes which are easiest to use, but they are the most complex in shape and form. They are also really sensitive to even the smallest changes, one degree off from the main line and it means something entirely different. These runes are what I call Gaean runes. They are everywhere, even in clouds.
The easiest ones to find though, are the ones in plants. If you know where to look you'll see the lines that connect to create the life force which lets a leaf breath, let's a tree feel and makes grass sing.
It was either pure coincidence or fate that brought my attention to them. I personally don't believe in fate so it must have been coincidence.
As a colt I stumbled across a set of basic runes when I accidentally ran into a foreigner when I was playing with my friends, Blazing Light and Fleeting Rain, on the back streets of Seaddle. The weird black pony with white stripes, or white pony with black stripes I don't know, quickly ran off after he got back up, but he had dropped some stone slabs when he did that. Me, being the curious little colt, wanted to know what they were so I took them home with me, after I was done playing of course.
Once I got home and I started looking at the strange symbols engraved into the smooth stone slabs. I really couldn't make heads or tails out of it so I decided to do some research in the public library. Thankfully my parents weren't that strict and allowed me to walk the 8.3 miles by myself. Looking back I can see that they weren't really that good of parents but who am I to judge.
After a few hours of looking for any remotely similar symbols in the language section with no luck I suddenly had an epiphany. What if these symbols weren't used as a regular language. What if they were actually more magical then that. I vaguely remember one of my teachers talking about how some Unicorns used a magic circle to make their magic stronger or something, but what was in the circle looked quite a lot like the symbols that were on the slabs I found.
With this new information I decided to start searching through the magic section. Of course I got a few strange looks, I mean when do you ever see an Earth Pony in the magic section, especially a colt? Not often I can tell you that.
Not long after I started browsing I found what I was looking for. A book called 'Basic Enhancements Volume 1: Magic Circles and Runes'. I checked it out at the counter, receiving a very surprised and confused look from the head librarian. I just smiled at her with my best colt-face and walked the 8.3 miles back home.
I went straight to my room and started reading the book. Most of the intro was extremely boring explanation of how somepony should always take proper precautions yada yada, so I skipped through most of that and immediately started looking at the more interesting bits, like magic circles.
Apparently empowering magic circles were really hard to manage with magic alone. A skilled Unicorn could pull it off but it would still require a lot of concentration. They advised anyone, who wanted to use magic circles, to draw them physically, with either chalk or coal, as those products were most resistant to any stray magic that might spark from the circle. Or, if you wanted to make a permanent circle, for either quick stamina recovery or to practice in, you could engrave the symbols into stone or the ground. I skipped a few chapters ahead to look at the runes and their meanings that were listed in the book. There were not many listed, only twenty five. But the book said that with these twenty five you could make over twelve thousand different combinations and effects. None of these were listed, which was really a setback to my curiosity, which was now at its peak.
The next day I went back to the library and looked for Volume two. I couldn't find it anywhere, I even checked the other sections again, so I decided to ask the librarian.
“Uhm... Miss librarian?”
“Yes little one, how can I help you?” she replied with the most soothing voice I've ever heard.
“I'm looking for a book.” I stated, looking her right in the eyes. The softness in those sky blue eyes spoke volumes of her kindness and patience.
“Well, then you're at the right place.” The librarian looked at me with a smile on her face, even giggling a little at my dumb statement.
I sighed a little, looked at the floor and said “I'm looking for 'Basic Enhancements Volume 2', I already read all I needed from Volume 1 so I was looking for the next one, but I couldn't find it where it was supposed to be.” I was rambling a bit, and I knew it but she was way too smart for my liking.
“That could be correct young one, you couldn't find it because our newest Princess, Twilight Sparkle, has confiscated it. She said that it contained some spells and enchantments she wanted to study, very thoroughly.”
I looked at her with sadness and disappointment written all over my face. Everypony knew that if Princess Sparkle wanted to study something 'thoroughly' she'd be busy with it for at least the next couple of months, if not years.
“What is it, little one?” she looked at me with concern.
A thought a little before looking back at her hope in my eyes.
“Do you know where they might have another copy?”
“I'm afraid that the only other copy I know of is currently not in Equestria.” I looked at her with shock and almost broke out in tears.
“It's in the Zebrican desert.” she finished, flashing a sympathetic smile at me.
“Why do you even want that book?” she asked, as I was thinking of ways to get my hands on it.
“I'm pretty sure any information is only useful for Unicorns, as it's all magic related.” That's where she was wrong and right at the same time. Yes it's all magic related, but it is not only useful for Unicorns. From what I learned from the first book is that while magic circles need to be powered to work, runes however do not.
This is why I wanted to find that book. It may hold some answers as to how I could utilize these runes for myself, maybe even do some magic.
I looked back at the librarian and just nodded.
“Yea, I guess you're right.” I turned and walked out of the library and once again made the trek back home.
I had difficulty sleeping that night, all these thoughts about runes and their works. Why did only Unicorns ever use them? It's not like other ponies couldn't draw them. I was also wondering what the runes were that I found on the slabs. They all looked pretty similar to some in the book but weren't exactly the same. I knew I wasn't going to be able to get much sleep with all those thoughts so I started rereading the book, this time a bit more carefully.
There was one bit that I had skipped the first time I read through it, something quite important. Even if a rune looked the same as another, if there was one part misaligned or missing then the rune would most likely have an entirely different meaning. That meant that even though I had runes that looked like the ones in the book, I probably couldn't even guess what their actual meaning was.
At that point it was clear to me that I would have to start experimenting. I would start with the runes from the book, since I knew what they meant and I could use that to guide me to make basic magic circles and see what they would do. Of course before I could do anything I had to get myself either a big area with flat stone or, the easier way, get some chalk to draw with. Luckily for me I still had some regular street chalk which I used to make drawings on the sidewalk together with my friends. After having hatched my plan I quickly fell asleep.