//------------------------------//
// Timing Chart 
// Story: The Tritone Disappearance of Paprika Blues 
// by PaprikaBluesAndCo 
//------------------------------//

It's Trixie Lulamoon. I heard a few rumors about her. One about buying a cursed artifact and using it to enslave a town. Another about her contributions to saving the Princesses and the Elements of Harmony from the Changelings. 
Did I believe the rumors? Not really. But if they were true, then by all rights, she was probably as great and powerful as she claimed to be.

If nothing else, her performance has ponies enraptured. Enough that some prick of a mare attempts to discreetly steal from the tips jar. I'm about to get in the way, when,
"For my next trick, Trixie will need an audience member.. hmm.. YOU!"

She points to the thief, who looks around, and mouths, "me?" while pointing to herself. 
"Yes, you! Come, and allow me your ear!"
The mare, not wanting to cause a scene, climbs up to the stage. She eyes up Trixie cautiously, then turns to the crowd.
"A bit for your thoughts?" Trixie asks.
"Well, I, I don't like being up here-" She's quickly looking back and forth, shaking her head, and a bit falls from her ear.

Ohhhh.. I get it. Funny.
"It seems you have a lot weighing on your mind. Allow Trixie to help you.."
Trixie shakes the mare's head in her magic and every single bit the mare tried to get away with falls out of her head. 
The mare looks to the money, to Trixie, and then starts scooting to exit, stage right.

"Let this be a lesson to never try and pull a fast one on the Grrreat and Powerful Trixie." 
She gathers up her bits with her magic, tosses them back into the tip jar, and goes on with the show. The thief makes herself scarce.
I toss a few of my own bits in the jar. That was primo entertainment.

By the time the show's over, I've made my choice. I trot up to the mare packing up her wagon. 
"Yo, Trix."
Trixie Lulamoon (Great and Powerful, Esq.) turns to look up at me with confusion pretty much written across her face.
"Ah.. does Trixie know you?"
"Yeah? I'm Magnetic North."
"The name rings no bells, Miss North."
"We grew up in Miss Stable Upbringing's orphanage together, remember? You hated her. Called her The Authority."
She sniffs and turns up her head. 
"Trixie refuses to acknowledge your baseless accusations of Trixie's Great and Powerful backstory."

I sneer.
"Hello and welcome to Stable Upbringing's Orphanage for Wayward Manehattan Foals, thank you for visiting and we hope you find a colt or filly you'd be willing to call your own."

Trixie makes a face and cringes. "Okay, okay, stop it, you don't have to remind me of that!" She stomps and huffs. "Trixie barely remembers anypony from that blasted building. Who are you in specific?"
"I hung out with Paprika Blues. Deep blue coat, purple mane, lavender spots, also like you in the.. backroom department?" I try to discreetly wiggle my flanks and give her a deadpan.
"Ah. Yes." She nods. "Trixie remembers you now, there was news of Paprika's death. You.. hm. Actually, you were nice to me."

She furrows a brow.
"Trixie supposes you are not here to cash in a favor for such a thing, are you?"
"Depends. Can you punch a hole into another reality?"
"Mmmmaybe. Starlight always warned Trixie not to perform such a dangerous trick.. and yet, Trixie can't help but be curious what would spur you on to ask."
"You wanna talk about it over coffee at The Floor Is Java?"
"Ugh, yes, PLEASE! Trixie has been dying for some real Manehattanite coffee."





"..And that's why I think there's more to Paprika's death than meets the eye."

Trixie inspects the feathers cautiously before dramatically looking off into the distance. The stallion that ends up in her line of sight awkwardly waves and continues to eat his sandwich.
"So.. the rumours are true.."
"What rumors. And don't say it like that."
"The true crime circles of Equestrian tabloids have speculated that Paprika Blues was actually.. get this.. MURDERED."
She dramatically slams her hooves on the table and leans in close. Too close. I push her back on account of being able to smell her coffee breath.
"I'm a little disturbed by the fact that my grief has been made into a spectacle, but, continue."

She magically produces a magazine titled "LAST TABLOID ON THE LEFT", whereupon the cover showed me, Sugar, and P'rika in a group photo polaroid. Paprika's face is crossed out with a big red ❌.

"Scandal in the making!" It screams. "Paprika Blues and Magnetic North - secret lovers? Jealousy driven murder? Details on page 16!"
"Hogwash." I growl at it. "Total roadapples. I was dating Sugar Dust. Paprika was our friend - if anything, we both were gonna make a move on her, together, after she sobered up in the morning. Make a herd."

I'm not even sure how they got that photo. Maybe Sugar gave it to them before the funeral. I toss the bundle of lies back to Trixie. "But I can agree that I don't think Paprika's death was normal. The last time I saw her was drunk asleep on my couch futon. Something happened between then and the morning. I talked to Discord-"
Trixie snorts. "How did you accomplish THAT?"

"With a patience that has been honed after years of working as a tour guide for rural ponies, whose children do not know what a crosstrot is. Anyways. Discord said it was magic from another world.. and gave me this." I show her the paper.  "Recommended I find a pony that can 'punch holes in reality'. It sounded up his alley, literally, but I guess helping a grieving mare isn't super chaotic."

She inspects the paper. "Trixie can certainly assure you this isn't ordinary magic. Hanging around two extremely powerful wizards has allowed Trixie to accumulate some.. abilities. But this seems above Trixie's paygrade. She already dealt with the Changelings, which was bad enough."

She eyes me up, "And, no offense, you don't look like you've got much on you."

I take a slow, calculated sip of my coffee. One cream, no sugar. I shrug and put the mug down. "Well, I just need a unicorn that can work the spell. If you're scared, you don't need to come along."
"WHAT?!" Trixie shouts.
Gottem. I keep my poker face up while she breaks into a tirade.
"The Great and Powerful Trrrrixie does not fear anything! She has faced down the Dark Changelings, Discord, and last minute holiday shoppers! Trixie will not back down at the sight of some twitchy misplaced feathers!"

She gets the feathers in the paper bag, downs the rest of her coffee (and mine) in two gulps, and leads the charge towards..?





A long and arduous wagon ride to Canterlot's prestigious library. 
"Now, Trixie knows not of the exact spell that is your quarry, Miss North, but she knows where you are most likely to obtain the first loose thread on your little mystery."

I follow her in. The librarian at the desk gives her a cautionary glance as we pass to a quiet looking corner. Trixie pulls on a pair of extremely dull looking books, opening up a secret passageway into the "restricted section", if the sign was anything to go by.

"How in the name of Luna do you know about this?"
"Simple, Miss North - a wizard, a scholar, collects truths to study the world by. A magician, such as yours truly, collects secrets, to mystify the world with."
"And what about a normal old city-slicker like me?"
"Youuuu fiiiiind.. Hmm. Trixie will have to get back to you on that."

After making sure we're not being tailed, we move in and find the oldest books I've ever seen. For the first time in a week, a little smile cracks my face. 
Time to explore an old library, baby.



Libraries are proportionately tiny cities for books. That is what I learn as I wander the ancient dusty shelves. In libraries, books have transit, healthcare, leadership, and other amenities. They're organized by district and alphabetized, similar to postal addresses.
To that end, it's easy to navigate an ancient library when you shift perspective and view it as an ancient city. 
And from there, you can see when something doesn't belong in a city. 

Like the time that a rich company attempted to buy up all the property in my block and turn it into a series of bougie highrise condos. They failed, on account of some very choice words being graffitied on the walls by P'rika and I. Nopony wanted to invest in a building that read "HOT GELDING COCK ON THIS BLOCK" in bold red text on the walls.
I snicker when I recall that particular memory.

And my city-slicker senses pick up on one in particular book that didn't really belong.

"MANA-HEMO PROGRAM TRAINING MANUAL: SEED GENERATION, FILTERING, AND ACCESS". It declares. All capitals. No author. No flair or decorations to make it seem like an enticing read - in fact, it's the dullest gray I've ever seen. Scientifically engineered to hide. It uses a strange font that seems wrong. It has a lively, almost friendly shape to it, but is just slightly off-putting, enough to look Wrong, and therefore get my attention.¹

I pull it off the shelf and note that there's no dust to blow off of it.
In fact, it looks too damn pristine for something in a chunk of library with more dust than oxygen.
I open the book and I'm met with a language that almost looks like Common Harmonic, but not quite. A lot of jargon about "reality scripts" and "server transfer rates".

"SEED SELECTION", I can vaguely translate, but what's a seed in this context? It doesn't mean a plant, does it? 
They keep talking about things like "building packages" and "compiling data". There's one part that reads, "TO ACCESS ONE PARTICULAR SEED, ENTER THE 10 DIGIT SYMBOL CODE INTO RELEVANT SPELL MATRIX RECEPTACLE."



"WARNING: ACCESS WITHOUT PRIOR AUTHORIZATION WILL RESULT IN GROUNDSKEEPER SUMMONS."



I flip through the pages looking for any information on a groundskeeper. No such luck. The flash of the blade, but no cuts, yet. Would this be worth the trouble?

Eh. Buck it, we ride.
I bring the book back over to Trixie, who's nose deep in a book reading about some guy. I think it's a guy, anyways. It's hard to really tell the sexual dimorphism of humans.

Wait, yeah, hang on, that's a human on the cover. They haven't been around since the Dream Valley days. Ancient history, and I mean ANCIENT. Like "before Princess Times" levels of ancient. 

"Harry.. Anderson: .. Wise Guy by.. Mike Caverny? What kinda names are those?"
"Trixie hasn't the slightest clue. And yet, she is intrigued by this Harry's proficiency with sleight of hoof. There's so many earth-pony styles of magic and illusion in this book! Trixie thinks she shall keep this for light reading."
"Huh. Alright, cool. You do you. Anyways, I think I found the spellbook."

She leafs through the tome and makes a face.
"This is more boring than Sparkle's lectures."
"You don't gotta read it all. Just the seed lookup part."
"Ooh, excellent! It comes with its own spell matrix, makes this much easier."

She closes her eyes and lights up her horn, before undoing both.
"Hm. Trixie would like to make a contingency plan."
She looks for a piece of paper and summons a quill and some ink from her saddlebags.
"Dearest Starlight, The Great and Powerful Trrrrixie would like to send an update on her tour. A foalhood.."
She looks up at me.

".. Acquaintance.."
I'll take it.
"..named Magnetic North has requested my great and powerful assistance in rescuing her friend from a terrible fate. Trixie would like to inform you that if you do not hear from me in a week, come to the Canterlot library's restricted section and use the extremely dull book about seeds alongside this code, '#|¢[ÆÑ €@4Ī±'  to find the reality that Miss North and I have ventured into. Greatly and Powerfully Yours, Trixie."

She tosses the letter into the air, swooshes over it with her cape, and then it's gone.
"There! The postmare Ditzy Doo shall be finding this letter and delivering it post-haste."
"How'd you do that?"

Aw fuck. Trixie looks at me smugly.
"A magician never reveals her secrets, Miss North."

She casts the spell and punches the hole, and lightning cracks the quiet air. There's a portal, wobbly and unstable, and I see the other side. An alleyway, much like one from Manehattan, sits quietly. The sound of.. some kinda machine rumbles in the distance alongside the general din of a city.

I crack my neck a bit, and steady my breath. "Alright. I'm on my way, P'rika. Let's do this."