//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 - Housewarming // Story: Equestrian Celestial Forge // by TheDriderPony //------------------------------// Fluttershy's eyes turned wide as saucers as she beheld a breathtaking room of glittering crystal where there was supposed to be four cramped wooden walls and a few sacks of animal feed. Something was definitely wrong with either her, her shed, or whatever she'd eaten for breakfast. The room-that-was-supposed-to-be-her-shed was also occupied, so in the face of unexpected social interaction, she defaulted to old habits. "Oh! I'm so sorry, I'll come back later." "Hold up Fluttershy. It's just me." Familiarity made her stop and look back. A second glance let her relax completely as she realized it was only Rainbow Dash. She walked back in with a touch more surety. Whatever redecorating urge had seized her longtime friend, she'd clearly done a very nice job of it. The walls and floor were all made of the same glistening blue crystal that felt surprisingly warm underhoof. Each of the eight walls was set with a door (also made of crystal) and engraved with the cutie marks of her friends as well as two more symbols she didn't recognize. A low table filled the middle of the room (again, of the same crystal) with enough space for two or three pegasi to fit between it and the walls with their wings outstretched. All in all, it was very nice, very pretty, but also very unnecessarily extravagant for a room where she stored extra sacks of animal feed and old gardening tools. Also, maybe it was just morning drowsiness, but the space seemed rather bigger than the outside walls of her shed should allow. "I don't mean to sound rude," she ventured, once the initial oddness of the room had passed, "but what are you doing in my shed?" Rainbow Dash gave her a confused look. "Your shed? I was about to ask what you're doing in my gym locker." She gestured behind her to an open door. Through it, Fluttershy could clearly see a room made of clouds along with several racks of weights and resistance bands. Which was definitely strange. Fluttershy glanced out the door behind her and confirmed that, yes, she could still see the back of her own house. A sudden wind marked the passage of Dash over her head and through the door. "Huh. Yeah, this is definitely your place." She landed and stamped the ground a few times, as if to check if it was real. "Weird. I guess if anything this'll make getting over here a lot faster. You think Twilight set this up?" "She didn't say anything to me," Fluttershy replied. Then again, had she? Fluttershy had been understandably distracted after yesterday's events. Maybe she'd nodded along and agreed to have a portal installed in her shed without listening? But if that was the case, what else might she have agreed to unknowingly? Her breathing quickened as increasingly dreadful and unlikely agreements started to bubble through her imagination. "Hey, when'd you get such a fancy key?" The question broke the spiral of panic and pulled her from her thoughts. She followed Rainbow Dash's pointing hoof to the lock on her shed door. Or rather, the ornate golden key sticking out of the rusting five-bit padlock. It was terribly fancy, all polished gold and swirling filigree, with a handle shaped like a butterfly. She'd never seen it before in her life. "I have no idea, but that's definitely not the key for this lock." That key was visibly still hanging from its hook on the doorframe, its sheen of morning dew untouched. "Even weirder," Dash said with a sage nod. They both turned their heads at the sound of a door opening from behind them. "Okay. There is no way my fridge was this big yesterday." The addition of Twilight to the group led to several rapidfire discoveries. Firstly, that she was not behind their unexpected renovations. Secondly, that she'd never seen magic quite like this before. And thirdly, that Twilight really got into new magic. Not that the latter was any surprise. "So what it looks like we have here is a set of variable portals linked on one end to a shared extradimensional space superficially resembling the Crystal Empire and linked on the other end to a set of magical constructs emulating keys which are somehow bound to our unique magical signatures via some kind of magic I can’t even identify." She paused only a moment to take a breath through a smile that threatened to split her face in two. "At least that's what it looks like. I can't say for certain without a lot more testing, but what I can say is that I've never heard of a spell that could do this. The combined effort of a dozen spells, maybe, pulled from several different schools of magic and somehow integrated together could pull off most of it, but even then the sheer mana cost to keep it stable would be crazy! And yet here we are! It works and it's stable! Isn't it just amazing?" "Yep, totally." Rainbow Dash tossed a pair of wing weights through her door. About five minutes into Twilight's monologue, she'd retreated into her room and returned with a few pieces of workout gear, declaring that she was going to continue her morning workout as planned, regardless of any unexpected additions to her gym. It went completely under Twilight’s notice as she gushed over the spellwork of her Key. "If that's what you say it is, then I believe you. All I know is now I've got a handy shortcut to your house." "And no more excuses for crashing through my windows at Mach Four," Twilight added with a pointed look. Dash rubbed her head with an awkward chuckle. She was thankful that Twilight accepted unusual books as valid currency for damage repayments. “Now then, before I really start studying this, have either of you experienced anything else odd?” Rainbow Dash shook her head. Fluttershy started to do the same before a memory from the night before flickered through her mind. “Ah, what kind of odd?” “Anything really.” Twilight shrugged. “This is new and uncharted magic, so anything that might be related could help me figure it out.” “Alright. Can you, um, wait just one second please?” Without waiting for an answer, Fluttershy hurried back out towards her cottage.  She returned in barely a minute, breathing heavily and with something clutched tight in her wing. “Sorry," she gasped through deep lungfuls of air, "I should have remembered these earlier, but I’m still a little sleepy and this is all so new and I—” “It’s okay, Fluttershy, just take your time and tell us what happened.” She took another deep breath and steadied herself. “Okay. Alright. So it all started last night. After I left the library and went back home, I still wasn't very tired. I tried reading and cuddling with Angel Bunny and making a cup of chamomile tea, but nothing helped. My body was tired but my head was just so full of ideas. Very strange ideas, too. About plants and animals and all sorts of trinkets and machines. After a while, I decided to go down to my crafting room for a few hours and see what I could make." “Wait, you have a crafting room?” Rainbow Dash interrupted. “How come I’ve never seen it?” “In my basement, yes, and you never asked. It used to be just for knitting, but then Harry wanted to try pottery and Mr. Hoppington wanted to pick up watercolors and Angel got interested in wire sculpture and it grew from there to have a little bit of everything. Oh! Just the other day he made the more adorable—" “Fluttershy, focus. You were saying something odd happened?” “Oh, right, I'm sorry. Anyway, I made these.” She opened her wing and a few colorful bits of metal and plastic clattered to the table. “I wasn't really trying to make anything in particular, the steps just came to me naturally and I made them before I even realized.” Dash landed and gave Fluttershy's creations a curious poke, spreading them out on the table and flipping over a few that had landed upside down. "Okay. Yeah, I guess they're pretty cool, but what's so weird about you getting crafty with a couple of pins?” “Badges,” Fluttershy corrected, “and... I think they're magic." "Magic?" Twilight replied. "But... you're a pegasus. You can't cast magic." "That's why I thought it was odd. See?" Fluttershy selected one from the assortment—a simple purple hexagon emblazoned with a white R—and pinned it to her mane. A brief flash of light hid her from view, but faded just as quickly to reveal a startling change. “Rarity!?” “No, just her colors,” said the hornless winged version of Rarity in Fluttershy’s voice. She flipped her un-coiffed mane to show the badge still securely attached. “This one’s called the R Emblem. I have another one called the A Emblem that does Applejack's coat and mane.” "Fascinating." Newly interested, Twilight gave the pile of badges her full attention. She gathered a few of them in her magic field and brought them up to eye level. "There's definitely something there, but it's not any kind of magic I'm familiar with." She set them back down aside from one: a vaguely bush-shaped badge with a minimalist smiling face and curling ram's horn. “Who does this make you look like?” “No one. That’s a Sleep Stomp badge. If you kick someone while wearing it, it’ll put them to sleep.” Rainbow Dash gave her a concerned look. “Uh, not to burst your bubble Flutters, but most ponies call that getting knocked out and you don’t need a badge to do it.” Fluttershy offered a small shocked gasp in reply. “Oh no! Not like that! It doesn’t have to be in the head; that’d be awfully dangerous. Just a little tap anywhere will do. I thought it'd be helpful for animals that are angry or hurting.” "Yeah, that sounds more like something you'd make. Lemme try one of these." Dash grabbed one at random—a square badge with a little heart—and clipped it to her mane. Almost instantly she fell to her knees, then collapsed outright. "Rainbow Dash!" Twilight cried, abandoning her inspection and rushing to her side. She started charging her horn with a diagnostic spell, but before her corona could so much as glow, the tension disappeared as the downed pegasus let out a low, contented moan. She stood slowly and with Twilight's help, stretching out like a cat as she rose with a dopey smile on her face. "Whoa..." Her voice shuddered with the word as she leaned heavily on the table. "That feels good." "Fluttershy, what badge did she use? Is this normal?" The pegasus peered into her friend's bangs. "It looks like... the Happy Hearts badge. It's supposed to promote healing and restore your energy." "Oh it's restoring me alright," Dash crooned. "I was kinda feeling a little sore from my workout, but now I feel like I just got the deluxe service at the spa!" Rainbow Dash suddenly went rigid. Quick as a wink, she snatched the badge from her mane and tossed it back on the table. Her eyes danced frantically between her friends, wide and panicked. "Not that I'd know what their deluxe service feels like or anything! Or their normal service! I've never been to a spa in my life! Ask anybody!" Her eyes darted around the room, desperately searching for a distraction. "Hey! You think these other doors lead to everyone else's houses?" "Probably," Twilight agreed, accepting the obvious change in topic without objection, "but there doesn't seem to be any way to open them from the inside. I—" As if on cue, the door marked with three apples burst open. The familiar stetson-ed head of Applejack crested into the crystal room. She managed two and a half hurried steps inside before she froze. Her head twitched this way and that as she took in everything before her pinprick pupils latched on the occupants. "What the- the hay ya'll doin' in mah outhouse!? "It's actually—" "Nevermind! I'll kick Big Mac outta the indoor one. He's been showerin' too long already." Her frantic gaze locked onto Fluttershy. "Rarity! Ah want mah commode un-gussifed by the time Ah get back, y'hear?" Not-Rarity managed a startled squeak in reply. Her piece said, Applejack spun on a heel and ran out, leaving her door open behind her and letting the fresh scent of apple trees waft in. Silence reigned for a long, awkward moment as everyone waited for someone else to acknowledge the implications of what had just happened. "Okay, ignoring a lot of that," Dash finally said, "why does Applejack have a lock on the outside of her bathroom?" "Wait a minute," Twilight said. She walked over to the door and peered through it. "If this is Applejack's door—" She pointed to the three across from her. "—those three are ours, and we assume the ones with gemstones and balloons are Rarity's and Pinkie Pie's... then what's behind those doors?" The two unidentified doors that divided the room remained impassively and enigmatically shut. One bore a mark of a three-by-three grid of squares inscribed within a circle. The other across from it had a pair of offset arrows crossed over each other and pointing opposite directions.  "I dunno, the tic-tac-toe room?" Dash supplied with a shrug. Twilight sighed. "Just one more part of the mystery, I guess. Are either of you free to help me run some tests?" "Can't, I got morning cloud clearing duty." "Sorry, but with the inside of my shed gone I need to go and buy some more breakfast for my animals." "That's alright, I can test on my own while Spike takes notes. Still, it'd be useful to have somepony else here who can use a Key." "Hey!" Providence arrived in the form of a pink party pony. "Who went and remodeled my party cave without telling me?" "...That'll work."