//------------------------------// // 07- Durchbruch // Story: The Chalk Prince and the Clover // by FrostTheWolf //------------------------------// When Starlight Glimmer had first told her about Albedo and Klee, Twilight was unsure what exactly to expect. The thought about two humans who weren't from where Sunset sounded almost impossible. Even more so when the unicorn told her and Spike about the world that they were supposedly from. Though, as the two of them arrived in the library and encountered them for the first time, the alicorn noticed that something about them seemed different compared to Sunset and her friends on the other side of the mirror. Not just in their appearance, but also when it came to their behavior. Take for example, when she first teleported into the library. While most humans would be startled by having someone just flash in out of nowhere, Albedo didn’t seem phased by it at all. Not to mention that when Starlight came in and was apologizing, he was rather polite and wasn’t disturbed by them interrupting what he was doing. He even seemed thoroughly invested in the book that he was reading if he was able to get through two-thirds of the largest magical compendium to this date. As for Klee, Twilight’s first encounter with her came shortly after she had arrived. Yet, unfortunately to Twilight at the time, the young girl was in the headmare’s blindspot when she felt a small hand brush up against her left flank. “Your fur looks so soft and super cuddly! Can Klee pet it? Please?” That single question led to several different responses from just about every creature in the room. Twilight herself was baffled by the sudden question and by Klee herself. Even though Starlight did mention to her that she was Albedo’s younger sister, she wasn’t aware of how old she was until seeing her in that moment. Spike and Silverstream, the latter of whom was with the young spark knight when Twilight entered the room, couldn’t control the urge to laugh at the headmare’s predicament. As for Ocellus and Starlight, both of them were unsure how to respond to what was going on in that moment since everything happened so quickly. Though, when it came to Albedo, he was surprisingly calm as he looked at his sister, “Klee, I believe this lady is here to help us with our experiment in progress. Though, we won’t be too long, okay?” Shortly after hearing that, Klee moved her hand away from the alicorn, before pointing towards where her assistant was, “Can I play with the cute lizard while I wait?” “Wait, what?” “I’m sure he would love to play with you,” the alchemist smiled back, “Just make sure to use your indoor voice, alright?” “Yay!” the little spark knight cheered in glee, before grabbing hold of Spike like he was a stuffed animal and carrying him with her as she and Silverstream left the alchemist with Twilight, Starlight and Ocellus. Who were rather caught off by both how Albedo was acting and how he was able to get Klee to simply leave the alicorn alone. “H-how did you do that?” Ocellus then asked. “Well, back home, Klee and I came up with a couple of what you might call ‘secret codes’,” Albedo explained, “To her, ‘experiment in progress’ means come back later while ‘use your indoor voice’ means don’t play with anything that can cause too much noise. It was something we came up with so that way she didn’t accidentally disturb me if I was in the middle of research. I just thought that now would be the right time to say it.” Then the alchemist turned to look towards Twilight, “Though, I don’t believe I’ve introduced myself yet. My name is Albedo, and you already met my sister Klee. She gets rather excited when it comes to meeting new people, so I’m sorry if she made you feel uncomfortable in any way.” “Oh, t-there’s no need to apologize,” the nervous alicorn replied, before taking a quick second to recompose himself before she focused her attention back to him, “I have a niece that also tends to get rather excited when I look after her… Though, where are my manners? I am Twilight Sparkle, princess of friendship and headmare of the school.” Even though the alchemist was already aware of some of the details because of their meeting with Starlight earlier today, his response was more towards a specific detail of the alicorn’s reply just now, “Oh, so we are addressing each other by titles now?” Albedo stated, before responding back in kind, “Then I am Albedo. Chief Alchemist of the city of Mondstadt and captain of the investigation team for the Knights of Favonius.” That surprised not only Twilight, but also Starlight and Ocellus. While he did mention that Mondstadt was the name of the city he called home and that he was an alchemist, they did not know that he was also a knight. These ‘Knights of Favonius’ sounded much like the royal guard back in Canterlot. Was it possible that they also functioned the same way? Though, before any of the three equestrians could ask any follow up questions, Albedo redirected the subject of discussion back to the news that he had shared before Klee had decided to say hello, “Though, back to what I was saying earlier, Ocellus and I might have found something while going through the text in this tome.” That had both Starlight and Twilight look at each other first, before turning their attention towards the open tome and the particular section that it was open to. “Ley Lines,” the unicorn read the topic aloud before looking to Albedo, “If I may ask, why this particular section exactly?” “While the entire book is a rather well written work with a lot of essential information, the reason why I mention this particular section is because the concept described here is almost identical to something we have in Teyvat,” Albedo explained, before pulling out what appeared to be a clipboard from inside the left side of his coat as well as a journal. After tearing out a blank sheet of paper from the journal, the alchemist placed it on the clipboard as he took out what looked like a piece of black colored chalk from the pocket on the right.  “You may recall that I had mentioned how in Teyvat, the elements flow and converge everywhere you look. Such is the case with many areas in the world,” as he spoke, Albedo began to draw a few lines in different directions, “Though, no matter what direction they flow, there are places where all that energy converges at particular points. Whether it be old ruins, someplace out in the wild or in the domains of gods and monsters. We call these ley lines.” To symbolize this, Albedo drew a circle in the middle of one particular line and the next few lines that he drew on the page would connect with the circle. Though, as he was doing so, Twilight had a question, “Um… If I may ask, how does that relate to this?” When the alchemist finished his drawing, he then turned towards the princess, “I’m going to assume that you are already familiar with the accident that brought Klee and I here?” Twilight’s only answer was a nod of the head, which prompted Albedo to continue speaking, “Well, the construct that malfunctioned was built on top of a ley line and getting its elemental power directly from it. However, it had too much power stored in one place and before I could fix it… well, you probably have an idea of what happened next.” “You mean when it malfunctioned?” Ocellus then asked. “Precisely,” Albedo replied, “Though, to answer Twilight’s question. The reason why this relates is not only because your definition of the phrase is parallel to ours, but also because it mentions examples of places that were built on top of a ley line,” the alchemist then turned the book around to face him as he began to read an excerpt from the pages, “One of the most notable examples of a city utilizing a Ley Line is the capital city of Canterlot. Despite being the subject of invasions, villain attacks and ground zero for the Storm King’s attack during the friendship festival, the magic from the Ley Line was used to repair all the potential damages to the city within moments, whether it be a broken window or a collapsed building.” After he was done speaking, the alchemist placed the book back on the table and allowed for the others to read the passage for themselves. While Twilight and Starlight were reading it for themselves, Ocellus had a question for Albedo, “I… think I’m beginning to understand this. You’re saying that this could be used to try and figure out your way back?” “Almost,” he replied, “If anything, it’s more of a starting point.” The changeling was surprised to hear that in all honesty. In her mind, Ocellus thought that what Albedo found was something vitally important. Though, the alchemist didn’t think that was the case.  “W-what do you mean? Isn’t this what you were looking for?” “While I was looking for a common similarity between your home and Teyvat and this does fit that description, only a fool would think that just simply recreating what happened will solve our problem,” the alchemist explained, “First, you would have to find a way to build a construct to harness the power of the ley line, which would take time and resources. Second, even if we were able to do that successfully, there’s no guarantee that it would bring us back to Teyvat. If anything, it might take us somewhere completely different. And finally, we would have to find a different ley line in order to do this.” “A different ley line?” Starlight asked, “Why not just use the one in Canterlot?” “The answer is simple,” Albedo replied, “Since we would be working with possibly unstable and volatile magic, if something were to go wrong, who do you think would be greatly affected by it?” Twilight immediately realized exactly what he was referring to, “The citizens.” The alchemist nodded his head in acknowledgement as he looked back at all three of them. “That’s right. Even though the city could mend the damages of buildings, I highly doubt it could mend the injuries of people. So, ideally, we would need to use a ley line in a place that does not have any civilians around. While my sister and I do want to find a way back home, I don’t believe either of us would want to have anyone get hurt in the process.” It took a little bit, but what Albedo said was starting to make sense. However, as the conversation went on, Ocellus had a particular question pop up in her head, “Okay, but how exactly are we going to find another ley line? Where would we even look?” “Well, there’s only one real difference that I can tell between our Ley Lines and yours,” Albedo explained, as he flipped the page over and began to do a simple sketch of a Ley Line from Teyvat, “That difference being that our ley lines converge and take the form of concentrated elemental energy, which we call blossoms since activating one has a plant like blossom emerge from the ground. While in the book, it says that when magic converges on a place that will end up being a ley line, it takes on a more crystalline form.” Immediately, every thought that was going through Ocellus’ mind just stopped in its tracks. The mention of what Albedo called ‘blossoms’ and how equestrian ley lines have a more crystalline form only made her think of one possible thing. Something that she and her friends happened to have met a few weeks ago and aided them when Cozy Glow had almost accomplished her goals. However, she wasn’t sure if anypony outside of her friends knew about what lies beneath the school. Fortunately, Starlight and Twilight were able to speak up and steer the conversation before the changeling could say anything, “Well, does a Ley Line have to be the sole focus right now? Is there something else that could be accomplished first?” The alchemist let out a small sigh, “There could be other things that we can take into consideration. However, our efforts to make any significant progress would be lackluster without a source for our construct to draw from. It’s like trying to cook a dish without a vital ingredient. While some would try to find a replacement for it, I see that ingredient as necessary. Any potential substitutes would be somewhat of a downgrade and not meet the expectations of what we are trying to achieve.” The room went silent as both Starlight and Twilight were trying to think of what could be used as a possible solution to the dilemma they were facing. Though, any time they thought of a possible solution, a complication came up moments later. Back and forth this went on, distracting the two of them to the point that they didn’t even realize that Klee, Spike and Silverstream had come back into the room. That was, until the hippogriff made their presence known. “Hey! How’s everything going?” The sudden question snapped both the unicorn and alicorn out of their train of thought, “W-what? Silverstream? Why are you here?” “It got really quiet all of a sudden, so we thought that you guys were done talking and forgot to tell us,” Silverstream cheerfully answered the question, before noticing the looks of disappointment on their face, “Is everything alright? What’s got you all down in the dumps?” “Well, to put it lightly, we’ve come across a problem,” the alchemist explained, before taking a moment to bring them up to speed. Unlike earlier, Albedo tried to keep his explanation simple and easy to understand. As for Ocellus, she was really hoping that when the alchemist was done explaining that her friend didn’t immediately say the first thing that came to her mind. Unfortunately, her friend proceeded to do so anyways, “Ooh, I know!! Maybe the tree of harmony can help us!”