//------------------------------// // Intrusion Detection // Story: Glimmer // by Estee //------------------------------// Twilight had said something about theories being crafted to die... Rainbow personally believed herself to be a rather good listener -- when she wanted to be. It was just that if her friends expected her to pay any real attention, then they could at least talk about stuff which wasn't boring. That was just basic courtesy and since the group mostly possessed interests which didn't match her own, it was rare for anypony to truly indulge her. Given that, openly yawning in the middle of a discussion really needed to be perceived as a pretty fundamental form of feedback. And pretending to fall asleep during a lecture on Star Swirl? Basic criticism, typically presented in bulk. (There hadn't been a Star Swirl lecture for moons.) But those friends also had a way of saying things which stuck in her head -- whether she wanted them to or not. Because of Rarity, the pegasus was fully aware of just when every major party in the capital was due on the calendar, could occasionally dredge up some vestigial gossip, and knew exactly what her own complementary colors were. Applejack had added what Rainbow was hoping was a near-full list of fruit cultivars because oh dear Sun, please don't let there be any more than that. And when it came to Twilight... Maybe it had stuck in her head because in a lot of ways, stunt planning was both theory and science. Admittedly, in Rainbow's case, the testing phase meant that suspect science was often considered to be still holding up after the fifth crash because there was a chance that she just needed to start feathering a little earlier. Twilight was probably going to discard a project a little earlier than that -- or, if the little mare really needed to find the answer, just keep stubbornly investigating until she came close to passing out in the basement and Spike had to nudge her up to bed. Twilight had that core need to push. Rainbow respected that. -- anyway, if the evidence ran counter to your theory, then you could test the evidence itself. See if that held up. And if it did, then maybe you had to let the original theory die. Anything else was either bad science or brute idiocy, because it took a really stupid pony to keep believing something after it had been proven untrue. Rainbow knew she wasn't the most intelligent Bearer, and... there had been a few times when she'd had to face the potential consequences of being the least -- -- anyway, she wasn't dumb enough to keep believing things after they'd been proven wrong. For example, Rainbow had once believed her own writing to be just about perfect. She'd been writing about herself! (Well, herself and the whole group, for that first year of their adventures. Everypony had done stuff, but Rainbow had taken the narrator perspective and that seemed to require a certain personal emphasis. On her own person.) An eyewitness account, written by the Bearer with the best eyesight! That had to be perfect! And after a lot of lectures about how the international court known as the Beastriality had a list of defined war crimes, accompanied by all the means by which they potentially applied to comma abuse, Twilight had eventually proven her wrong. She was still learning how to write. Editing was an ongoing problem. Twilight had tried to tell her something about killing her darlings, and Rainbow had outright refused. Her darlings were the best parts. Even when they were embarrassing (for the others), every last one was something which had actually happened. Maybe the resulting book couldn't be published until a few centuries had passed, but it was still meant as a recounting of history. And come on, Twilight! Wasn't editing history part of what got us into some of this stuff in the first place? Twilight's eyes had gone wide. She'd muttered a few things, none of which had been discernible. And then she'd vanished into the basement for an hour, leaving Rainbow listening to circularly-plodding hooves as the pacing groove steadily became that much deeper. (The termination of theories. Editing as slashing beloved paragraphs from the text.) (There were ways in which Twilight talked about death a lot.) And you had to be willing to let a theory go. Following the evidence, no matter where it led. Even when that was into the ground. Again. "Don't trust her. Don't hurt her, either. But keep an eye on her. See what she does." Currently, the performer was eating, with one barely-working window dark behind her. (Moon was up, and Rainbow didn't feel as if it was doing much of anything.) They were sitting across the kitchen table from each other. Almost exactly across. Maximum distance. Nira had come by with their food. Rainbow, as somepony who was still learning how to cook and couldn't escape from the ongoing lessons because Pinkie, knew the easiest way to get a decent meal was through having somepony else prepare it. And she would have said that Nira was obviously trying to disprove that theory, but Rainbow usually didn't say stuff like that and besides, she was pretty sure the unicorn hadn't been trying to do it on purpose. Nira had looked -- happy. ...maybe a little nervous, probably because she'd been serving her results to strangers. But mostly happy. Rainbow had been picking at the contents of the plates, because being an athlete meant learning something about nutrition. Nira's cooking would totally keep somepony alive and after a couple of weeks on those meals, you'd really wish it hadn't. But Trixie was just... eating. Steadily, methodically. Processing calories, and nothing more. "You like this stuff?" Or maybe wearing the Amulet permanently burned out your tongue. The unicorn glanced up from the plate, and the flicker of surprise at having been addressed vanished before she met Rainbow's eyes. Swallowed, and then spoke. "No. I've had worse." Curiously, "Where?" "Road stuff," the performer evenly stated. "I take what I can get." Paused. "And your settled zone has that pegasus -- the dark green stallion, middle-aged, mark is crossed test-tubes --" Rainbow automatically said "Mister Flankington." "-- right." The unicorn took a breath. "He got me on the way in. The first time. I was an hour late setting up the stage because I didn't want to move too fast yet." The pegasus didn't really think about what she said next. She just let the words flow, because that was the best way to find out where they went. "My first week." The performer blinked. "Really?" "I was new in town," Rainbow shrugged. "And short on bits, and I was hungry. He said taste-testers didn't have to pay, and... he just looked like a really nice stallion. Who just wanted to help." Her stomach, acting on a combination of memory and recent ingestion, executed a perfect half-lurch. "He is nice. He's even helped us all out a couple of times, like with the geese --" and instantly spotted the confusion "-- right, you wouldn't know. And there was some sort of conference about magic, so Twilight wasn't in Ponyville for that one. She can't write an eyewitnesses account when she isn't there." Another shrug. "He's nice. And he can do a lot with crushed berries, as long as they aren't ever eaten. But he can't cook." He just does something called food chemistry, and his mark tells him that means running a restaurant... The unicorn didn't say anything. Rainbow briefly glanced at a window. (The glass still didn't know what it was supposed to be doing.) Then she went back to the performer, and the mare's head was down again. Eating through bringing her snout to plate level. She didn't use her corona as much as most adult unicorns: Rainbow had noticed that. The performer was much more prone to working with her mouth. Then again, the first two times they'd met, Trixie had run her mouth all the time. Don't boast if you can't back it up. Rainbow could. ...okay, there were times when that meant 'Eventually'. Getting into the Wonderbolts had been a very long-term 'eventually', and working out the full details had required more than a few crashes. But she'd made it. She'd gone through the practical exam while sick, and she'd made it anyway. Doing so on training and talent, when there were ponies like Frontette Falsi who'd only stayed with the squad until the captain had worked out exactly how she'd cheated. And that was Trixie. The Amulet had been like using a field booster drug, only worse. Artificial talent. Rainbow didn't know what had happened to Frontette after the dishonorable dismissal. It felt as if nopony did. There were ponies out there who almost compulsively tracked the whole of Wonderbolts history, and even they tended to let those who hadn't truly been part of the squad slip. Maybe she'd left Equestria. Or changed her name, applied a lot of fur dye on the regular, hoped nopony would look too closely... "But for trust? She's gotta earn it." Maybe she'd gone into the minor league stunt circuit and tried to start over. You had to judge the performer by her actions, and -- the unicorn had done a lot. "Nice rescue," Rainbow said. "With Rarity, I mean." But maybe the theory needed to account for new evidence. Trixie's head jerked up. A small piece of char fell from her lower lip. I'm not ready to trust you. Not yet. But we can talk. Something about the unicorn's expression felt wary. The actual words emerged as defensive. "So you're not going to go after me for doing the first thing I thought of?" Rainbow immediately decided that her answering shrug had been eloquent -- then realized that she probably needed to kick in a few words. "Sometimes thinking takes too long." Trixie was silent. So maybe some more words. "If you think too much," Rainbow added, "you can work your way down to the really bad ideas. Then you think some more, you can't come up with anything else, and you tell yourself that the worst stuff was really the best. Because when there's something you really wanted to do, you can't let yourself be out of ideas or admit it can't happen, and that means the last thing you thought of has to be what works --" -- the unicorn was now staring at her. Another shrug. "I went out for the Wonderbolts," Rainbow said. "And I made it. But I saw a lot of the ones who didn't. Some of them had the dream, and that was just about all they had." Feathers rustled at her sides. "The judges were nice to them, just before they got sent home. You sort of have to be." She was almost certain that the unicorn was supposed to be saying something back by now. "But with the ones who were closest," she kicked in, "and just thought that if they could come up with that one thing which could take them over the line --" "-- you would have reached her," Trixie placidly interrupted. "In another couple of seconds. Tops." "I would have reached where she was in the river," Rainbow quietly said. "Or on top of that spot, if she'd gone under. I can't fly in water. Nopony can, seaponies aren't real, and..." Just a little more softly, "...sometimes, a couple of seconds means you're too late. Two seconds can be everything." There was no response. You used to run your mouth all the time. Their lives had only intersected twice. But when it came to defining 'all the time', that clearly counted. They both ate for a while. Rainbow decided that the unicorn was going to clean the dishes. It wasn't Rainbow's kitchen and she generally waited until she was down to her very last dish before cleaning any of them. Letting somepony else do it just made more sense. Not that she was going to tell the other mare that, but she figured Trixie would work it out. When it came to kitchen tasks, noticing that Rainbow casually wasn't doing something had a way of enlisting other ponies for the duty. She was still waiting for the day when it finally applied to crash site cleanup. The unicorn nosed the last plate to the edge of the table, and Rainbow waited for her to carry it towards the sink. "I'm going outside," Trixie said. "Just for a couple of minutes." "Exploring?" It was an honest question. They were under Moon, but there were streetlights around: it might be possible to see quite a bit. A full aerial survey... "Just... going outside," the unicorn replied. "I'll probably just trot around the house a few times." She swallowed. "If you hear me getting up at night, then it's just going outside. I... have trouble staying in one place for very long." Which made Rainbow snort and, judging by the way the other mare pulled back, it hadn't been the expected response. "Tell me about it! Everypony says that you're only listening if you stay in one place, but sound goes everywhere and maybe there's better acoustics over in that corner --" "-- acoustics," Trixie carefully repeated. "So you're going outside," Rainbow noted. "I'll come with." Which got her a fairly basic, only slightly suspicious "Why?" Because I still feel shut in. Enclosed. I can see the sky, but the shield is there and that means I can't really reach it. Because I don't want to sleep just yet. It's not the bed. ...it's not just the bed. It's the dreams. My dreams have been really weird. Rainbow took a single careful breath, and went with the least personal truth. "It's easier to think when I move. Or not think, when thinking takes too long." Maybe you even get that. I wish somepony did. Slowly, the other mare nodded. Just once. "But we probably shouldn't go too far," Rainbow decided. "Somepony might think exploring a new place on a first night was suspicious or something. Or at least, we shouldn't do that and get caught." (It almost looked as if the unicorn had started to smile.) "And at some point, we've probably gotta check in with --" Which was when the hoof rapped on the front door. It was a very special sort of knock. 'Politely insistent' would have been fair. Rainbow didn't get to personally hear it a lot because Twilight wasn't always available for cloudwalking spells and altitude boosts, but it didn't exactly take long to memorize. The knock was its own identifier and if you didn't have it down just yet, the voice was a backup. "Are you still awake?" Rarity softly called out. "We thought that we should see how you were doing. Speak briefly before bed." Rainbow didn't sigh. She didn't do that much and when it came to the designer, there usually wasn't much point. You didn't even need to worry about meeting any sort of quota. Writing down their adventures while learning about speech descriptors had proven that Rarity could sigh enough for seven. We'll go outside later. She got up from her bench. Started towards the hallway on hoof, because the door frame wasn't wide enough for an active wingspan -- "Thank you." And when she glanced back, the unicorn was carrying the first plates to the sink. By mouth. Her brother was a box. (It seemed to bear repeating.) Spike yelped and, based on what happened next, apparently tried to race out of the illusion. An effect which was centered on jewelry enchanted by Luna, and therefore moved with him. "GUYS!" Which might have sounded like panic, except that panic was usually lower-pitched than that. "What happened? It's all dark! I can't --" Fluttershy had been caught staring, with all capital letters thankfully left out of it. Applejack was beginning to snicker, and all Twilight could do was watch as the box followed up its initial forward movement through jerking backwards across the Moon-lit tepui rim rocks. It still wasn't quite managing to escape itself. "-- I can't see! Did something go wrong? I've got to deactivate --" Which instantly made the earth pony's laughter stop. "There's horn holes, Spike," Applejack quickly said. "Right at your eye level, Ah imagine. Hold still an' try t' look through 'em." "And don't move towards them," Twilight hastily added. "It's all just going to move with you." The box froze. "...that's better," Fluttershy finally said. "You're much more like a box now." There was a rather long pause. "I'm a what?" "...because boxes usually don't move." Technically, he was more of a crate. You almost never saw horn holes on a cardboard box and when you did, the usual presumption was that somepony had made a mistake -- something Twilight extended to the mere concept of 'horn hole', because unicorns didn't like having their horns covered. Sure, you could place your horn into the gap, then carefully push against the wood and if you had the leverage, then the box would lift. You were now technically carrying something with your horn and in reality, that meant taking the weight on your neck. This usually didn't take very long to register as an error and if you were lucky, the recognition would take place before the box's contents began to slide. And when it came to a box which was large enough to conceal Spike... There were horn holes on four rather nondescript wooden sides. Proper balancing meant that some errors had to be made by teams and with true solidity present, the entire miniherd would soon discover that the pony spine hadn't evolved to account for horn holes. It was a rather generic sort of box. If it had been real, it could have potentially held just about anything and at the moment, it was full of frustrated dragon. "A box," her rather disgruntled sibling said. (Some of the frustration was leaking.) "She thought I needed to be a box." "Ah get it," Applejack shrugged. "A box could turn up jus' 'bout anywhere." "Not unless somepony's got it with them," Spike muttered. "And if one of you is just hauling a box around --" "-- I should see if it has a bottom," Twilight quickly decided. "In case we do need to carry it." Light appeared around her concealed horn, projected forward and surrounded the crate. Nothing happened. "It blocks your field?" Applejack hastily asked. "Ah get that for a defense, but --" "-- and now," Spike cut in, "I'm looking through a horn hole. Which is covered by pink. Thanks." Twilight missed the last part. "No. I just don't have him." Slightly embarrassed, "I tried to lift by the edges. It's normal. The bubble just isn't fit right. But I can try to probe inside, since it isn't solid --" The "-- TWILIGHT!" was much more yelp than roar. "-- okay, that's his tail -- sorry, Spike! -- and when I lift... See? It's got a bottom! Luna's just that good. Fluttershy, I'll rotate and tilt a little so you can see the details of the design--" "Put. Me. DOWN!" The older sibling winced. Slowly, the box leveled in midair. Sank down to the top of the tepui, and Twilight's field winked out. "...a box has uses," Fluttershy softly considered. "But it isn't mobile. And there are times when it shouldn't be on its own." "Enchanted box?" Applejack proposed. "Moves itself when somepony tells it to?" "It would usually glow," Twilight told them. "Besides, why enchant a box?" "Too heavy t' push?" "...you could just use a box carrier," Fluttershy proposed. Paused. "...you know. One of those low wooden empty frames with the wheels under the corners." "Well, yeah," Applejack allowed. "But y'still gotta get the heavy stuff on top of that. So maybe a short glow lift?" "Why do a short lift," Twilight argued, "when you could just manage the whole thing?" "Low thaum charge? Cheap spell? Stupid caster -- oh, hi, Spike." As it turned out,the dismissal of the illusion shell came with an equal lack of visual effect. Other than losing a box in exchange for getting a rather miffed small dragon back, but they'd been expecting that part. "I just squeezed the bead again," Spike muttered. His hands dropped to his hips, pushed inwards as if trying to contain embarrassment. "A box..." "More of a crate," Twilight unnecessarily corrected. "With horn holes." Vertical pupils glared at her. "Which was practical," she added. "A shell which you can't see out of doesn't really help -- Spike, there's more beads than that." With a gentle smile, "Why not try another one?" "Because the first was a box," her sibling muttered. "You know, for somepony who had to be told what 'fun' was, Luna's got a really interesting sense of humor..." "...try," Fluttershy softly encouraged. "It's the only way we'll know." His right arm reluctantly came up. Claw tips squeezed -- "-- interestin'," Applejack immediately decided. "Ain't never seen a minotaur calf before." Newly-rounded pupils blinked. "A minotaur?" "A little one," Twilight smiled. "Take a look?" Hands were raised in front of yellowed eyes. The bovine head turned to regard a fur-tufted tail, and snub horns moved with it. "Weird," the little bull breathed. "This is so weird..." "...and it gives you mobility," Fluttershy added. "Keep going..." It took a while to cycle through the complete set. The problems, however, became visible well before the halfway point. "None of this is going to really work long-term," Twilight finally summarized. "They're fine when somepony is viewing from a distance." Openly impressed, "And they all update for movement in realtime, as far as they can. That's Luna at work. It's incredibly sophisticated! But --" Reluctantly, "-- they've got the same issue as every illusion." And because her brother had been through an especially long day, she gave him the last word. "Contact," Spike wearily stated. "I can't be touched." Or rather, he could be -- and if he was a minotaur at the time, anypony expecting fur would find scales. (Trying to push the box would find a pony's head going through, and the contents would presumably come as a surprise.) It took a skilled changeling to fool the tactile senses, and even Chrysalis was presumed to be incapable of maintaining a disguise indefinitely. Any magic burned thaums. A self-declared queen would still need to eventually rest, recover, and gather the strength needed for angrily denying the existence of a personal weakness. Luna's illusions were visually effective. The ones which were supposed to move did so as they should. But they only fooled sight, and -- "...you'll need to hold your tail high as a minotaur," Fluttershy cautioned. "If the tip drags, it'll still leave a little trench in dirt." "An' if it's mud, ponies can see claw impressions instead of hoofprints," Applejack groaned. "This is gettin' real complicated..." -- as with changelings, they didn't do anything to trick the environment. Chrysalis could make a pony believe they were touching flesh -- but contacting soft wood still left behind chitin-produced scratches. Shining had tried to explain away multiple small personal abrasions as the results of stumbling into things while exhausted from overcasting and from all indications, it had been what he'd truly believed. All the way up until the end. "I think we can get you in, Spike," Twilight carefully told him. Which cuts off scrolls to and from Canterlot, but -- how would we communicate with him once we were inside? Try to reach the shield's edge and hope nopony follows? And if it's just a sick colony, or a strange -- community -- we might just be able to bring him in as himself. Even have him go in and out, so we could talk to the capital. But... He looks better, but he's still recovering and we don't know how well the treatment worked to start with. What if it's just coincidence? If he relapses... They couldn't leave him outside. Not alone. "But once you're inside," she carefully added, "you might have to stay hidden. And I don't want to start with you as a dragon. Because --" "-- other than 'one of them is an alicorn'," and there was a touch of sadness in the words, "'sometimes travels with a dragon' is the surest way to identify the group." He sighed. "Are you guys going to put on fur dye?" "Ah'm thinkin' it over," Applejack admitted. "But we ain't got much. Ah think y'all wound up with most of it. Could fully treat one pony, or pattern three. An' with me, you'd need t' drench. An' hope y'didn't lose track of me." "Why?" Twilight automatically asked. "'cause Ah looked. It's green. Jungle green. Good for fadin' into the background the way Miranda does at night, but not much else. An' Ah can't use it for patternin'." "...why?" Fluttershy echoed. "Y'kiddin'? Ah'd look horrible!" Forelegs were beginning to gesture. "Ah'm orange! That shade is mah contrast color --" and stopped dead, with green eyes blinking in horror. "Applejack?" Spike finally checked. "Thanks a lot, Rarity," the farmer muttered. "Anyway, Ah don't think we should do too much more up here. Easier t' think where we can get a little more oxygen t' do it with. So let's come up with our next move, if'fin we can. An' review it at ground level before we try anythin'." "That one's easy," Twilight grimly stated. "We try to reach our friends." "Ain't arguin'," Applejack told her. "But Ah think we're gonna need a 'how'." There was a very basic, oddly ideal-feeling 'how', and it was called 'blasting our way in.' Break the shield. Storm the grounds. Because they had her friends, and Twilight currently felt the same way about caution as she did regarding subtlety. But that thought might not have truly been her own. Not when she was in the air. It was easier to work around the shield at night. The colors were shifting, and did so expertly -- but nothing could be done about the telltale sparkles, and all Twilight had to do was avoid them. Something which was made all the easier by the radiating resonance, because the magic was telling her to do exactly that. To go around and then, if at all possible, to go away. She wasn't fully trying to fight off the effect, because she was in Rainbow mode and thus convinced she could deal with it. But she wasn't letting it completely have its way with her, either. The enforced inclination was to steer away from the shield: letting it truly take over might mean needing hours to find her way back, and... she couldn't allow the group to be subdivided any further. Not for longer than it took to pick out a good teleport arrival point. The two flyers were skirting the edges. (Fluttershy was slightly beneath her: the dome didn't give them a lot of room for a catch.) Using sparkles and inner turmoil as a guide (and there were times when she heard Fluttershy gasp as the hybrid tried to push some of the latter back). The sparkles were a little more reliable, especially since she couldn't currently feel the magic behind them. At least the 'doctor' isn't part of this. So that was a thought Rainbow might have. There was an illusion built into the shield, and to look down was to behold the mirage of a normal rain forest. Twilight didn't know what it allowed those within to see when glancing up, and it gave them another reason to work around the edges. She looked back, tried to get a sense for how far they'd come and that naturally included how fast they were going: she was fairly certain that they needed to be moving more quickly -- -- Moon touched the cliffside, reflected and refracted across the cave entrance. Twilight made note of its location, then wondered if stalactites and stalagmites could turn into a high-speed obstacle course. Not that you'd really get those with quartz -- -- her wings faltered and she lost half a Celest of altitude, recovered just before Fluttershy finished coming up to meet her. "You're okay?" There was never a hesitation during a potential crisis. "I've got this!" Because of course she did. And if she blasted her way in, she'd have that managed too. It would be easy -- -- except that it might leave her attacking a colony of the ill. Or a strange, isolated community which had dedicated itself to change... She had to be careful, and she hated it. Her friends were in there -- but so were a lot of other ponies. Those who might be innocent. Or Spike could be right. Being in Rainbow mode made it easy to justify any thought which led to immediate action. Or, when emotions were at their highest, to not bother with thought at all. In Twilight's temporary opinion, thinking could take too long. They were back at ground level. (Applejack had eventually stopped staggering.) And now they were moving under canopy-obscured Moon, heading towards their friends. There was some light to work with, deep in the plant-enforced dark: the Princesses had given them devices which generated glow, and those were easy enough to mount on foreheads or forelegs. But something about the forest seemed to swallow lumens, and they never seemed to see quite as far as Twilight felt they should. But there was another sense to work with. They were feeling their way towards the shield's base, and the first clue that they were heading in the right direction came when they no longer wanted to look for it. But they'd been braced for that, with Twilight posted eight body lengths in the lead while standing ready to block -- or in this case, redirect. "It's a passive effect," she softly told the others as the first wave was pushed around them. "But there's a chance that the caster might be notified if it's being actively countered. This is safer." "If she knew we were countering it," Spike pointed out from his position on Applejack's back, "she might come out to see what was going on --" "-- I know," Twilight softly said. "But there's another problem with countering, Spike." "What?" She didn't turn to face him: she wanted to keep her attention focused on the near-silent world ahead -- -- and it's quiet because all I can hear is branches shifting in the breeze, maybe a storm over that way, and there's no animals in this area because they can't make themselves come this close -- -- and continue to protect those who were left. Instead, she simply, briefly flared her wings. "A pegasus can't do it," Twilight quietly told the night air. "And right now, as far as they should know, there is nopony in this group who can work a unicorn casting." She heard him slowly inhale, tried to figure out if there was fresh moisture coming out the other way. "...yeah," he finally admitted, then added "Twilight?" "What is it, Spike?" With not-quite-concealed concern, "How strong is the spell?" Very. "It's manageable," she told him. "I can keep this up for a while." Which was the truth -- but it didn't change the fact that there was significant power being displaced. She really wanted to get a look at the devices responsible. I wish Ratchette was here -- -- and immediately took it back. Bringing Trixie had been bad enough. They trotted through the night. A drizzle started, ended at the exact moment when Twilight had reconciled herself to its misery. The umbrella spell still wasn't working. "Can y'feel it?" Applejack carefully asked. "As magic?" "Yes. We're on track." She pushed past a bush, angled her small body to avoid small, pointed, familiar branch tips. "The magic might be harder to spot with passive feel, but I'm trying to pick up on everything --" Which was why she was the first to find the quartz. The victory, such as it was, came by a rather narrow margin. Twilight, with every sense active and straining, detected the source of magic about two seconds before Spike's hands went up to his nostrils. "It's another one of those stones," her little brother softly announced. "Like I told you about on the tepui. Maybe we should go around it --" "-- it's enchanted," Twilight quietly told him. She almost heard the group blink. "...oh, no..." Spike breathed (She was still listening for moisture.) "Oh, no... Trixie thought something might have been cast near the first one, and Rarity just --" "-- we can't do anything about that right now," Twilight told him, because the resonance wasn't the only thing which had to be pushed back. "Spike -- no, nopony come any closer. Just stay back. Let me." She took another hoofstep forward, and device glow streamed towards rough, milky facets. "Spike, you said they didn't smell right. Is it like chaos pearls?" "No," he quickly answered. "Not the same. Those stink. This is just... twisted." She stopped two body lengths away from the stone. Extended her senses, and fought a sudden urge to whistle. "This is buried deep..." "The stone?" Applejack asked. "Ah can tell you how far down it goes if y'give me a minute." "The magic," Twilight told them. "It's really hard to pick up on. If I hadn't been searching..." She looked down at the stone. A rough, warped, inferior crystal -- -- why am I thinking of the Empire? Something about the facets... ...no. There was too much distortion. The irregularities were nearly the whole of the stone. She risked closing her eyes for a moment, taking focus away from one sense so that it could be given to another. Let her talent rise -- -- false, twisted, ersatz -- It wasn't quite like the shield. She had a very good sense for that now, and the words to describe that casting were clinical artistry Twilight opened her eyes, because that was a fundamental requirement for blinking. Reexamined the internal words. Clinical artistry. An oxymoron. Inherent contradiction. But... that was the term, and she didn't know why she felt that way. (Not yet.) She blocked out the world again. Focused on the stone. "I think this is how they spotted you," she finally said. "There's something here. I'm guessing it works as proximity detection. Notifying the caster when ponies approach." (She was right, and she was wrong. She didn't have the whole of it...) "...and there weren't any on our side of the mountain," Fluttershy recognized, "because nopony would approach from that direction." "Yeah," Applejack harshly agreed: something which came with an angry forehoof stomp. "But Rarity's group hit the trippin' line. Twi, you're counterin' it?" "More or less." Directing still more energies around them. "So what's the plan?" Spike asked. "Do we --" and the little dragon paused for just slightly too long "-- knock?" He means break the shield. (Could she?) The last time we did that, it was -- everypony. "No," she told him. "We're not breaking in." "But --" was as far as she let him get. "It's what you said," she softly stated. "When they knew there were ponies around, they came out to see what was going on..." She opened her eyes. Focused on the shield, and the shield alone. Walked forward. "There could be a lot of ways to get into a fortress," the librarian quietly observed as the others watched her advance. "But the easiest --" Her right forehoof tapped the largest facet, and she felt the magic surge. "-- is through being invited." Her jaw went tight. "Let them come."