Act Three Chapter Four - Solutions
“Alright, Peridot, hold it steady…” Lumine cautioned as he carefully adjusted the delicately glowing gems and crystals arrayed on the workbench.
“Doing my best,” Peridot grunted as she struggled to maintain the spell. “Stop bumping the array and I might be able too.”
As she spoke, the pincers Lumine was using to slide a tiny sliver of crystal into place touched a silver wire connecting two sapphires and triggered a small crackling arc of magical energy.
“Sorry! Sorry,” Lumine apologized hurriedly as he slid the gemstone home. “Okay… almost got it… and…yes, Yes!”
Boom.
“Or maybe not…” Peridot coughed through the cloud of dust thrown up by the small explosion. “What happened that time?”
“I have absolutely no idea,” Lumine confessed.
Peridot jumped as the door to their lab was flung open, revealing Prince Dutiful through the swirling dust.
“Is everypony alright?” he asked in his trademark deep chested voice.
“Yeah,” cough, “We’re fine. Just a miscalculation,” Lumine explained.
The prince relaxed, “Thank Harmony. I was on my way to invite the two of you to attend a meeting in the atrium with the princess and I, when I heard the blast.” He looked over the thoroughly trashed laboratory, “I would appreciate it if you’d stop attempting to blow up my castle, Lumine.”
“I’ll try…” Lumine wheezed.
“So!” the prince declared heartily. “You will be joining us then?”
“Of course, my lord. May I ask what the meeting is about?”
The prince raised an eyebrow, “Your progress.”
Lumine blanched, “Oh um… well, my lord. There isn’t a lot to tell. We’ve made some progress but, as of yet, we have been unable to produce any verifiable results. You must understand that these things take time and that this is a very delicate matter, for obvious reasons. If you’d consider delaying the meeting for a few more weeks…”
“Impossible.”
“... I’m sure I will have something presentable that can assuage the citizenry’s concerns. Perhaps if you would allow me a bit more time I could…”
“Lumine!” the prince’s voice silenced the unicorn’s nervous prattle. “We simply wish an official statement regarding any progress you’ve made. If you have not been able to make any then that is what the statement will reflect. You have a few minutes to gather what you need to give your presentation. Also,” the prince brushed a blotch of dust and gem fragments from Lumine’s shoulder, “you may wish to make yourself a bit more presentable.”
“Yes,” Lumine gulped, “my lord.”
The prince nodded and left without another word.
“Did you want me to clean up the lab while you’re out?” Peridot asked, already levitating a broom and dustpan in her magic.
“Ooh no,” Lumine shook his head. “You are not getting out of this that easy. If I have to go, you do too.”
“Need somepony to blame for wasting all these resources?” Peridot joked.
“Well,” Lumine mused, “that and all the explosions.” He chuckled, still nervous but feeling better, “Go ahead and get cleaned up. I’ll meet you back here as soon as I’m ready.”
Lumine gathered up a few scrolls of notes from their desks, tucked them into his saddlebags and headed back to his rooms to bathe and pick the bits of shattered crystal from his mane. Peridot looked the lab over before leaving, making sure she wasn’t going to forget anything she might need.
“Oops!” she said to herself. “Well that’s kind of important.”
She picked her way through the debris to a large angular device constructed of silver and softly glowing blue gemstone. She tapped the hidden mechanism on the back and it slid open revealing the Crystal Heart floating within. Carefully, she slipped the Heart into it’s silk lined protective bag and placed it in the open safe in the back. She closed the door and inserted her horn into the hole in the center of the door and concentrated, infusing the arcane lock with the sky blue glow of her magic. Normally Lumine would be the one securing the heart but he had been so hurried he’d forgotten.
Peridot smiled as she considered making Lumine do a little pleading before she’d open the magic keyed safe for him.
Finished, she sped through the halls of the palace to her roomed to clean up. A few minutes, a once over with a curry comb to remove a few stubborn shards of gem from her coat, and a quick mane styling later she was ready to go. Despite the short notice, Peridot always tried to look her best when doing anything official. Although, due to his Crystal Pony heritage, Lumine always seemed to be the better looking of the two. A fact that didn’t bother Peridot, though she did take advantage of it by teasing Lumine about being the ‘pretty one’.
“Heart, Harmony, and Horse Shoes!” Lumine declared when she saw Peridot approaching. “Where on earth have you been? I’ve been waiting here for, uh, several minutes.” He poked her with a hoof, “Several. Minutes. What the hay have you been doing?”
“Oh you know,” she answered lackadaisically, “Taking a bath, brushing my mane, putting the Crystal Heart, aka possibly the most powerful magical artifact in existence, away so it isn’t lost damaged or destroyed…”
He grimaced, “I forgot?”
“Ya, you forgot.”
“Please don’t tell,” he said, pleadingly, at Peridot, who answered with a sidelong glance. “I’ll.. um.. buy you dinner?”
She tapped her chin considering it before poking him in the shoulder, “With extra dessert?”
He nodded, “Deal.”
“Alright then, you’ve bought my silence,” she smiled at her friend. “Let’s get going. I’d hate to keep anypony else waiting for ‘several’ ‘minutes’.”
They traced their way through the winding palace corridors to the atrium, discussing what they were going to say and going over the scrolls of notes that floated about the two like butterflies, glowing blue and purple with their magic.
“Ahem,” somepony coughed, insistently.
Peridot and Lumine looked up to find themselves standing in the middle of the atrium. The Princess Benevolentia, Prince Dutiful, and an assortment of important looking ponies were arranged along one side of a long table facing a much smaller desk with two chairs.
“Oh sorry!” Lumine yelped in surprise as the notes he was levitating rained down. “We were so engrossed in the discussion of our… accomplishments… that I failed to notice that we had arrived. And we have accomplished quite a bit, in fact, lately, depending on definitions. Though I suppose that's why we’re here, to keep everypony abreast of what we’ve been able to discern about the heart and what we’ve...well...” he slumped a little, “How long have we been standing here?”
“Several minutes, young stallion. Several. Minutes,” answered a elegantly dressed mare, her nose ever so slightly lifted.
Limine frowned as Peridot stifled a laugh.
“Please,” the Princess said, breaking the ice. “Have a seat so we can begin.”
Lumine and Peridot did so.
“I appreciate you coming on such immediate notice,” the Princess began. “I’m aware that there was some sort of accident in the lab today. I trust you were both unharmed.”
“A small blow to my pride, my Princess, but no other wounds,” Lumine answered formally. “I was over sure of my ability to guide the reaction and the results were more energetic than I’d hoped. I apologize and will take more care in the future.”
“I should hope so,” interjected a plump looking cream colored stallion. “Your experiments have been known to shatter windows for a mile around. I daresay what such an event might do were it to happen within the palace.”
Peridot answered, “As my colleague said, we will take even greater care to ensure the prevention of future accidents. If you’d like you can attend the large scale agricultural experiment being conducted tomorrow, if you prefer to oversee things yourself.”
The stallion didn’t seem pleased with the prospect of being near a ‘large scale’ anything involving Lumine’s experiments.
An orange mare seated beside Prince Dutiful spoke, “Perhaps we should allow them to tell us what they’ve learnt of the Heart. Do you agree, my lord and lady?”
The Prince nodded, “Please Lumine. Go on.”
Lumine nodded and cleared his throat, “Very well. Before I begin I would like to clarify something, if I may. If I was to visit a carpenter friend of mine and ask him how many chairs he had made today and he were to answer, ‘none, but I have found a great many ways NOT to make chairs’ I would have to conclude that my friend is, in fact, a terrible carpenter. However, when it comes to research, things are quite different. If you ask me what I have been able to accomplish in the past few months of experimentation since my assistant arrived, I would have to answer that I have discovered a great many things that the Heart does NOT do and found a great many methods of channeling the Heart’s energies that do NOT work, and because I know that each and every pony sitting here today is, in fact, a well educated, well versed, and intelligent pony who can easily understand the minutia of research methodology, I know that you will realize that that is not a trivial accomplishment and constitutes a greater increase in knowledge about the Heart then we’ve gained since it was gifted to us two generations ago.”
The ponies flanking the Prince and Princess looked at one another, one rolled her eyes.
“So what you are saying, Mister Lumine,” said the mare who spoke before, “is that you would have been a very poor carpenter?”
“Well… no, Ma’am,” he answered, confused. “Although, yes I suppose I would not have been, had I chosen carpentry as my profession. Although I’m sure I could have developed a spell that would allow me to mold wood directly.” He stopped to think, “Hmm… an interesting idea actually, I suppose I could modify a spell meant to...”
“Mister Lumine?”
“Yes?” he answered, blinking innocently.
“You were saying?”
“Ah yes…” Lumine was practically sweating bullets as he spoke. “The truth is, that I have failed to find anything of more than academic interest. It seems my greatest accomplishment thus far has been to invalidate nearly every current theory regarding the Heart’s operation. And while falsification IS an important part of logical inquiry, I’m afraid it’s a bit of a hollow achievement when it’s all you’ve been able to do.”
“Well I don’t know if I’d put it so bleakly, Lumine,” the Princess comforted. “If nothing else, you’ve demonstrated that the Heart has untapped potential in the field of demolition.”
“Princess, I don’t think,” he started before Peridot elbowed him.
“It was a joke. She’s trying to cheer you up,” she whispered.
“Are you sure?” he whispered back. “Oh, I see.”
“What is it exactly that you’ve been trying to do?” asked a lime green mare seated at the end of the table.
“In effect, I’ve been trying to understand how the Heart is able to tap into the primordial energy of Harmony. An effort, I must add, to which Peridot’s skill and magic has been an invaluable resource,” he answered.
“To what effect?”
“Well.. as I said, the heart’s magic has the effect of tapping into the primordial energy of Harmony,” Lumine explained. “Peridot’s natural healing magic has a very similar ability and being able to compare the two has led to some very interested insights.”
“I believe that Miss Lemon Grass is asking what the goal of that line of experimentation is,” the Prince clarified.
“Oh! Of course. My apologies. As you know, our fair Empire is prospering. Ponies are able to afford and support large families and lifestyles that our antecedents could have only dreamed of. The problem is that our growth is unsustainable. We simply aren’t going to be able to grow enough food for every pony within the area of the Heart’s magical effect. Also, we can’t grow crops beyond this effect because of the ever present cold and poor soil and transportation from Equestria is simply too slow to import what we will soon need and so our only option is expansion to new settlements.”
“But what’s the point if the settlements would be outside of the Heart’s magic?” asked the cream colored stallion.
“That is what I’ve been trying to do. I’ve been hoping to create receptacles for the Hearts power. Artificial vessels that could be returned to the capital for refilling every so often and then returned to their respective towns to shine down the light and blessings of the Heart’s magic on the settlers’ lands.”
“But, every time you try to ‘fill’ one of these vessels,” Princess Benevolentia ventured, “it explodes.”
Lumine sighed, “Unfortunately yes. The math works, the magical formula irrefutably argue that such a vessel, filled with the Heart’s magic, would act exactly as I’ve described, but the problem has always been the rate of energy flow. There doesn’t seem to be anything between the steady trickle of power the heart always gives off and sudden release. Even with Peridot’s magic stabilizing the reaction… well, I still blow up my lab.”
“What if she weren’t stabilizing the reaction?” Price Dutiful asked, worriedly.
“Well… then I shatter windows for miles around.”
The ponies at the table shared concerned glances.
“What is this agricultural experiment you mentioned earlier, Peridot?” asked the princess.
“Oh it’s nothing, really,” Peridot said. “It actually has nothing to do with our goal of helping the Empire expand. Sort of a side project.”
“Please, explain. I want to know everything you two have been up to,” Benevolentia insisted.
“Well,” Peridot began. “Whenever I have a bit of spare lab time I like to work on why things in the Crystal Empire are so much more, well, crystally. Lately I’ve been developing a theory that seems to explain a lot of the differences between the Empire and the rest of the world.”
“Could you tell us a bit more?”
“Oh ya, of course,” Peridot chirped, happy to share. “Okay, from the beginning:
“There are two primordial sources of magical energy: Harmony, which gives the Heart it’s power, and Chaos, which is what gave Discord his power…”
“Excuse me, Discord?” asked an elderly mare beside the princess.
“Oh yeah sorry, Discord was an ancient evil creature that ruled Equestria when we first got there. He basically tormented the native ponies until he got bored and went to sleep before eventually waking and doing it all again. It had probably been going on forever before Princess Celestia and Princess Luna defeated him.”
The old mare nodded in understanding.
Peridot continued, “Anyway, we ponies typically side with Harmony. It keeps the sun and moon in their tracks, makes sure the rain falls down instead of up, and stops the trees from pulling their roots out of the ground and walking away. Pretty much keeps things normal. The thing about Harmony though is that a little goes a LONG way. In it’s most extreme form we might call it Stasis, which is, in a way, worse than pure Chaos. Imagine the whole world locked into a frozen, unchanging state of perfect order. At least in a world of pure chaos there is at least a chance that it will rain chocolate pudding. Anyway, because the energy of the Heart is shining through crystal lattice of it’s physical structure it’s energy is shifted just a little further toward stasis.”
“Aren’t there three sources of power then? Stasis, Chaos, and Harmony?” somepony asked.
“I suppose so, but then again you can’t really use the primordial power of ‘Nothing will ever change again’ to cast a spell,” Peridot answered. “Anyways, I think this is why when you try to do something like cast bricks or pour concrete it tends to set in an angular, crystalline, manner. It’s been infused with a touch of Statis through the radiance of the Heart.
“What I was hoping to do, was to take the Heart out to the fields at the outskirts of the city, where things are only barely crystally at all, and, using the methods Lumine has developed, tap into the heart and expose a large area of plants to it’s energy. If I am right then the plants’ degree of, um, crystal-fication should vary based on how far they are from the center of the city.”
“Won’t that just prove that the heart imparts a crystalline appearance to life under it’s effect? We already knew that.”
“Well, yes and no. Stasis should leave a magical signature in the freshly exposed plants. By comparing the effect on plants far from the city center and those close to it I should be able to determine the exact Harmony to Stasis ratio, well, Stasis to chaos ratio really, I might be able to duplicate some of the Heart’s effects. Even the experiments I’ve been able to do in the lab have produced a few interesting results, including one that lets you place something in a sort of suspended animation, might be useful if the Empire is going to have to transport food between settlements and the city. ”
“Are you sure you’re special talent is in healing, Peridot?” the Princess asked playfully.
“Pretty sure, Princess,” she answered, glancing back at the flowery Rod of Asclepius emblazoned on her flank. “Though maybe the star at the top gives me a bit of leeway,” she joked.
The cream colored stallion spoke up again, “If you don’t mind me asking, how do we know this won’t just blow up the whole field?”
“Oh that’s easy,” Peridot waved a hoof dismissively. “I’m not going to be tapping into the heart like we do for Lumine’s experiment, this is just a low level exposure. All we have to do is set up an array to concentrate the energy of the Heart a bit and let it do its thing like it always does.”
“I don’t think you’ve mentioned this array before…” the Prince said.
“I can answer that one,” Lumine said, standing up. “Peridot and I developed a kind of magically infused material that has an affinity for the energy of the Heart. We cast the tapping spell through it when we attempt to fill a vessel. Without that conduit, tapping into the Heart directly could make a pretty nasty bang.”
“Lumine?” the Prince said, raising an eyebrow. “It still makes a pretty nasty bang.”
“Well… I suppose that has proven to be unfortunately true,” he admitted. “Still, the array has proven to be an invaluable tool for directing the Heart’s energy. It may be our only real success so far. Unless Peridot’s experiment tomorrow bear’s fruit of course, which I’m sure it will… given the relatively minute risk of explosion.”
“Now I am, admittedly, not a student of magical theory,” Prince Dutiful said with a quizzical look on his face. “I only know what I need to know as a ruler in regard to the applications of magic. That said, if this material is a natural conveyer of the Heart’s energy then why can we not simply lay lines of it from the Heart here to the settlements where the energy is needed?”
Lumine opened his mouth to answer… and left it hang open for a moment as his eyes widened in realization.
“My Lord... that’s brilliant!!!” he sprang to his hooves. “By the stars we’ve had the answer right in front of us this whole time! Haha! Why did I never consider that?” He grabbed a surprised Peridot’s face in his hooves and planted an enthusiastic kiss on each cheek, “Ha! Yes! That’s it. We can do this! Come on! We’ve so much to do!”
He clambered out from behind the desk and trotted out the door, talking to himself, “Let me see we’ll need to modify the vessel’s spell matrix to allow the energy to escape as it is absorbed, probably have to start calling it something else, maybe foci or something… calculate energy loss per given distance… compensate for telluric drift… realign the absorption grid…”
“Sorry! Sorry,” he muttered when he returned a moment later, embarrassed. “Almost forgot, we’re having a meeting. Having. A. Meeting.” He returned to his seat. “Sorry.”
Everypony just stared as the stallion continued to fidget and mumble to himself.
“Oh, forget it!” the princess declared, “Go get back to work, Loony. You can fill us in tomorrow.”
“Carry the seven… divide by the Clover constant...” Lumine’s head jerked up. “Wait what? Oh, wonder! I’ll get straight on it then. We should have a prototype up and running in a matter of weeks!”
“Let’s be off, my faithful assistant!” he called out as he dashed out the door leaving behind Peridot who still sat in her chair, confused.
“Hey!” she yelled, rubbing her cheek. “You get back here!”