Entry #1
Right. I'm alive, and quite clearly somewhere unfamiliar. The downside is that my fur is now statically charged and floofed up quite badly, and my exit from the jump had been less than graceful.
I seemed to have acquired a great deal of kinetic energy during the jump from one time period to another. I'll need to look into why that happened. Shooting across the landscape only to land with my snout grinding against gravel for a few feet upon landing is not something I want to experience again. And, as I said, I acquired a lot of static electricity during the trip. Another thing to look into.
I have landed in a grassy plane with no one around. I am unsure where I am, or when provided the spell actually worked as intended. I see no buildings or structures nearby...
Oh dear...
That is, undeniably, Mt. Canter. It is also undeniably bare. No Canterlot City on the side of the mountain. I seem to have gone backwards in time. My intention had been to go forward, to the point where Nightmare Moon would return.
Curious... It appears my method of time travel must be refined. At least it works! Huzzah!
---
Entry #2
I have just wandered around the countryside for roughly three days. Thankfully I am quite adept at wilderness survival, so food and water has not been an issue, and my magic is powerful enough that constructing a simple shelter almost doesn't even make me break a sweat.
There are no ponies to be found, so this is clearly before the Windigo Disaster. There is also no sign of the Mad God. That does no necessarily bode well. All signs before he was defeated pointed to him ruling this land for hundreds of years. Ancients texts that have been dug up since he was defeated point out that some entity worse than Discord called this place home back then.
I must leave.
---
Entry #3
I cast the time travel spell again, this time while having a passive scanning spell attached to me to get a read on what happens during the transfer. Once again I exited the jump as if launched from a cannon, this time far more violently. Thankfully, I didn't go sliding across the ground. No, instead I almost immediately slammed into a smooth vertical surface.
The sound of my body hitting the surface had drawn attention to me, and before I could recover my bearings a ring had been placed on my horn and shining bracelets made of a strange metal similar to polished bronze placed on my forelegs. I instantly lost control of my muscles and went limp.
Then, to my surprise, I was brought before the ruler of the time period I found myself in. An Alicorn, but no Alicorn I knew of. Her fur was lavender in color, her mane two-toned with dark violet and rose colored strands. And, like Celestia and Luna, it waves as if the mane itself was immaterial. She called herself Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship, and current ruler of the country while the rest of the Royal Family was away on diplomatic missions.
I spent the next few hours having a strange conversation with her. Apparently, this was far from the first time she had met me, and had in fact been expecting my arrival at around this time. She told me that the spell I created for time travel was flawed and actually damaged the fabric of time and space in permanent ways, and that I had to recreate and refine it before I would be allowed to leave her time period. That was what the ring was for. It didn't inhibit my magic, but somehow prevented the time travel spell from being used. I can access my magic fully, just not that spell in particular. The ring was, of course, secured by her own magic, which was so much more powerful than mine that I may as well have been trying to move the planet with a spoon.
She was never threatening, and in fact quite kind and generous. She went out of her way to assure me that I was not being held in this time period against my will. I am free to travel and go where I wish, even settle down in what she calls the city of Ponyville. I can even continue time travelling, but only after I fixed my spell, or developed a new and better one.
I inquired as to the condition of Luna, but Twilight became tight lipped here. She said that My future self had made it clear that she could not tell me about Luna or any other future events unless unavoidable.
It seemed I have quite the adventure with time travel ahead of me. I'm actually a little excited at the prospect!
I guess I better get to work on that new spell. Thank the stars I chronicled all of my discoveries and designs in a separate journal I brought with me.
---
Entry #4
It has been a week, and I think I've finally figured out why my time travel spell was so dangerous. I designed it to essentially dig a hole from one point in time to another, using nothing more than brute force. Apparently those holes don't just close once the spell ends, leaving the times connected and interacting with each other. No wonder Twilight was so adamant that I fix this.
The problem is that I can't fix it. The spell was designed around this idea. All the variables and formulas are calibrated towards utilizing the hole.
I have burned the journal that held all of my plans on my first time travel spell. If nothing else, it is clear I can never allow this spell to be used again.
Since then I have been discussing time travel with Twilight. While she refuses to give me access to the magical development and technology of the era, she readily tells me whether or not my ideas will work and why. WIth great joy.
She reminds me of Luna.
---
Entry #5
I think I've made a breakthrough.
Twilight has, surprisingly, allowed me access to materials if necessary. It appears the materials of this era are open to me, just not the knowledge of how they are made. One material in particular, a Phase Crystal, has been brought to my attention. Phase crystals are apparently uniquely sensitive to time, and are in face connected to it somehow. Twilight has readily admitted that the time machines of her era make use of the crystals. I had immediately realized what she had just revealed to me.
I asked why she didn't just give me one of those time machines. Her response surprised me.
"Your adventures through time are a legendary, Starswirl. Your legend is what motivated ponies to learn the science of time travel. If I gave you a time machine you would one day be the inspiration for, it could lead to an unstable time loop, one that changes with every iteration."
So it's not that she doesn't want to help, but rather that she's acting to protect the timeline. Okay. I asked her if there was anything she could do for me, any help she could give. She got quiet after that, appearing to consider something. Then she used her magic to summon an item to her. It was a pocket-watch, gold and plain, but merrily ticking away.
"I once dabbled in the study of time and how it affected the physical world. As this was before I was inspired by your legend, I think its safe to give you this much."
She had given me the watch. I asked her how it supposedly helped. She smiled. "Time is not a physical thing, as you know, but that doesn't mean it has no connection to the physical world. Time is tied to some objects far more than others, affects some objects more than others." She had pointed at the watch in my magical aura. "Take that for example. Time is tied more strongly to this watch than it is to, say... a tree. Figure out why, and you should be able to go from there."
---
Entry #6
It really wasn't hard for me to figure out what Twilight meant by time being tied more to some objects than others. I had begun my journey assuming time was just one big stream that moved at one speed, and everything within that stream also moved at that speed. But no, it's not that at all. Time is a force of nature, and like all forces of nature, it affects different things in different ways.
Take the watch and tree analogy Twilight had given me. Time affects the watch and the tree differently. The tree appears to not be affected, but as time goes on you notice it changing, growing, and dying. Without condensing time into a small space, you cannot perceive the slight influence time has on the tree.
But the watch? The watch was designed specifically to be affected by time. Time can not only be perceived with the watch, but it can be measured.
It has now been a month since Twilight gave me the watch. I have, with the help of some engineers Twilight lent me the aid of, designed a simple magitech time travel device. The device relies on the very watch Twilight gave me to work.
The reason my spell was not depositing me where, or rather when, I wanted to go was because I never gave a stable and unchanging method to measure and calculate time. Using the second, minutes, and hours of the watch, I can jump forward and backward in time by the amount of time I specify into the device.
It is not nearly as refined as the stuff Twilight has. I can only go forward and backward by setting an amount of time I wish to travel. I cannot yet pick a date and come to that. It is, however, enough to get me started. Twilight herself has vouched for the safety of the device and, after extracting a magical oath from me to never willingly use my prototype time travel spell again, the ring on my horn was removed.
Before I left though, Twilight suggested I not head to the time I initially wanted to. Not yet at least. Instead, she set my device to take me to a certain time and told me I would be needed there. Not one to ignore someone potentially in need of help, I agreed.
With the time already set, I simply had to press the dial of the pocket-watch in three times in quick succession. Then I was off.