//------------------------------// // Chapter 10 // Story: Masks' of the Hunters // by Kamer //------------------------------// Chapter 10 Bright Lights, Long Dilemmas Still Wind was having a day. She wasn’t sure what kind of day it was, good or bad, just that it was determined . And it will probably be determined by how soon she was able to get home and drink. Still was on the fence about this job since the beginning. On one side it was essentially a glorified gopher job. A gopher job for non-military personnel. A gopher job that kept her cooped up in the archives non the less. On the other side, it was a personal request from Princess Luna herself. A request that was brought to her specifically, in private, with a large pay raise. It would have been foalish to turn it down. But she was a gopher for Celestia’s sake! Her, an up and coming lieutenant for the Royal Guard, degraded to doing fetch requests for a bunch of civilians. It was beyond humiliating. The only benefit from this, and she had a long time to think about the benefits, was the circuit training. The library was essentially a giant track that was tailored to her. She specialized in silent, no air force flying. If she wasn’t careful, and flew too fast or too hard, she would generate a normal pegasi’s wind force and sound. Using the library, she could train quick thinking and harder flying through picking the fastest route and flying as hard as the library would allow. The past couple days, she did not necessarily get better in a muscle sense. More so, she was able hone technique, perfecting turns, straights and stops to be as fast and tight as possible, all while retaining the silence she was well known for. She didn’t want to brag, but Wind is confident enough to sneak up on the princesses in an open field. It was a rare occurrence for Wind to dislike a job this much. In fact, the only job she hated more than this one was latrine duty, and that was no exaggeration. There was a lot to dislike. The work was tedious, repetitive and boring despite the training she was getting. The environment was dull and far too quiet for a soldier like herself. The ponies, the ponies were the worst. They were temperamental, full of themselves, and bossy. They seemed to be under the impression that Still Wind was a dull and stupid guard. She was far from as intelligent as the rest of them in the room, but it was just plain humiliating to be ignored most of the time. They also had a tendency to go far off topic. Wind had caught them once talking about what type of pillow was the best pillow. ‘Cloud obviously,’ Still Wind thought, but she knew she would only be ignored if she said it aloud. Despite their short comings though, they were nice and accommodating to Wind’s needs, giving her plenty of time to tend to her own needs. They were very nice to her outside of the research room, often inviting her out to eat and the like. They were also never intentionally mean to Wind, they were just so engrossed in working and talking amongst themselves to really see her as an individual, not just another guard. Which is why it came as a total surprise that that Still Wind found them all working diligently, snouts in books and quills flying about the room, writing Celestia knows what on parchment. Then it was even more surprising when a book was thrown at her. It wasn’t a hard throw, just easy enough to catch. And recalling the librarian’s slightly terrifying one-on-one with the pegasus about damaging books, Wind caught it automatically. “Start reading chapters eleven through 24,” Moondancer said without looking up from her own book, “Write down anything that you think involves magical wave theory.“ “Uhhh…” was Still Wind’s reply. “You don’t need to understand it, just write down anything that sounds important.” Still Wind stared down at the impenetrable cover of the book. It was titled “Spell Modulation Theory: A Brief Summary of the Study and Practice of Amplification Through Spell Wave Theory”. Wind could feel the eye strain already. ‘Brief?’ Wind thought staring at the spine, ‘This book is half as thick as my hoof!’ Flipping the book open to a random page, Wind found even more bad news. The text was small, dense and tightly packed. She began having flashbacks from Upper division training on Tribal History through the Discordian era, which was just as boring as it sounded. Wind sighed, glancing at her saddlebags which were filled with the Neighponese food. “So does anypony want-” “SHHHH!” the chorus responded. Wind stared at the room, a little flustered at this point. What had happened to get them this focused in their work? The more she thought about it, the less she wanted to know. Letting out another sigh, she grabbed some udon noodles from her bags, and sat in an unoccupied chair at the far end of the room. Opening the book to the chapters that the book was, in fact, as bad as her first glance. Wind caught herself, if she kept sighing like this, she though, she would be worse than her mother. Resigned to her fate, Wind pressed on, getting through the first two pages with surprising ease. She remembered more terminology than she thought from some of her upper ed classes. The problem came when she turned the page. It was like somepony decided that the dictionary was overrated and started making up new words. The entire rest of the chapter was nonsensical gibberish to her. ‘This is what my parents must feel like,’ Wind thought back to her one sided conversations about the physics of flying silently, and the vacant, smiling and nodding faces of her parents. Wind had decided that it was time for a break and grabbed the noodles that she had brought over. Passing over the chopsticks, a method of eating that Wind thought was only for unicorns and the daft, she grabbed a fork full of noodles. She could smell the flavor almost immediately, this place was definitely as good as the rumors. Her joy was cut short when both the noodles and the box were pulled from her grasp by a magical aura. “Hey!” “No eating near the books!” Moondancer replied. Bad day. It was definitely a bad day, Still Wind had decided. It was currently around three in the morning with Wind still being confined to the dreaded textbook of too many words. To be fair to the book, it was readable, only in the fact that half of the words could be removed, and it would still make enough perfect sense. Wind had been looking through the book like a puzzle, finding terms that she knew and using them to figure out the more complex phrases that she found in earlier sections, thereby gaining an understanding of the passage without actually knowing what anything meant. Using this technique, she was able to get through the rest of the book with only a moderate amount of confusion. In the end, she came out with around three pages of notes regarding Magical Wave Theory, a topic which, in this book, held no less than five different names and abbreviations. Some of which did not even match up with the words that they were abbreviating. Shutting the book with a satisfying ‘thock’, Wind finally looked around. Another sigh escaped her mouth. Bright Rune and Radiant were sleeping Ivory was looking over notes, and Moondancer was staring at the arrow resting suspended in mid-air, detached from the stallion, perfectly visible for her to see. It was still, the wisps were no longer moving. It was as if someone drew with smoke in thin-air. “Wait,” Wind said, “When did that happen?” “Hmmm?” Moondancer turned her head, “Oh good! Your done!” Moondancer quickly magiced over the pages that Wind had written. She began mumbling to herself while reading them. Wind at this point was convinced that she was speaking a different language, as she heard what she was saying, but did not understand a single word of it. “This is good!” Moondancer said after reading through, “It tells me that each spell matrix can corelate to any sub or super wave given enough magnitude.” “What?” Wind was giving Moondancer a very blank stare. “It means that with the right amplitude through a given modification Matrix, the caster can superimpose a new wave frequency to their spell” “What?,” Wind repeated,her face made no attempt at changing. “Ummm…” Moondancer said, “I’m not sure how else to phrase it.” “It means that we can modify any spell to affect this arrow, given the time.” Radiant said, apparently waking up from her nap. “That makes sense,” Wind said “But why the waves?” “Oh that’s easy!” Moondancer replied, “Every spell can be attributed to a specific frequency, thereby increasing the amplitude of the spell against a physical object that reacts adversely to said frequency.” Wind looked at Moondancer for a few seconds, before she gave up on trying to understand the sentence, and turned to Radiant. “You know how a singer can shatter glass by changing the pitch of her voice?” “Yea.” “A spell can do the same thing, just replace glass with this arrow.” “Gotcha.” “But that’s what I said!” Moondancer pouted. “In a far less understandable manner,” replied Radiant. Moondancer began pouting even more, moving off to the side of the room do so in a chair. “So now we can use spells on whatever shot this arrow?” Wind asked. “Yes and no,” Radiant said. “What’s the ‘yes’ and what’s the ‘No’?” Wind asked. It was Bright Rune that answered this time. “Yes that we can adapt any spell to affect it. But no that it takes time to adapt spells, the more complex the spell, the more time.” “Got it,” Wind said. “The gist if nothing else,” Radiant added. “Hey, I’m sorry if I didn’t go through years of school in magic like some other ponies did,” Wind replied, a little peeved at Radiant’s comment. “Yes, well, not everypony can be as bright as me,” Radiant said a little smugly. “Was that a pun?” Ivory poked in. “What?” Radiant said. “Was that a pun?” Ivory asked again. “Was what a pun, honey?” “You said ‘Bright as you’, your name is Radiant, and you specialize in light spells. Was that a pun?” Ivory explained. “It was not a pun,” Radiant said, “I hate puns.” “You don’t?” Wind said getting a devilish idea. “No,” Radiant said, “I do not.” “Really I thought you were a punny pony?” “Don’t you dare.” “What’s the matter?” Wind asked, smile spreading over her face, “Does Radiant not take a shine to humor?” “Stop.” “They don’t lighten your mood?” “Stop it.” “What’s going on?” Ivory asked, finally looking up from her notes. “I have no idea.” Moondancer replied. “If she doesn’t like puns,” Bright said, also grinning, “Maybe we should humor her.” “Both of you stop it!” Radiant said indignantly, and slightly red in the face “But they brighten the mood, right Radiant?” Wind replied, now grinning ear to ear. “Bahhh!” Radiant cried, slamming a couple of plush pillows from the couch over each ear. “She must think the jokes are all fluff.” Bright said, barely containing his laughter. “Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!” Radiant shouted, now very red in the face. “Maybe she doesn’t like all the pun we’re having!” Wind added not containing her laughter. Two pillows were launched directly at their heads, but it did little to dissuade the torrents of laughs coming from the pair. “You two are insufferable!” Radiant shouted at the two. “Are we done antagonizing Radiant?” Ivory said, her monotone voice showing only the barest hint of amusement. “Quite!” Radiant agreed in a huff. Wind and Bright were laughing in a pair on the couch, lending no hints they were close to done. “Well,” Radiant continued, still a little red in the face, “What have we learned about the spells?” “It is difficult to say.” Ivory said, “It’s akin to looking at the world through a pin in a piece of paper.” “Like only being able to illuminate one part of the problem.” Moondancer added. Radiant immediately glared at the poor unicorn, and the pair in the back started another round of laughter. “W-what?” Moondancer said, suddenly becoming very timid. “Nothing.” Radiant said a little hotly, turning back to Ivory with a flip of her hair. “So what’s the paper?” Radiant asked. “I can’t solve the equations for any of the spells at the same time.” Ivory replied. “All the information is there, but the parts lineup differently for each spell.” “So we modify the spells one at a time right?” “No, hehe, that won’t work.” Bright said, finally coming out of his laughing spell. “Why not?” Moondancer asked. “Ha!… It won’t work because, he-he…, because we need to prepare each spell modification before we can cast an individual spell.” He finally finished. “Each spell would take five or six times longer and exponentially more complicated to cast…” “Making them essentially useless, yes.” Ivory finished. “What’s the problem with that?” Wind asked, also recovering from her spell and pointing to the arrow. “We just needed to figure out a way to affect this thing right?” Bright Rune looked at Ivory for a brief moment, a look not lost on Wind. “Wait,” She said, “What’s up?” “Umm…” Moondancer whispered. “Is it ok to tell her?” Ivory said. “Tell me what?” Wind said, getting a little angry. “It’s not you per say,” Radiant said, “It’s because you’re a guard.” “And what’s wrong with that?” Wind said, anger slowly building. “We didn’t want you to react poorly and do something stupid.” Radiant spoke. “React poorly to what?” Wind said between clenched teeth. “Princess Luna is preparing for a battle.” Ivory said, “She needs to be able to use these spells on the fly.” “What?” Wind said, taken aback almost immediately, “What in Equestria makes you think that?” “Patterns.” Ivory said, “There were some books about how Luna used to prepare for a battle with a strong foe. She is performing those patterns now.” “Are you sure?” Wind asked. “Positive.” “How long have you thought this?” “Ivory brought it up two days ago.” Moondancer said. “We didn’t tell you because we didn’t know how you’d react.” Bright spoke up, “We needed some time to talk about it.” “I get that...” Wind said, suddenly recalling all the times she was sent out of the room for a petty task. “We’re sorry,” Moondancer said, “We should have told you.” The room was silent for almost a minute. A time that Wind took advantage of to collect her thoughts. “What are we getting ourselves into?” Wind asked nopony. “See!” Radiant cut in, “This is what we wanted to avoid.” “Radiant,” Ivory said, “Let her finish.” Wind sighed, “Whatever did this is really dangerous, not just to the princess, but to us.” “What do you mean?” Moondancer asked. “If whatever shot this arrow finds out that we’ve been trying to fight it,” Wind said, “What do you’d think it do?” “It killed a stallion in a single shot, with a weapon that we can’t defend against.” Wind finished. The room fell even more silent than before. “What are you suggesting?” Bright asked, “That we stop working on this?” “I don’t know” Wind admitted. “I say we give Luna the best chance we can.” Radiant said. “Yea, I’m all for that idea,” Bright agreed. “It might get really dangerous though…” Moondancer said. “It would be more intelligent to turn in the towel, so to speak.” Ivory said. The room was silent again. Everypony was thinking of what to do, and the consequences therein. Some thought of family and friends, some thought of power and strength. Silence reigned for what seemed like an eternity. “We vote then.” Wind said, “We keep working, or tell the princess and quit.” “Right.” Almost everypony said. “All in favor of continuing?” Two ayes, Bright Rune and Radiant. “All opposed?” Two ayes again, Moondancer and Ivory. “What about you?” Moondancer asked. “I was going to go with the popular vote.” Wind replied. “What about a compromise then?” Radiant said, “We tell the princess and keep working.” The ponies were quick to mull this over, almost all of them agreeing to the proposition. “Then that’s settled,” Wind said, “Were off to see the princess, then back to work.” “Yea, but,” Bright said, yawning a bit, “Tomorrow?” A quick chuckle from all, and an agreement. They would talk to Luna tomorrow.