Act III: Collision of Wills
Chapter 20: Cooldown
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With everyone back in Ponyville under tightened security, there really wasn’t a lot else to be done. By the end of the day, everyone knew what had happened on both ends: Fluttershy’s story and the events up north. Everyone had since more or less returned to their own homes. Though sleeping wasn’t an easy feat for most of them, all of them had managed to fall asleep. Soon, the moon set and the sun rose, making way for a new day.
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He was laying down, flat on his back on the bed. However, despite an overall sleepless night, Corey just couldn’t find it in him to get back to sleep. Even though he hadn’t slept too well the previous couple of nights either. His eyelids still felt very droopy. His eyes stung with the might of insomnia. Most of all, his body felt like he was made of lead. In short, he couldn’t even find the energy to rise from bed.
So Corey just laid back, staring at the ceiling, waiting for something to get his attention, to motivate him to drag his sleep-deprived self out of bed and move on with the fresh new day. Twilight was already up, doing something downstairs. He could hear her moving about, probably trying to set things up for whatever later on. Spike was sleeping in; after what he’d experienced, he wasn’t exactly in much of a sleeping mood the night before.
Corey rolled about under the covers, trying his best to get comfortable. Maybe he could try to squeeze out another couple hours of sleep, if he just tried to get into the right position and shut his eyes...
However, as he rolled onto his left side, he let out a sharp gasp, his right hand quickly going to his left shoulder. Instantly, it felt as though a knife had been driven right back into his wound from his fight and was being twisted.
It still hasn’t healed… he thought, one eye closed from the pain, his hand clamping down slightly on the injury, Why? Every other time I was hurt it went away overnight…
After several moments, the pain started to ebb, Corey’s hand loosening its grip. Only after the pain went away again, Corey finally managed to find some energy, pushing himself up into a sitting position. He now put his right hand on the bed, instead putting his left hand in front of him, as though inspecting it for grime.
Maybe it is because of how severe the injuries I had were, but I doubt that, Corey continued, trying to figure out what was happening to him, After the fight with Lyon…the healing slowed a little, but that cleared up the next night. Twilight told me I was healing myself with magic in my sleep—runic magic, to be correct.
Corey paused for a few long moments, closing his eyes. He didn’t really want to consider it, but right now that was all he could think of. After so long of having a bizarrely convenient healing factor that fixed him up as he slept, it was jarring to have it gone. And it was tied to his runes. He hadn’t even considered trying a spell before and he didn’t exactly have a reason to the past couple days, but the fact his healing runes weren’t going off worried him now.
Does my magic even…work now? The mere thought suddenly sparked something in Corey. Though the pangs of regret were still there, now they were accompanied by panic. If my magic doesn’t work anymore because of what happened up north, there’s no way I’m going to be able to keep fighting! I’m losing sleep over it all night… it’s something that’s going to stay with me. How can I deal with it? It’s going to haunt me forever…
Corey paused, his train of thought slowing to a halt. Something was missing. His inner voice, his conscience, whatever it was… it wasn’t arguing back like it usually did. In fact, it hadn’t been ever since…
Releasing a small, shaky sigh, Corey slowly rose from the bed, determined to divert his attention before he really started to dwell on the issue. His muscles flared up a little in response, and his back became slightly sore, both of which Corey took as signs his sleepless nights were really getting to him. Though it wasn’t as bad as some mornings he’d had, the pinpricks in his back and legs were proof enough things weren’t right.
“I think…I’d better look into that book,” Corey said, “The one we found in the castle. If anything else, it should take my mind off of this…”
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It didn’t take Corey too long to get ready for whatever his day would bring him, even if he wasn’t planning on going anywhere. Now, he was at a very familiar desk in the library, with a sort of familiar book in front of him—the one recovered from the castle out in the Everfree. Twilight had checked on him beforehand and said she’d come join him as soon as she got done with a few other things. Whatever that was, Corey didn’t pry.
I’ll read bad things all day… Corey thought to himself, scratching at his chin lightly as he stared at the book, Yet, when it comes to reading things that are actually important, I always skip right over it. Well, I think I know the first change I’m going to make, starting now.
Corey rested one hand on the book, eyes closing for a moment in pure reflection. There was something else about his reading habits that probably could be corrected. It wasn’t nearly as much of a problem as his incredibly questionable choice of reading material, but he could at least try to really remodel his approach to things…especially since there were no computers or PlayStations in Equestria.
This is the first time I’ve ever really done reading like this for the sake of it, Corey continued, feeling the touch of his hand on the book’s surface, This book could tell me what my magic really is… no, not “could”, it “will” have information on that, but… I don’t even know where to start…
As he completed that train of thought, Corey opened his eyes, and immediately knit his eyebrows in alarm when he saw that where his hand and the book’s surface met had changed. Where nothing was too out of the ordinary before, there was a faint, whitish-green glow underneath it. Runes weren’t radiating from his hand, but rather, the book, but it ended just as quickly as it had started.
Corey withdrew his hand, but before he could think further on what that was all about, the book moved without Corey even touching it at all—its cover sprang open, and its pages began to turn as though guided by a gentle breeze. Corey merely sat in stunned silence. Once the book stopped, Corey looked at the page it had turned to.
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To begin your lessons under me, it might be best to start by defining our connection to magic, shared by all ponies. By using our innate connection with the magic within ourselves and all around us, we can use our runes to greater effectiveness than others. While usually runes would be written on scrolls and unleashed when needed to be cast, we can write our runes using our magic without the wait. Runic magic is something that comes naturally to us, due to our innate connection with the forces around us, as well as the forces within us. Much like writing out the runes manually, writing them out with magic causes them to be unique to you; it is very unlikely that two ponies will write runes the exact same way. Who you are deep down, your skills, your experience with magic, even your environment, can change the shape of the runes. However, they all do the same things when arranged in the same sequence, so this has no effect on the effects of your runic spells.
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Corey momentarily lifted his glasses, rubbing at the bridge of his nose as he processed the paragraph.
“It opened…to the starting point…” Corey whispered, keeping his voice low, “Of runic magic. I just had my hand on it…”
A memory soon washed over him—how the book had been recovered in the first place. It was behind a set of locked doors, doors that Twilight couldn’t open unless she wanted to receive a counterattack of sorts. Yet, by the time it was over, his runes had apparently opened the door for everyone, allowing them to retrieve the book.
Just what’s going on? Corey thought, The book reacted to me, too?
Corey sighed, realizing he was going to distract himself from what he wanted to do. He’d wanted to read the book, and he fully intended to do so. So, he turned his eyes back to the old book’s pages, and began to read, hoping that poring over the material would give him an answer.
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Some spells cast with runic magic require more runes to be written, and the same is true of our magic. The more powerful a spell one casts, the more runes are required, and the longer it will take to be cast. As we aren’t pre-writing our spells, we have to take caution when performing advanced techniques.
However, that does not mean we avoid them outright. Due to our innate connection with magic, we can perform at a much higher rate than those that use normal magic. It comes as second nature to most of us here. While complex spells do take more time, through repeated practice, a pony can overcome the timing issues. In addition, though there are quite a few defined spells in the runic language, most of which we use regularly in and out of combat, new spells are created by members of our society every day.
That being said, we won’t be covering those here. The path to mastering this connection is to start in small steps, and work from there. With that in mind, please check the runic sequences below…
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Corey’s eyes scanned the simple spells listed. He couldn’t really read the runes, and he’d never really paid attention to the runes he was writing. Each of them had a basic description next to them, and while he didn’t think he’d used most of them, one of the spells caught his eye.
“A common spell among normal unicorns allows them to concentrate their magic into a single point at the tip of their horn, allowing them to fire off a laser shot. This spell will allow the caster to mimic this concentration of power; however, the focus point of the runic version can vary. With enough practice, earth and pegasus ponies have learned to focus their magic to different points of the body, namely their palms or wings…”
Squinting, Corey picked the book up, rereading the last description again, “Wait, they did that before I did?”
“Did what before you did?” Twilight asked, walking up behind him.
Corey faltered with the book a bit, but managed to right himself, “The whole…laser spell from hands thing I do.”
“Oh, that,” Twilight said, looking over Corey’s shoulder to see the pages he was on. For a moment, she was silent, but eventually found her voice again, “Hey, how’d you find this part?”
“Huh?” Corey asked, “But…didn’t you…?”
“It was an old book on runic magic,” Twilight said, immediately getting sheepish, “I…I kinda just started flipping through pages and found stuff that way. I wasn’t sure where to start, I was so excited…”
“Well…” Corey said, looking back to the book, rubbing the back of his neck, “I sat down with the book, but wasn’t sure where to look first. When I rested my hand on it, and really thought about it...the book opened by itself, to this section.”
“Y-you’re…kidding, right?” Twilight asked.
“I had the same reaction myself,” Corey said, “The door it was behind reacted to me, too, though.”
“Maybe it’s enchanted,” Twilight said, “So that those that use runic magic can get to where they need to, faster. I-I can’t say I ever thought of something like that…”
Twilight momentarily looked away, and Corey looked back to the book again. As he looked at the pages, a memory returned to him. Some of the very first pages they’d opened to wrote of a student that seemed to want to increase her power. And that frightened the teacher, whoever it was. And yet, the pages he’d just read…
“How’d we not see it before…” Corey murmured, but it was just loud enough to catch Twilight’s attention.
“What?” Twilight asked, “What is it?”
“When we first read it, it seemed more like a diary, or a journal, didn’t it?” Corey asked.
“Yes,” Twilight nodded, “There was the entry about the student who worried her teacher...”
“But then, what I read just now,” Corey continued, “I don’t think this is just a notebook. It certainly can’t be just a record of all runic magic either. It looks like it’s meant to tell you exactly what you’re doing when you go to use runic magic.”
There was a short pause, before the book was unceremoniously yanked into the air by Twilight’s magic. She started flipping through the pages at random.
“You’re right, Corey,” Twilight said, “How did we not see it before!? Looking at all this… this book is a textbook for runic magic! There’s a lot of information here…”
Twilight kept flipping through the pages, heading towards the back.
“What are you looking for?” Corey asked.
“If this book is anything like the other textbooks I’ve seen, there should be an index somewhere of who owned this book, as well as who wrote it,” Twilight explained, flipping through more and more pages. Eventually, she flipped to the right page, putting her finger on the top of the page, “Ah! Found it!”
With that, she walked over next to his seat and put the book back down on the table. Corey’s eyes followed her finger, which had made its way back to the place she was pointing to.
“Written by…” Corey read, “Esper…Wisdom?”
“And if you look down,” Twilight continued, “Those are all the names of the ponies that studied under him… or her.”
Both Corey and Twilight fell into silence as they scanned the columns of the names. Each of the names had an almost mystical quality to them. They seemed attached to concepts regarding the spirit, or ghosts. One of those two. For a while longer, they remained close to one another, until Twilight gasped.
“What is--!” Twilight reeled back a bit in shock.
“Twilight?” Corey asked, alarmed, “What happened?”
“I…I don’t believe it…” Twilight said, “Corey, look…the second column on that page… the very last name. Does that name…sound familiar…?”
Corey followed her instructions, second column on the page they were on, third entry from the bottom. At first, he didn’t immediately see what Twilight’s problem was, but then, a memory washed over him.
Silver Talon’s last word…her boss’s name!? Corey thought, and as soon as that thought completed Corey too let out a gasp.
There, on that page, close to the bottom, a small amount of white space below it, in perfectly clear writing, were two words.
“Para…Norma…” Corey finally read.
Both Corey and Twilight looked to each other at a loss for words. They both looked back to the book, unsure of what to make of the new information. It couldn’t have been a coincidence… could it?