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// Entry 31: Insanely Bearded 
// Story: Samudra's Journal 
// by vren55 
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I’ve finally met Starswirl and he’s… the most insane, and yet… intelligent surface worlder I ever met.

How did I end up meeting him? Well, seaponies in western Aquestria had sent for my aid. Normally, I would send a mage or some deep ponies, but this problem required my personal attention.

The earth ponies in a community on our western boundaries had recently begun to work with pegasi to regulate their weather, which meant far heavier downpours in certain seasons.

This has resulted in significant runoff polluting the waters of a nearby seapony community. Runoff that frankly, they cannot stop, only alleviate, because they have little means of contacting the settlement, which is more inland.

So I personally went to see to this issue and negotiate with the surface worlders, only to find that somepony had fixed the problem and negotiated on our behalf.

That was Starswirl. He had been trying to help the pegasi and earth ponies figure out their weather schedule, while also doing some magical measurements of the water in that bay. Apparently he wanted to see how seawater worked as a conductor for lightning…

The point is, he had been doing experiments on the shore, when saw a seapony, poisoned by the runoff swimming weakly in the shallows. He healed the seapony, cast a translation spell to figure out what he was saying and figured out what was going wrong.

In this way, he had begun intervening on the village’s behalf and had worked out an agreement, which was just being finalized as I arrived.

Of course, I demanded to meet him and arrived, towering over him by a full pony’s head in all of my glory. He… was annoyingly enough, unfazed. Then again, he had beaten Tirek.

He wore a strange outfit. A blue cloak and hat with stars and bells on the ends. He explained they were to ward off evil spirits and monsters.

Honestly, the bells might actually do that because I sensed they were enchanted to produce some kind of… really aggravating sound that Starswirl couldn’t hear, but my all too sensitive ears could pick up.

Starswirl was young for a surface pony, but perhaps there was a genetic disorder because he had a really large white beard. Maybe it was an illusion? I’m not sure, his appearance did not really concern me.

What did concern me was that even then I could see the power he wielded, see the enchanted scrolls and books that he carried to amplify his power. He was definitely one of those surface worlders that Empress Panthalassa warned me not to underestimate.

At the same time, he had helped Aquestria… Yes. He will definitely be watched.