//------------------------------//
// Chapter VII 
// Story: An Unexpected Guest 
// by PropsValroa 
//------------------------------//

Blu nodded, "True, even if we find Gina, there's no guarantee that it's the same one you knew. But there's no need to give up before we've even tried right? Maybe we'll find some way to tune the portal, make some sort of multiverse scanner to find your friend. No need to dwell on the possible failures without looking at the possible triumphs right?"

Given the little he had just learned about shields and runes, and how much was left to learn in this library alone, he was sure they'd be able to do quite wonderous things soon enough. Especially if his compiler could be set on solving the problem. Let a machine designed to efficiently try everything do the bulk of the testing for them while they continued to learn.

Cali agreed with that. "All that is entirely possible however, we haven't got much to go on really but, we'll find something eventually. I have been here for...I wanna say half a year? Maybe a few months? Time seems to pass here differently in other worlds...called moons here. This world's moon is different than the Earth's moon, at least my Earth that is. I am sure that our Earths have little minute differences after all." 

She really wanted to find Gina again, however she didn't know how at all. He did bring in mind some interesting ideas that she had never ever thought of, though. Although she had all this time, this is when it really started to dawn on her that she could really get back. All it would take is to find a way. 

Blu looked quite surprised, "Only? I've been stuck here for almost 4 years now. But that does explain why you're throwing yourself against Princess Sparkle, you never really had the chance to know Luna or Celestia."

Blu rubbed his horn, "I think I've reached my limit on practical studies for the day. Maybe we could find some artifacts or the like that augments my ability to pull on the grid, that would certainly even the field on my end at least."

"Luna and Celestia seem like god-like rulers. From what I know of their history they had their issues in the past and are not beyond...corruption itself no matter how perfect they claim to be. Tired already? I suppose that's fair...and you mean like artifacts or something that boosts your. 'well of magic' as you put it? I suppose there could be something like that here." she stood up and started looking. 

Blu shrugged, "I can't say I ever got to know them personally, Princess Sparkle thinks the world of them so she may not be the best source for an unbiased opinion. As to artifacts, something that isn't cursed would be preferred of course. Extra magic wouldn't do me much good if I'm not fully in control to use it."

He'd let Cali go search while he finished up the theory in the book he was reading.

Cali looked around for some time. After a few minutes she came back with what looked like a normal-ish but green bell. '"I found this on one of the shelves. I am not sure what there would be a bell laying around this area. Do you think this could be an artifact?" she asked and set the bell onto the table near to where he was reading at and looks at it further.

Blu had a bit of a blank expression as he stared at the bell, "Well, it's got as good a chance of being one as anything else here, but it probably isn't a good idea to just try things on a whim. Besides, most artifacts have some sort of activation ritual, the good ones at least. Maybe one of the books near where you found it could offer a description on how it is used or what it does? I don't want to put it on my horn if it turns out to be carnivorous."

Cali agrees with that, she had a lot of suspicion on how this artifact would be activated if it was one. "Definitely. However I personally think this one, if it is an artifact would be activated by ringing but, I didn't see any books near it. Was kinda on its own shelf....hmm..." she then went back to looking and after a while she had came back with a book with the same green bell on it and sat down. "I hope this has some answers..." she said and gave the book to him so he could read. 

Blu was examining the bell closely without touching it when Cali returned with the book, he stepped back when she presented the book to him. "I would guess that this book is related, or it's a coincidence."

He would open the book so Cali could read it too if she liked.

Cali would examine the bell. "It's green, appears to be made out of some sort of metallic but seems a bit corroded. Maybe it was copper and was corroded away, that would be my guess. I haven't looked in the book yet so you'll be the first to see it. Gives a nice element of surprise I suppose." Cali stated and read along with him, wondering about what the bell would do.

According to the book, this bell was enchanted to a sort of resonance with the grid that, depending on how it was struck, would open a portal to another world for as long as the bell rang. The rest of the book was mostly a series of notes on tests performed by prior researchers indicating how different strengths and methods produced different results, as well as discovering the, admittedly small, degree of tolerance for getting the same result.

Blu shook his head, "Good thing we didn't try to ring it without reading, wouldn't want to open a portal to, say, the bottom of the ocean. Corroded as it is, I don't think any ring would last long enough to safely investigate the other side. This could work towards finding your friend, but we would have to be insanely lucky."

He got up from the table they were at, "Maybe there are other artifacts over where you found this one? I'll say this is far more interesting a subject to study."

Cali was very surprised by that. She had thought that the portal thing would take a long time to find or research but here it is, a bell that can open up portals. She smiled at the part he said about the ring. "If what that said is true...then could one of us just stand there and constantly ring the bell when the other goes through or is it talking about the actual....reverberation of the ring itself? But yeah...could potentially find my friend this way however, there is no way of knowing which world she's in or if its even the same Gina that I know." Cali shrugged but was quite impressed with his answer.

Blu shrugged, "It warrants some testing, getting this corrosion off will certainly help it ring longer. If we had some of the antimagic compound, or if we find a magic dampening rune we could build a proper testing chamber, ensure that the portal doesn't get away from us and that we could close it before anything undesirable came through."

He set the book down, "Still, this intrigues me. If they have an artifact like this, what other secrets might they have in store? It would be good to find something a bit more immediately useful, artifacts are typically leagues more powerful than any one creature's casting potential, at least in a very specific application. Finding one suited to our aims would ease our burden tremendously."

"Well first things first, let's find some other artifacts in here. Maybe there are some better ones in here, than this one. If now we can maybe clean off the corrosion of this bell then we can work on testing it out. Of course such things would definitely ease our planning, but lets not get ahead of ourselves." said Cali with a smirk. She stood up from the table as she looked at the corroded bell. "You go look for more artifacts, let me clean off this bell." she walked towards the bell and faded away into a red mist that floated over the bell. It formed a sort of wire-ish mesh that started to tighten down over the bell, examining its angles and features before moving over it in weird ways, the corroded bits slowly fall off as the mesh rubs. 

As Blu got up to search for artifacts he tossed a comment over his whither, "You could try an electrode bath, I recall that helping remove corrosion well, it would be a good application of your electrical magic."

That said he would wander the halls seeing what sort of artifacts and topics he could find. Every so often he would pull a book off a shelf to see what it was about, mentally building up a catalog of subjects for future study as he searched for artifacts.

Eventually he would find a small room with a number of artifacts on shelves and pedestals. He would call back to Cali, "I think I found a room full of artifacts!"

Cali took his advice into action and proceeded to give it an electrode bath, as well as the physical rubbing. By the time that he had called out, the bell was entirely polished smooth and back to it's original color. She reformed into her normal form and then followed where his voice had come from. She walked into the room, quite amazed at the myriad of artifacts in the room.

"It will take...days or weeks to go through all of these here. Who knows what they could be capable of!' she exclaims in amazement and excitement.

Blu nodded with a bit of a smile, "Well, we best get started then." He went to find one that had it's book readily available, it looked like for most of the objects there were accompanying books like Cali had found for the bell.

The first book Blu was able to connect to an artifact was for a golden cup with a blue six point star on it. "It says here... that whoever drinks from this cup will have the same powers as the one who crafted it, which sounds a bit ominous at first, but according to the testing log they recorded no adverse affects, they seem to conclude that it meant powers like the one who crafted it, like have their power level, rather than their exact powers. Strange though, they have no idea who or what crafted it."

Cali looks at the golden cup that he was talking about and listened intently as he spoke. She looked at the golden cup, picking it up and looking inside of it to see if there was any liquid or substance in it at all. "Does that mean like, replace one's power-level or add to it? I wonder what would happen if I would drink that..." she pondered and then glanced at some of the other artifacts within the room they were in. "Heh, Twilight doesn't have any of this...she'll be in for a shock." 

The cup was empty and dry.

Blu paged through the book, "It's... unclear. It looks like adds to, in the case of all the researchers they had greater power levels after drinking, but tests also show a pretty even power among subjects despite varying abilities beforehoof. So it could very well replace, or simply raise it to a certain level."

Blu shrugged, "She may not have these, but since she's the ruler of Equestria she does have access to the Canterlot Archives, and so very well may have access to all the artifacts that Celestia had stored away over the centuries. Whether or not she'd be able to use them is another story."

He looked back at the cup, "We should get something to put in the cup, the logs say the liquid imbibed has little to no effect, and we should probably get food anyway, unless one of these other artifacts makes food?"

Cali held onto the cup. "Its a risk that I am willing to take and I am sure the book has something in there saying that it would be possible to be undone but, if it has greater power then so be it." she sat down at the the table and smirked about his comments of Twilight sparkle. She has long since wanted to raid into those archives and steal all of those books for herself. However she had enough here...at least for now.

"We'll break into those archives in the future but what we have here is what we will focus on first, obviously. I have some water actually..." she said as a red portal appeared next to her, a bottle came through and the portal closed. "This is actually an artifact I found in this library a long time ago. I may not need to drink water technically, as I can alter my body chemistry and structure at my whim but every now and then a drink is good...this is an infinite water bottle. When it goes empty it magically refills its water content...pretty handy, don't you think?" she asked as she poured the water into the cup until it was full.

She handled her infinite water bottle to him and smirked. She picked up the cup and drank, swallowing down every last drop. She wondered what would happen.

Blu paged through the tome, "Looks like effects last about a day or so, not a permanent boost by any means." 

Blu snorted, "If things go as well as you hope, we won't need to break in, they'll be ours for the taking."

It wasn't immediate, but Cali felt the new surge of power building up slowly, she was connected to the magical grid that everyone in Equestria used to perform magic.

On the other hoof, she was cut off from the source of power she had previously used. While she was as powerful as some of the greatest mages of this world, it wasn't much compared to what she had been capable of just a few moments prior.

Cali simply stood there as she felt this magic wash through her. She smiled as she understood something, now. "In Equestria, everyone is connected to the...magical grid as I'd describe it, the source of all power in this world...as for me, my 'source' of power was/is literally inside of me and not somewhere else. It's why I was able to keep my power no matter what dimension I was in. Definitely weaker but, very fascinating...I'd like to study this for the time it lasts...and if we can somehow create a spell / modify this so it ADDS this 'grid' power to my...normal power set or at least so I can use both?" she asked with a very sly grin.

"These artifacts are probably enchanted with a spell or containing the magic they use. Non-physical tied to a physical object...what if there was a way to go in and 'edit' the spell, if you know what I mean?" she suggested, still smirking. She hadn't tried any spells yet and merely wanted to think her thoughts through of how to go about this. 

Blu shook his head, "There's a fundamental difference, I've found, between enchantments and artifacts. Nothing can be enchanted beyond the power of the enchanter. It may be more focused, but never more powerful. Artifacts on the other hoof, they stem from something deeper, or rather far more ancient and powerful. Even trying to crack them could be deadly or worse. Princess Sparkle was convinced that treating artifacts wrong could cause them to tear the grid itself apart. We'd likely have better luck finding an artifact that suits our needs than trying to modify one out of its purpose."

He smirked back, "How does it feel though, being on the same plane as the rest of us?"

Cali understood and nodded. "I suppose that makes a lot of sense. If they are from something more deeper and powerful, I wonder where they were created from. Or who made them." she said and then smirked at Blu. "It's not...ideal but it's definitely a lot different from normal for sure. It feels different, not sure how to explain it. I'm less powerful, I will say that." she said and did some various spells. Like orbs, electrical currents through her hands and things like that. The red-ness of it was completely gone, and it was just a pure electrical sparkling color. 

Blu shrugged, "Looks like they didn't know either. If I had to guess, I'd say either Discord himself or another of his kind. They seem especially long lived. If not him personally, he might know who did or the process behind it. But getting answers out of him might prove difficult, if not impossible."

Blu flipped to the end of the notes in the book and pulled out a pen of his own to add to the blank space after the last recorded test, "It looks like you are the first to start with a power level greater than what the cup could bestow, so it's a first for the book. I'll have to try it later, once we confirm that it does in fact wear off for you. While we wait though, let's look at another artifact, maybe something useful to the both of us."