//------------------------------//
// Chapter 13 - Dear Diary 
// Story: Equestrian Celestial Forge 
// by TheDriderPony 
//------------------------------//

"You want us to keep a journal?"

"That's right." Twilight reached under the crystal table and pulled out a set of six identical books that she then passed out to her gathered fiends. "I can see now what the problem was with my initial theory."

"It was wrong?" Rainbow Dash said through a smirk.

"It ignored very obvious contradictions?" Applejack added.

"You never came up with a catchy name for it?" was Pinkie's contribution.

Twilight gave them a level look. She loved her friends, dearly so, but stars above did they know exactly how to push her buttons. "The problem was that it wasn't broad enough. I tried to analyze each individual ability as a singular anomaly, when I really should have been looking at the event as a whole."

As always, the problem was tunnel-vision. She'd thought she'd found a reasonable (not to mention ground-breaking) solution early on, then tried to force the new data to fit it. Only the arrival of a complete workshop and all its tools had managed to finally convince her that her second Special Talent theory didn't cut the mustard.

Which brought her back to the drawing board. No more assumptions, no more wild conjecture. This time everything would stem from the three fundamentally true facts that she knew.

One. Starswirl created a spell for an unknown purpose, but could not complete it.

Two. She completed the spell by incorporating friendship which led to a wildly different result when cast.

Three. On an irregular basis, she and her friends compoundingly receive new abilities, objects, and tools.

Everything else had to stem from those facts. Logically, the next step was research.

"One of the fundamental truths of the scientific method," she said, "is that if you collect enough data, eventually a pattern will emerge. That's why I'd like to request everyone's help in recording as much data as possible."

"Sounds like a fine idea by me." Applejack rifled through the pages, letting them whisper past the edge of her hoof as a clever bit of spellwork added new pages when she got near the end. "What exactly should we write?"

An expected question, and one Twilight was ready for. "Anything and everything. Details of new abilities you get. How they interact with your existing ones. The weather and what activities you were doing when a new ability appeared. I'm happy if you just use it as a normal journal and write down your daily thoughts." She rather hoped they would, in fact. It'd be an excellent record to see if there were any subtle mental changes going on that they might not notice otherwise. "There's no such thing as too much data."

"You say that now," Dash said, idly tossing and catching her book. "But that's just ‘cause Pinkie and Rarity haven't filled theirs up with party plans and dress sketches."

"No worries here," Pinkie countered, "I have whole filing cabinets of party plans. This little book wouldn't even hold the ones I have for Fluttershy alone!"

"If you flip to the back," Twilight instructed, "You'll find a handy reference guide with a list of all the abilities we've documented so far along with a brief description of them. Please use the listed names for each power when writing about them so we don't mix up similar ones."

The sound of pages turning filled the air as they all flipped to the relevant pages, followed by a shout of surprise.

"My skill's supposed to be for making monster traps!?" Rainbow Dash exclaimed. "That's… actually kinda awesome. Why didn't anypony tell me? Wait, why did someone else know and I didn't?"

"You'll find the answer in my section." Rarity visibly preened in anticipation of oncoming praise. "Page vii, subsection two."

"Perk: Hoarder's Eyes," Pinkie Pie read aloud, "’The ability to manifest textboxes containing the name of any object along with a short description.’ Neato! What do I have?" She flipped a page. "Huh. MacGyver, Medaka, and Tool box. The last one makes sense, but what are those others? They sound like pastries from Fleece."

"We're not sure, but I think they're words in some foreign language that don't have an Equestrian equivalent," Twilight answered. "For some reason Rarity's identifying ability acts differently when trying to perceive other abilities."

Rarity nodded. "It's hard enough to pin them down as it is—like trying to focus on the shimmer of heat haze in the distance—and when I do the color of the text is different and some of the words are difficult to read."

"A Mushroom Kingdom..." Fluttershy mused quietly as she read her own entries. "That's why it's so big."

"In any case," Twilight continued, "I've enchanted the journals so whenever Rarity or I make an edit to the index, either to add a new listing or fill in more details as we discover them, the change should propagate into your copies as well."

"Cool. Yeah, sure, I'll make sure I write stuff in it or whatever." Rainbow Dash tossed her journal through the door that led back to her house. "More importantly: who wants to help me trap a monster?"

"That may be the plum stu—"

"I haven't the time for—"

"Hey, if no one's up for it, I'm sure the Crusaders would be more than willing."

Dash grinned. 

Rarity and Applejack sent her dirty looks.

Dash grinned harder.

"...Consarnit Dash."

"Fine. But nothing more ferocious than a pukwudgie."