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// K.O.P.Y.T.T.F.B 
// Story: Forest Treasure 
// by MirroredHawk 
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Fire woke up from Night's movements in the corridor. He was getting ready to go. They greeted each other and began to wake up everypony to have breakfast and get ready. Thestrals gladly gave away the pegasi jacket to the Mistral when Fire asked them to. Mistral was very happy to know that she won't have to wear the uncomfortable jacket any more. After preparations everypony headed out North to the loggers' camp, taking yet another slithering path. “I'm sorry for bad tracks, we usually fly here,” apologised Night.

They came down reaching the camp near a small and sparse forest. There were couple of huts, long shed with stored logs in the middle and a narrow forest road leading to the river and taking turn on its right bank to the Hippogriffe-Falls. There was a half-loaded wagon with logs which should be pulled by at least six stallions. The lumberjacks already got to work.

Unlike in ancient times when mainly conventional saws and axes were used, now stationary saws were attached to the trees. Saw itself was mounted on a moving element with plates on both sides. Usually, earthponies were bucking the plates making the moving element slide to the other side, stopped by the construction until the next buck. The result was that the saw drove over the trunk thus cutting it a bit and a whole mechanism pulled the saw closer to the trunk. When it was enough, mechanism was pulled away and lumberjacks finished off the tree with simple axes. This mechanism allowed to use earthoponies' bucking force for tree cutting, which made the whole process much easier.

There were also magical saws powered by the crystal energy pulling the chain around the axis at such speed that it allowed to cut through the tree like a knife through butter. Though it was considered to be a waste of magical crystals and educated unicorns, who had to constantly use their powers on the crystals. Unicorns were irreplaceable in other areas of production, which involved far more complicated manipulation than hooves could allow.

So, the crystal pegasi and earthponies clanked their stationary saws, bucking plates as the group of students decided to find a quieter place to test their invention. Night led them away from the main tree cutting and flew away to help lumberjacks.

Byrk placed package on the flat rock and opened it revealing the saw, which looked like the magical one, but with way bigger handle and a pair of belts. Frist noticed curious eyes around and started to explain, “This isn't just a simple wheel on the axis as in the magical saw, it has a whole small engine turning it, burning part of the gas,” — he stopped, letting Byrk to continue.

“Originally, we wanted to simplify stationary saw, but later I found out about automatic K.O.P.Y.T.T saw developed and tested two years ago in Severyana. Altydian Imperial court researches still try to make a lighter fully mechanical design of it. We decided to move away from the ‘completely mechanical’ rule,” while his friend spoke, Frist was looking for a suitable tree for the first test.

“We proudly added our names to the name of the prototype: K.O.P.Y.T.T.F.B. There are two pitfalls that had to be dealt with using magical components: Fuel supply and acceleration. It can be done with mechanical details for the cost of making it much bigger and costly. Here you can see much smaller saw which uses magical components instead of mechanical for these purposes. Let me show you how to use it.”

Byrk placed the handle on his back and secured bigger belt around the body using his teeth. Then he reached another belt and secured it around his front right leg so that chain was horizontal to him and perpendicular to his hoof. “Now I can control the axis with chain using my leg,” he said.

“This tree will do nicely!” Frist shouted, pointing to the medium-sized pine tree.

Golden after inspecting the saw asked, “So, do you need magic to start it?”

“Already not,” Frist answered, returning, “We managed to make a mechanism which hits the enchanted plate that affects the crystal starting the whole mechanism. This button,” — he pointed at the button close to the belt on the hoof. “After that you need to pull this string in order to give it initial acceleration and crystal will do the rest.”

“So everypony can use it?” Mistral asked.

“In theory,” Byrk answered, “But it's not working sometimes. I guess it is because of the poorly calibrated plate.”

“Haven't you tried to add several plates to use different frequency? Crystals have different sensitivity, you know...” Fire said.

“Yeah, but it is hard to implement such complicated system, separating plates' magic emission and stuff.” Frist answered.

“Well, you could have asked me,” Golden said, “I've made 60-plate isolated systems, I can make one in my sleep.”

“We have concentrated on making it work first. We will improve it later,” Byrk said, pressing the button. Saw started to puff.

“Well, it worked,” Frist cheered.

“Give me a moment,” Byrk forcefully pulled the string, releasing it afterwards. Saw started to squeal and chain began turning, “Now it works!” — he shouted.

Byrk walked to the pine, placing himself in such a way to have trunk slightly to his right. He raised his right hoof and barely managed to hold it from shaking, bringing chain to the tree. With a distinctive crack it slammed into the trunk pretty quickly making its way through it. After a few seconds Byrk backed down and pine collapsed in front of him, while the unicorn stopped his saw.

“Just like during the tests!” he shouted.

“Gentlecolts, you managed to make an automatic saw! Congratulations!” Fire exclaimed.

“Byrk, try to cut broad one!” Frist pointed on the bigger pine close to Byrk. Red unicorn immediately started the saw cutting the pine in 10 seconds. Unfortunately, it fell onto another pine.

“Scorpan! To* *a**!” Frist shouted, “*ire, *el*!” he shouted as loud as he could. Fire understood him right away. Their horns lit up and fallen pine started to slowly descend to the ground separating from the other. Byrk have cut off another one which fell without any problems right close to the magickly lowered one. The saw stopped again.

“Wit-t-th such inst-t-trument-t-ts we can cut-t-t whole forest-t-t!” Byrk shouted, trembling.

“Relax, let me get the saw off you,” Frist shouted lighting up his horn and unlocking belts. Fire lifted the saw, placing it on the stone in front of Frist, who began to inspect it. Something thundered to the South on a distance.

“Was that thunder?” Tiny asked, surprised.

“In winter?” Silver sneered. Everypony was nervous. Mistral freed her wings and got ready to fly.

“Stop!” Fire shouted. Mistral nearly took off, barely managing to stop and not fall headfirst into the snow. She glanced questionably at lecturer's assistant. “There is no reason to risk. Let's get back to the camp,” Fire said. Frist nodded and packed the saw. Tottering Byrk came to them.

Sky lit up in a white flash for a second. Thunder roared second later. Warmer wind started to blow from the south. “An accident in Cloudsdale?” Frist hypothesized, taking saw on his back.

“Tiny, Silver, help Byrk,” Fire commanded and students quickly stood to the Byrk sides, supporting him. “I'm afraid that it's more than an accident.”

“Don't you think that—” Frist was interrupted by another roar from the skies.

“I'm afraid that Celestians started the attack,” Fire said, “Scorpan!” he cursed and began to lead students back to the huts. They were confused, but tried to walk as close to Fire as possible.