//------------------------------// // 8. Friendship Conduit // Story: Divine Intervention // by Orthoros //------------------------------// Atlas groaned as he woke up. His immediate surroundings were extremely comfortable, so he surmised to be in a bed. A small headache pained his existence, but was quickly taken care of with a spell. He couldn’t remember how he even got into said bed, or who the other pony was that was apparently sleeping next to him, since he had yet to open his eyes. No alcohol was served at the party, but apparently, an extreme sugar high could have similar effects. Slowly, Atlas cracked his eyes open, discovering a softly snoring Luna next to him. The bed was unnecessarily big, so there was more than enough space between them, suggesting nothing unholy had taken place yesterday. She probably carried him up to their current room after Atlas passed out and he silently thanked her for not just letting him sleep on the floor somewhere. The mana crystal that made up the castle didn’t exactly seem comfortable to sleep on, after all. It didn’t take long for his nose to register the nice smell permeating the air, indicating that someone was cooking and Atlas stomach grumbled. He did eat a lot yesterday, but his dinner consisted mainly of sweets, so he craved something different today. He gently nudged Luna awake, intent on getting to wherever the kitchen was and filling his belly. Twilight would most likely be there as well, which suited him just fine, since he would be able to continue where he left off yesterday over breakfast. “Hmm?” Luna's eyes slowly fluttered open, taking in the room she was in. After realizing that the sun was shining in through a crack in the curtains, she sat up in a panic. “I forgot to lower the moon!” “Relax,” Atlas said. “I’m pretty sure Celestia did it for you.” Either ignoring Atlas’ remark or just wanting to make sure, Luna magically threw open the curtains much to Atlas dismay, looking outside to verify the moon's position. She let out a relieved sigh after seeing the sun being the only heavenly body to occupy the heavens while Atlas wriggled like a worm and complaining about going blind behind her. “Oh don’t act like that!” Luna said in a huff while turning around. “It’s not that bad.” “I spent over a thousand years without any natural sunlight!” Atlas complained. “My eyes are very sensitive!” “I didn’t see you complain yesterday, or the day before actually, how come?” Luna asked, genuinely curious. “Magic, Luna,” Atlas said while rolling out of bed. “It’s the answer to everything in this world.” “So, what? You used some kind of sunglasses spell on yourself?” Luna cocked an eyebrow. “Why not just wear actual sunglasses?” “Ponies look stupid with sunglasses, dearest daughter,” Atlas sighed, magically combing his fur and mane in the span of half a second. “And keeping a low-level spell like that active neither requires any mental effort on my side, nor does it even begin to scratch at my mana reserves. You could say my natural MP recovery is higher than what I’m using.” “You’re still calling the amount of mana you have MP?” Luna asked as they left the room, following the sweet scent towards the kitchen. “It’s a way more accurate measurement of mana than just classifying it into five stages, that’s for sure,” Atlas nodded. “You guys still doing that?” “We’ve switched to something called the Rosenwood scale,” Luna replied. “It’s a bit more accurate than the old system but nowhere near close to yours. It didn’t help that you never told anybody how you measured it, or otherwise we might be using that now too. A lot of your spells are still in use, even today, you know?” “I didn’t?” Atlas said with furrowed brows. “Even if it wasn’t with the documents I gave Starswirl, I know he’d been doing it as well. If he didn’t reveal the method to the public, I’m sure he had his reasons, whatever they might have been. Not like we can ask him anyway…” he added with a sigh. As they made their way through the crystalized halls of the castle, they started to hear voices, most likely coming from the dining area. Sure enough, they soon encountered an open door which seemed to be home to both the smell and the voices, so they simply entered without announcing their presence. Contrary to the large dining hall they were in yesterday, this seemed like a more private kind of deal. It actually seemed more like something you’d find in a regular house, rather than a castle fit for a princess. The kitchen elements were located on the far wall, where Spike was currently stirring inside a pot with his back to them. Taking up the rest of the space was a simple, wooden dining table, able to accommodate around ten ponies. Currently, only two of them were occupied, by Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash respectively. Since Rainbow was the only one facing the door, she noticed the new arrivals first. “Oh, hey guys!” Rainbow greeted them. “Sleep well?” “You could say so…” Atlas replied. “Castle beds are way more comfortable than the shaggy one I had with me…” “Good morning, everypony,” Luna simply said. Both Atlas and Luna sat down next to Twilight and Rainbow respectively, while some morning pleasantries were exchanged between them. “Breakfast is almost ready,” Spike informed everyone. “Just wait a little longer.” “Thanks, Spike,” Atlas said. “Any news, Twilight?” “Nothing in particular,” Twilight shrugged. “Neither Princess Celestia, nor Discord has been in contact with me. Although I’m not actually sure if they’d even contact me, or go straight to you.” “Probably you, unless it’s urgent, they both probably assume I’d be too busy to react to them,” Atlas eyed the coffee that was in front of Twilight and Rainbow. “Can I have one ‘o those?” “Sure,” Twilight levitated a coffee pot and two cups over to the table and filled them, giving one each to Atlas and Luna, the latter just nodding thankfully. “How come you’re still here?” Atlas asked Rainbow Dash. “Woke up on top of a bookshelf earlier, Twilight was kind enough to let me stay for breakfast,” she replied casually. “Oh,” Atlas blinked. Sleeping on the floor here seemed unappealing enough, but actually sleeping on top of a shelf? Just thinking about falling off in his sleep made him wince. “All done!” Spike proclaimed, starting to haul over the pot he’d been stirring in while Twilight helped by levitating over the rest of the stuff Spike had cooked for them. “Dig in!” Spread out before them was less breakfast and more of a brunch. As it turned out the pot Spike had been fussing over contained a farmer style vegetable soup. In addition, there were pancakes, corn flakes, eggs and beans, toast, a cheese platter and a plethora of jams. The glaring absence of bacon irked Atlas a bit, but he could hardly blame the ponies for not making any. “So, I’ve already said this yesterday, but time is of the essence over the next few weeks,” Atlas began after everypony had taken whatever food they wanted. “I made an exception for Pinkie Pie yesterday, but coming up is all work and no play, at the very least for me.” “We understand,” Twilight replied on behalf of her friends. “I’m really sorry for what Pinkie did yesterday.” “It’s okay, I already forgave her yesterday, as long as there are no more interruptions I’m sure that we should be able to make it… maybe…” Atlas said, adding the last part under his breath. “I do believe you were just about to share some rather amazing news yesterday, weren’t you?” Luna asked while munching on a pancake. “I was,” Atlas confirmed. “And unless there’s a follow-up party planned for right now, I’d like to actually do so right now.” He looked around for a few seconds, expecting the worst, before shrugging and continuing. “To make a long story short, the elements, as you call them, aren’t gone. They’re actually buried right under the castle.” “They’re what?” Twilight spit out the coffee she was sipping, straight into Rainbow Dash's face, followed by heavily protesting exclamations from said pegasus. “How come I never sensed them if they’ve been right under our noses?” “That’s probably because this whole castle is made out of pure mana crystal, which should jam your detecting abilities quite a bit,” Atlas answered. “It’s what?” this time it was Luna that spit out her coffee, with Atlas being the unlucky pony sitting across from her. Rainbow Dash was laughing her ass off while Atlas cleaned himself up with a flash of his horn. “While I’m sure this is very entertaining, I’d like to ask everypony to refrain from drinking coffee for a bit,” Atlas deadpanned, causing Twilight and Luna to sheepishly smile at him. “Yes, you heard right, the elements are still whole and well, and this entire castle is made from concentrated mana crystal,” Atlas reconfirmed his words. “How is this possible? What are they doing down there? How’d they even get there?” Twilight started asking. “First of all, you need to understand that extremely large amounts of mana bring about change to whatever is containing said mana,” Atlas explained. “I first observed this effect on the elements themselves a few years after I made them. At the time, it was just something simple, like them getting slightly bigger than they were made. They continued to grow over time, but that’s basically all they did back then. It would appear that the high saturation of mana within them caused them to change more than I thought possible. At this point in time, I’m fairly certain that they’ve developed some crude form of conscience.” “Do you mean to tell us that the elements have become self-aware?” Luna asked, the scholar within her getting curious. “More or less, yes,” Atlas confirmed. “I suspect that they’ve been “tainted” by their wearers so to speak. By which I mean, they were influenced by the principles and ideals of those that used them over time, which they are now using as a base for their… personality? I guess?” “That is fascinating…” Twilight mumbled. “Which brings me to the truly amazing part, and also the one that will be the most useful for our needs,” Atlas said as everypony and dragon was hanging on his words. “I assume that the reason that they formed this castle was because the tree I made for them simply became too small to hold all the mana they were storing. In short, your castle is one giant mana battery, and there’s currently a huge amount of mana stored within it.” “That’s great news!” Twilight exclaimed. “It sure is, but what about it? Is it enough?” Luna added, a little skeptical. “I wish I could say yes…” Atlas replied. “But I’m not sure yet. It will definitely bring us a lot closer to the required amount, but I don’t think there’s any way of knowing if we’ll truly have enough mana until the moment where I cast the spell. Ponies’ mana pools can just vary too much, so it’s basically impossible to make an accurate calculation.” “We’ll just have to hope for the best then,” Luna sighed. “Did you find out anything else?” “Yes, actually,” Atlas nodded. “Yesterday, I briefly connected with the elements, and what followed was nothing short of insane. For some reason, the elements are keeping up a self-sufficient spell that blankets most of the known world… They seem to be monitoring everything for some unknown reason by connecting with everything that possesses innate mana… which is to say, quite literally everything. I was almost overwhelmed when I shared in on their connection.” “For what reason could they possibly be doing this?” Twilight surmised. “Honestly?” Atlas said with a raised eyebrow. “I have no clue. What I can say is that we’ll probably be able to exploit this phenomenon and use the castle as a sort of conduit for all the mana we’ll be channeling on the day of the spell. Seeing as there is already an existing connection between everypony, one of my tasks just got a whole lot easier. Could I ask you to share this information with Celestia, Twilight?” “Sure thing,” Twilight smiled stupidly, happy after having learned so many new magic related things. “I’ll write it down later and have Spike send a scroll.” “Leave it to me!” Spike exclaimed, for some reason flexing his non-existent biceps. “Okay, then I’ll tell Discord,” Atlas nodded, just as Spike let out a huge burp, followed by a green flame, from which a letter materialized itself. “Speak of the devil… You two really need to learn how to do this without Spike’s help, by the way.” “I’d love to learn the spell, if you wouldn’t mind teaching me?” Twilight said with hopeful eyes as she absentmindedly unfurled the scroll. “I suppose it’s inevitable, it’ll make things a lot easier in the coming days… for all of us,” Atlas relented. “It isn’t even that hard to learn, I’m sure you’ll master it in no time. What does it say?” Twilight took a moment to read the scroll, the table falling into silence, aside from the occasional breakfast noises. “Celestia says that she’s making good progress on her assigned tasks. And she says she calculated how long it’ll take to gather up everypony at the assigned gathering points…” “Well, that’s certainly good news,” Atlas nodded. “How long?” “Three weeks…” Twilight said. “She says that this is already an incredible rush-job, and that it probably will be impossible to cut the required time any further… there’s also an apology to you at the bottom.” “Talk about cutting it close,” Atlas said. If he still had fingers with nails, he’d probably be chewing on them right now. “It’s still within our time slot, so she doesn’t need to apologize. It’s a gargantuan task, and it’s incredible that she’s able to pull it off at such short notice. Please add that to the letter you’ll send later, if you don’t mind.” “I’ll be sure to do so,” Twilight confirmed while rolling up the scroll. “Excuse me, everypony,” a voice at the entrance to the dining hall made its presence known. “Terribly sorry to disturb you this early in the morning.” Atlas and Twilight turned around to look at the newcomer, revealing Rarity to standing behind them. She seemed somewhat agitated and nervous, seemingly not bothering to sit down with them. “Good morning, Rarity,” Twilight said. “What brings you here so early in the morning?” “I’m afraid I come bringing a bit of bad news,” Rarity said with a sheepish smile. “Please tell me it’s nothing too serious…” Atlas sighed. Everything seemed to be going too well, so something like this was bound to happen eventually. “Well, as I’m sure you all know, I’m living somewhat close to the rumor mill, and I’ve heard some unsettling talks this morning. It would appear that the rather… unsubtle display of magic yesterday had unsettled quite a few ponies. Most of them just assumed it was just Twilight being Twilight, but others believe there is something a bit more sinister going on…” Rarity explained. “Especially after they found the weird markings spanning the field behind the castle this morning. They are of the opinion that Twilight would’ve announced a large scale spell like that beforehoof.” “I guess that’s where I come in,” Luna said, finishing up her breakfast. “I really should’ve addressed everypony at yesterday's party. But now I’ll have to call in a town meeting just for this… Atlas, I’ll need you to be present for the meeting, probably later this afternoon.” “Can’t say I’m looking forward to it, but if it’ll quell the conspiracy theories I’d rather make a short appearance there than let it escalate,” Atlas shook his head. “Yes, Ponyville tends to get a bit paranoid about things like this,” Twilight confirmed. “It’ll probably better to nip this in the bud.” “Agreed,” Luna said while getting up. “I’ll leave you to your tasks, father, I’ll let you know when your presence is needed. Miss Rarity, would you mind accompanying me to town hall?” “Of course, Princess Luna,” Rarity confirmed. “I’d love to.” Luna and Rarity left the dining room, leaving the other ponies behind. They slowly finished up their respective breakfasts one after the other. Rainbow Dash excusing herself shortly after finishing hers. “Well, time to get busy,” Atlas said while letting out a satisfied burp. “Yesterday you mentioned that you’ve got a study prepared for me. Care to show me the way, Twilight?” “Of course! Spike, can I leave the cleanup here to you?” Twilight replied, getting an affirmative from Spike. “It’s just upstairs, follow me.”