Daring Do sat across the cluttered desk from Withers. The washed out yellow unicorn with a mane and tail to match but even paler, looked over the list of locations, comparing the written notes to many maps. He had a nervous habit of scratching behind his right ear, which he was doing now.
“You are working for DISCORD?” he asked, incredulous.
Daring Do nodded, “Basically so, yes. Actually, she was in her female form as Eris. Still, the same being.”
Withers shook his head in puzzlement. “Why would you want to do ANYTHING for Discord, even if it is Eris in form?”
Daring Do grinned lopsidedly and fished in her briefcase. “Here is why. The Princesses both asked me to.”
She laid out her letter from the joint Crowns of Equestria.
Withers took one look and pointed out, “They do not say what the task is, do they? Did Eris bother to tell you what these places and times mean?”
Daring Do shrugged both shoulders and wings at once. “Partly. We all know that magic is not instantaneous. Especially, long range magic can have quite noticeable delays. The places and first times are where Eris began to do some unspecified task. The second time is when she encountered disruption of her work.
“I hope that you can reduce this data to give me a search area for the source of the disturbances.”
Withers looked up and nodded slowly. “I see.”
He pulled down a well worn volume from the crammed shelves of his office. He opened it and flipped through with practiced ease.
“Let me see, variables and constants of magic, humm, speed of propagation. Here we are. 6000 meters per second, roughly. That will give us a starting point.”
He began to click beads and move a sliding rule back and forth, adjusting a hairline and reading results. Those he entered into a neat table.
Looking up with a bit of a grin, his nervous ear scratching at a total standstill, Withers announced, “This could become a fascinating exercise in spherical trigonometry, or we could just make a few measurements on the world globe in the University Library!”
Daring Do snickered and pointed out, “Much as I would love to sit and watch you calculate for the next week, I think that the library is our best option!”
As she was opening the door to the office, Daring Do heard hooves scurrying down the hall. Checking quickly only allowed her to see a bit of a black tail vanishing around a corner of the hallway.
As they were crossing the tree lined University Commons, Withers commented, “There is a Rom band camped down at the fairgrounds. The commissary found out that they were there and bought a bunch of their famous Ka'check pastries and flavored coffees to go with the Rom tea that they always stock.”
Daring Do almost slid to a stop. “We are going the wrong way! Saving the world can wait! Rom pastries await us!”
She turned onto the path for the Royal University Commissary, almost sprinting! Withers was not far behind!
As they entered the big building, a glossy chestnut colored mare with a single perfectly centered eye, a mane and tail that were so deep a blue as to seem almost black, raised a hoof and called out, “Doctor Do! Professor Withers! Over here! I took the liberty of getting us all big tray full of pastries and got us some of the Rom coffees to wash them down!”
They dodged through the maze of dining tables. As Daring Do pulled up her seat, she snagged the nice hot caramel flavored coffee and an apricot filled Ka'chek roll to dip into it.
She sighed happily and said, “This is how I should be treated! Thank you Cy.” Turning to Withers, Daring Do introduced, “Withers, I would like you to meet Cyrene Yvonne Clopes, special assistant to Eris. Cy, this is Professor Withers, a brilliant statistician. He may have a handle on the problem that you suggested that I work on.” She finished her introduction by dunking her apricot roll into the coffee and munching serenely.
Withers helped himself to one with apple filling and took a simple honey cream coffee for himself. As he was dunking his pastry into his coffee, he asked, “Is it alright if I call you Cy?”
Cy nodded and offered, “If I can call you Withers, sure.” Before he could ask, she replied to his thought, “I am a third generation spell fallout pony from the Great South Bay Invasion Mage/Tech blast. The first generation, the ones exposed to the spell fallout, showed no overt ill effects. About eighty percent of their foals died before or soon after birth from fatal magical mutations. The foals of the third generation, mostly lived, though many were severely affected. I am one of the lucky ones who was affected but not too severely.”
Withers looked down, a bit ashamed, but forged ahead, “I know about the spell fallout issue. I did a major statistical work on the survivors. I never heard of your particular case before this. I am sorry. Seeing you, sort of brings home the abstract numbers.”
Cy reached across the table and touched Withers gently. “It is quite alright. I am used to those who stare because of my appearance. It pleases me in a mean sort of way to know that I make far more than most of them. Eris regards me highly and rewards me accordingly.”
Withers looked up, dunked his pastry in coffee and spoke around a mouthful of goodness, “Thank you for that. Now, I am quite sure that you did not come all the way from the Eris Inc. enclave outside of Ponyville just to get us pastries and coffee, however good those are.”
Cy sobered down. “True. I have three more data points for you and I brought Doctor Do a few things too.” She pushed sealed envelopes across the table.
Daring Do looked to Cy for permission to open hers. At her nod, Daring Do opened the envelope and examined the drawing within, minutely.
Cy nibbled at some of the pastries too, while the others were working. Withers looked up first, frowning slightly.
“Either all this data is wrong, the ones giving the orders are not on the world of Equestria, or the orders being given are going through a relay. To solve this, we are going to need to locate the relay point. It would be a big help if I knew whether the detection at the initiation point was active or passive.”
Cy pulled out a Magic Net mirror and tapped codes. They could see her speaking but a mute spell kept them from hearing either Cy or the speaker at the other end of the connection.
Giving Withers a calculating look, Cy suggested, “Doctor Do, I think that if he is willing to go with you, not only will Withers be a valuable asset, we could risk telling you two what it is that Eris does.
“First, though, the Compass tracks Eris passively. It is somehow being abused to locate where she is doing her works. Does that help, Professor Withers?”
Scratching his ear as he thought, his eyes brightened. His smile was nearly angelic. His pen nearly flew as he added columns to his present table.
Looing up to Cy’s single eye confidently, he stated, “It does make it absurdly simple. The link from the Compass to where the orders are being relayed is approximately a constant.
“The detection leg and the order leg will vary by their relationship to the work site. We will plot the work sites on the globe and measure arcs based on the difference between detection and action legs.
“It will take a few trials but we should have the length of the constant relay leg in only an hour or two. Arcs drawn based on the speed of magic propagation will pin down the areas where the Compass is and where the relay point is.
“It won’t be too accurate, but it will give us useful areas to search, depending on what it is that you want to do.”
Cy sucked in her cheeks as she thought. “We wish to recover the Compass of Discord or, in the worst case, destroy it.
“That last should be reserved as an option of desperation. There is enough non equine magic wrapped up in it that doing so will rival the Circle Lake blast at the end of the Nightmare Wars.
“We do not care about the Discordians as such. Whether some are killed or not is of no consequence.”
Withers mulled that over while they finished off the pastries and coffee. Finally he suggested, “Let us repair to the Library and start plotting this data on the world globe there. Now that we have done justice to these goodies, it is time to save the world!”
As she got up from the table, Cy remarked dryly, “That is more literal than you may think.”
Entering the Library, they were greeted by the silence and the scent of books and manuscripts. With assurance, Withers strode up to the main desk.
“Hello, Morail! I need to use the big world globe again. I have a commission in geographical statistics that I wish to demonstrate to Doctor Do and Cyrene, here.”
Morail gave Withers an almost adoring stare as she replied, “Certainly, Sir! I know that it is not officer training class, but I want you to know that I have burst fire on the MT84 held to fifteen centimeters at 60 meters.”
Withers responded, “That is excellent, Morail! I believe that it is a unit record. I can’t wait to see you shoot when it is time for class!”
To the others, Withers said modestly, “I am a retired Major in the Equestrian Army. I teach both reserves and the officer training program, besides statistics.”
Morail opened a door and they were faced with a room that had five globes of the world in it. The largest was almost two meters across. Withers strode confidently up to the big one, picking up a rack of objects with tags attached, a cloth measure tape and a marker.
He began placing the objects on the globe and filling in the tags. From each object he measured and marked off an arc.
He commented, “These are wrong. They assume that the relay/action is one half and detection is one half. They will give us a rough cut for the action center.”
Daring Do noted, “That rough cut puts things into the Selene Mountains on the border of the Zebra Confederation and the Eland Republic.”
Cy consulted with her Magic Net mirror for a moment. She picked up one of the sticky things with a tag and put it into the Selenes at a specific spot. “Mistress Eris has ordered me to reveal the location of the Hidden Temple of Discord. If they had remained basically harmless nut cases like they were in the past, she would never have done so, no matter how much she detests them.”
Withers took one look and erased his old lines and arcs. He drew new lines directly from each place to the Hidden Temple, carefully measuring each one and entering it into a new table. He began to subtract the new entries from entries in his old table. In only minutes, he smiled.
Withers measured carefully from the Hidden Temple and struck an arc across the Selene Mountains. From each of the other points he struck arcs that intersected his first one. They all came together in one small space.
Confidently, he pointed and stated, “There it is. The Detection center is in that spot. Of course at this scale, that is about a twenty five kilometer circle.”
Cy observed, “That is about twenty five kilometers better than we knew it before. The problem remains, that Eris and I cannot go to get it. They will detect us and move it before we can get there.
“Doctor Do, it is up to you. Can you go to the Zebra Confederation and get the Compass of Discord for us?”
Withers nodded, “Hate to put you on the spot, Doctor Do but if you go, I would be honored to accompany you.”
Daring Do Took a sheet of paper and drew a few small runes on it and laid it over the Selene Mountains. The paper conformed neatly to the globe. A perfect copy of the globe surface with Withers’ intersecting arcs appeared on it. She removed the paper and flattened it out on a table, then folded it neatly and put it into her saddle bag.
Finally she commented, “Can’t go without at least some sort of map! At least now I have some idea of where I am going!”