Chapter 33 (Calculations)
Chapter 33
“Hmmm,” hummed Twilight quietly to herself as she sat in her lab in the basement of her treebrary and stared at her notes. Strange things had been happening around Ponyville over the past week. The first occurrence, some rain clouds that had been meant for Sweet Apple Acres had disappeared without a trace or reason. Thankfully, Rainbow had been able to get an emergency order of fresh rain clouds sent in from Cloudsdale, but that had meant she had been forced to burn a couple of favors, as well as fill out extra paperwork in regards to the incident. This had made Rainbow cranky as a consequence, and a cranky Rainbow Dash was not something anypony wanted.
However, what was even stranger was that Fluttershy was reporting that her animal friends would randomly become agitated, and only for a minute or two at most, before then returning to normal. She couldn’t figure out what was wrong, and either the animals couldn’t tell her what was bothering them or wouldn’t.
Now, however, Twilight had an interesting conundrum and some concrete proof that something was amiss. Last night as she had been curled up in her usual reading spot with a cup of calming peppermint tea a plate of chocolate chip cookies and the latest Daring Do book, she had been interrupted by an insistent banging on her front door, even though she knew that she had switched the library’s open sign to closed for the evening.
Grumbling to herself, she had risen from her comfy spot and answered the door, intent on giving a stern lecture to the pony foolish enough to ignore her closed sign. However, the stern words died on her lips when she spotted a concerned-looking Cheerilee on her front step. Sensing that this wasn’t a social call, she had invited the mulberry-colored mare inside and after moving her cookies and tea to the kitchen, she poured another cup of tea and offered it to the spooked mare.
Cheerilee had thanked her, taken a deep gulp, nearly draining the cup in the process, before then explaining the reason for her early evening visit. At first, Twilight was rather annoyed to learn that Cheerilee had asked Allen to talk about his homeworld and not inform her of this chance to collect invaluable data. However, her annoyance was quickly overshadowed by curiosity when Cheerilee told her about the strange radio static and the mysterious sunflower appearing behind the schoolhouse. Her curiosity was further piqued when Cheerilee told her about the perfect circle of reddish dirt surrounding the flower and how it didn’t match the local soil.
Quickly coming to a decision, Twilight gathered her field research sample kit and with Cheerilee hot on her hooves, took off for the schoolhouse. When the two mares arrived, the sun was just about to the horizon, and Twilight knew that she didn’t have much time before it got too dark to work. So trotting around to the back of the building, she quickly pulled out her camera and took as many pictures as the fading light of day would allow her. When she was happy enough, she put her camera away before immediately collecting samples of anything and everything.
She didn’t want to take the whole plant back with her as she wanted to observe it over the coming days and weeks and see if there would be any changes in its growth or physical state. As she was collecting soil samples, she noticed that the reddish soil seemed to go down far deeper than her soil sampler could reach, which suggested to her that the change to the soil extended farther down into the earth than she first thought.
However, with the moon beginning its slow ascent into the night sky and the light having long since faded, Twilight decided that she had collected enough samples from the surrounding area for now. Tucking the last sample jar away, she had given Cheerilee a reassuring smile and said, “Well, I’ll take this back home and get to work on it right away, if I find anything concerning, I’ll be sure to let you know as soon as possible.”
Shifting nervously back and forth, Cheerilee had asked, “Should I postpone school until you’re sure it's safe?”
Twilight chewed thoughtfully on the inside of her cheek for a minute before slowly nodding. “I think that might be a good idea. I’ll let Lieutenant Palisade know that something odd has appeared here at the schoolhouse and that he should leave some guards here to keep ponies away from the site, so as to avoid possible contamination or destruction of valuable evidence. It shouldn’t take me more than a day or two to get back with you.”
Giving Twilight a relieved smile, Cheerilee thanked Twilight for her help and had quickly bid farewell for the evening, leaving Twilight to finish up and head home by the light of her horn, after making a quick stop by the temporary guard headquarters at town hall to inform them of her and Cheerilee’s discovery. Palisade had quickly sent a full squad to secure the area around the schoolhouse.
Upon returning home, she had immediately sequestered herself in her basement laboratory and set to work. Spike, as usual, had made sure she ate and used the bathroom at regular intervals. By the next morning she had made several interesting, yet troubling discoveries. The first was that the soil was definitely not from the local area, as it contained large amounts of iron oxides and silicates, which gave it its reddish color and had a higher clay content than the other soil samples she had taken from other locations around the schoolhouse.
Secondly, she had determined that the sunflower was much older than it should be, being around sixty-five to seventy days judging by the size of its flower and leaves along with the height of its stalk. This was impossible given that even with Winter Wrap Up having been completed in mid-March, it had still been too cold to plant sunflowers outside for another three to four weeks, and seeing as it was now only mid-May, that hadn’t been enough time for it to reach this stage of growth. While it was possible for somepony to have started it in a greenhouse and then transplanted it. That still didn’t account for the red soil around the base of the plant, nor the lack of freshly disturbed dirt that would be present following a transplant like this.
So many questions, and not enough answers. She thought to herself as she continued to look over her notes. Is this some sort of elaborate prank? If it is, it’s extremely well done, but something tells me that isn’t the case. The root samples I took don’t indicate that they had been disturbed before I came along, and while I am no earth pony, I can safely assume that this dirt isn’t from around here either.
She idly tapped a hoof against her desk as her mind mulled things over. I need more information. Grabbing her saddlebags and her restocked sample kit, Twilight hurried out of the library and set a course for the schoolhouse once again. Now that the sun was up, she was determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. Quickly trotting through town, she soon arrived at the schoolhouse, which other than several roving guards hadn’t changed since last night.
After checking in with the guards, she made her way around back and quickly set to work taking additional pictures, now that the light was better, as well as additional samples. Unfolding a much longer soil sampler, Twilight gently drove it deep into the soil in an attempt to see just how far down it went. Turns out it went pretty deep as her ten hoof long soil sampler hadn’t found anything but the same reddish soil she had found near the surface.
Just how deep does this go, and what caused it? Did Discord do this directly, or is it just an after-effect of his spell? Pondered Twilight as she stared at the cheerful sunflower. So far it doesn’t appear that this flower has been negatively impacted by its sudden arrival here, and if what Cheerilee told me was right, then it’s probably been here for at least twenty-four hours by now. Leaning in close, she carefully inspected one of the leaves and noted that there were no signs of wilting.
Stepping back from the flower, she thoughtfully chewed her bottom lip as she tried to figure out what her next move was. I can’t think of anything else to do here. I’ve taken all the samples that I can without causing harm to the plant, and Cheerilee told me everything she knew about it last night, though she did say that Allen found it first... maybe he saw something that Cheerilee didn’t? Shaking her head in annoyed frustration, Twilight made her decision. I can’t do anything else here, and whatever magic brought it here has long since dissipated to the point where I can’t get an accurate reading of it with the equipment I have at my disposal, so the only thing left to do is go and talk to Allen and see what he knows. Her mind made up, she quickly gathered her things together and headed for Allen’s farm.
~oOo~
Allen sat at his dining room table and looked over the three proposed plans before him, along with their accompanying price tags. The final prices were actually lower than what Rune and Steel had originally quoted him. The basic tear-down and rebuild with the minimum runework needed to pass DOTI inspection, for instance, came in at around forty-five thousand bits. While the second quote, which included some extra floor space added to the milking parlor and a few extra spell wards, came in at fifty-three thousand, and the most expensive option where they threw all the bells and whistles in came in at sixty-five thousand.
Setting the last quote down, Allen looked up at Rune and Steel, who sat across from him and slowly nodded. “Well, I must admit this is a pleasant surprise,” he said, before turning to Penny who sat next to him, he asked, “What do you think Penny?”
She hummed thoughtfully to herself as she idly tapped her chin with a pencil as she studied the papers in front of her. After a minute of quiet contemplation and a few number crunches, Penny nodded, a satisfied look on her face. “It’s better than I was expecting, and everything seems to check out. Though I want to run some of this by an associate of mine to see if we can find some better deals on good quality material, if not, then oh well. In any case, none of these options will cause issues financially for you Allen, so it’s really just up to you what you want to do.”
“Do you have any suggestions?” he gently asked, he was already leaning towards either the second or third plan, as since the costs were less than expected, he didn’t feel he needed to go with the bare minimum.
Pulling the third set of plans closer to her, Penny said, “I think going with the third set of plans would work best in the long term, especially if you want to expand your operations in the future. This will give us that flexibility to do so,” she said with a single tap of her hoof on the papers. “If we went with this option, we could easily tap into the local milk market and make deals with a decent sized herd, plus you could store even more hay than before and it would stay good for longer with less chance of spoilage.”
Allen nodded, and pulling a sheet of paper out of the stack, he looked over the runes that Rune Chisel had suggested he use. Beyond the basic runes that would keep birds and bugs out of the hay while it was in storage, there were runes that helped keep the dust and dirt down, as well as runes that would dispel moisture, thus helping dry the hay further once it was baled and undercover. Pointing at that rune, Allen asked, “How effective is this rune at drying hay that’s been baled in comparison to hay that is stacked loose?”
It was a fair question as, while Equestria was an industrializing nation, they were still lacking in certain forms of mechanization, especially on the farm. Hay baling machines were around, but they tended to be very big, very heavy, and could only make large square bales that were used to ship hay long distances, such as over the ocean. Thus, they were usually employed as stationary equipment that were powered by a steam engine run off a belt drive. Loose hay would be fed into a large four-sided chamber and a hydraulic press would smash it down into a large flake of hay, like a pancake. This process would be repeated several times until the bale chamber was full. After which, several strands of heavy wire would be wrapped around the bale to help keep it in its shape. Unlike the small square bales that Allen’s baler would make, these bales weighed nearly a ton each and required heavy equipment to move around.
As such, most Equestrian farms would store their hay in loose form inside barns and bins until it was time to sell it. This naturally wasn’t as efficient as baling the hay in the field would be volume-wise, but most farms couldn’t afford a giant piece of machinery that would make a bale that was so large it would require yet more equipment to move it in the first place. So they made do with the loose stuff and let somepony else worry about squishing it down to move it more economically.
In Allen’s case, however, because his equipment could produce hay bales that were more manageable for a single person to move from a weight perspective, such as his small square baler or could be picked up with one of his tractors with a bale spike attachment as was the case with his round baler. Either way, Allen’s operation was much more efficient in regard to volume and space requirements. However, tightly packed hay doesn’t dry down as well as loose hay does as air has a harder time moving through it. What this meant was that if Allen was forced to bale up hay with a higher moisture content than normal, then he risked his hay either molding or in a worst-case scenario catching on fire. So if this moisture dispelling rune worked well with baled hay, then it would help keep things like that from happening.
“Well,” began Rune Chisel, “it doesn’t do as good of a job of pulling the moisture out of the middle of the haystack if it’s baled in comparison to when it’s loose, but it’ll still pull a decent amount out of it if it’s not sopping wet of course. I’ve put plenty of these runes in many buildings that have stored hay, both baled and loose, and I’ve never had somepony say that they felt as though it was a waste of money to have it in there.”
“Alright,” nodded Allen as he continued to look down the list, noting a rune dedicated to putting out fires. Pointing at it, he asked, “Can this be retrofitted to my other buildings as well?”
Rune pulled the paper from Allen’s hand and glanced at the rune in question. Nodding his head, he replied, “Yeah, unlike the anti-pest runes, this one can be inscribed in a simple metal plate with a few powered gemstones and hung from either the wall or ceiling.”
“How much would it cost to install these in all my buildings, including my house?” asked Allen.
“It’ll add about another two thousand bits on top of the current price,” replied Rune simply.
“Then let's do that as well, in addition to going with the third building option package,” said Allen. Nodding, Rune grabbed another sheet of paper and quickly made out a new itemized list for the additional work before floating it over for Allen to look over.
Seeing nothing wrong with it, Allen passed it to Penny who tucked it in with the rest of the papers. Turning back to the two stallions, Allen asked, “How soon do you think you guys can start?”
“I can start as soon as next week,” replied Steel confidently, “we should be finished with our current job by then.”
Rune nodded and added, “And I’ll be able to start as soon as they have the old buildings torn down and the new foundations poured.”
“Penny?” asked Allen to see what her thoughts were.
“That is acceptable to us as it will give me time to finalize everything and see if we can’t save some bits on materials if possible. As such, if you’re comfortable with this, I do not see any reason why we can’t sign the contract and get this thing rolling, Allen.”
Allen gave a nod of agreement and, smiling, he stood up and extended his hand to shake the two stallions' hooves across the table from him. “Then we have a deal, the full package, plus the added fire protection runes on all of my buildings. I’ll start getting the barns cleaned and the animals moved out so that you guys can start as soon as possible next week.”
“Sounds good to us, we’ll be sure to give you a couple of days' notice so that you know when to expect us,” replied Steel as he shook Allen’s hand in return.
“Likewise,” said Rune as he too shook Allen’s hand before he and Steel gathered their things together and made to leave.
Reaching the front door, Allen was about to open it when a sharp series of knocks rang out, catching him by surprise. Opening the door, he was greeted by the sight of a slightly winded and heavily encumbered Twilight Sparkle.
“Hey Twilight,” he greeted, “what brings you out my way?”
Panting slightly from her long hike, and making a mental note to allow additional time in her daily schedule for physical exercise, Twilight looked up at Allen with a small smile and said, “Hello Allen, I was hoping I could have a little bit of your time today to answer some questions.”
“Uh,” replied Allen, an unsure expression on his face as he looked back over his shoulder at the other three ponies standing behind him. Turning back to Twilight he said, “I’m a little busy at the moment, do you think you could come back another time?”
Twilight’s smile faded and she shook her head. “I’m afraid this is time-sensitive Allen, it’s about that sunflower that you found at the schoolhouse yesterday, I wanted to ask you some questions about it.”
Sighing, Allen wearily nodded and stepped aside to allow Steel and Rune to leave. Bidding the two stallions goodbye, Allen quickly ushered Twilight inside and helped her remove her overstuffed saddlebags. Setting them on the floor by the table, Allen motioned for the studious mare to have a seat in the chair that Rune had recently vacated, and grabbing a clean glass, he filled it with some water and offered it to her.
Accepting the glass with a quiet ‘thanks’, she drained half of it in two gulps and letting loose a sigh of happiness, set it down on the table. Pulling a notebook and pencil from her bags, she flipped to an empty page and said, “Thanks for agreeing to this Allen, I’ll try and keep this quick, as I need to get these samples back to my lab before they deteriorate further,” she motioned to her saddlebags.
“Sure, no problem,” replied Allen as he took a seat across from her. Penny, curious as to what was going on, had decided to resume her seat next to Allen. Shifting slightly in his seat, Allen asked, “So what did you want to know?”
Jotting a couple of notes in her book, Twilight replied, “When did you first notice the sunflower?”
Leaning back in his chair, he idly scratched his chin as he thought back to yesterday afternoon. “Right after Cheerilee dismissed the class for the afternoon. I’d gone around back to collect my handcart to put my things in it when I noticed the sunflower between the back windows.”
“Did you see it when you arrived earlier that day?” she asked.
Allen shook his head. “No, though I got to the schoolhouse pretty early in the morning to set things up for the presentation, even though the sun was just a bit above the horizon, it was still light enough that I’m pretty sure I would have seen it had it been there. So as far as I can remember, it wasn’t there when I arrived that morning.”
Twilight hummed thoughtfully to herself as she added a few more notes. “Did anything out of the ordinary happen while you were there?”
“Like what?” he asked.
Twilight made a circling motion with her hoof and said, “Such as a bright light, a lack of light, strange smells or noises, that sort of thing.”
Leaning back in his chair again, Allen quietly rubbed his chin as he tried to recall anything strange happening. But other than the weird static on the radio, nothing came to mind. Shaking his head, he said, “The only thing that stands out is when my radio picked up a burst of static that sounded like the souls of the damned and grating metal on metal,” he shivered at the memory.
Twilight made another note and nodded. “That lines up with what Cheerilee told me too. When did that burst of static happen?”
Allen shook his head in annoyance as he tried to remember. “I don’t remember what time it was when it happened. Though, I do remember it happened after we heard a broadcast from Canterlot covering a race of what I assume were pegasi.”
Humming to herself, Twilight asked, “Was it the race between Spitfire, Soarin, Fleetfoot, Gale Force, and Surprise, from the Canterlot Royal Raceway?”
Allen nodded. “Yeah, I think Fleetfoot won that race.”
“That would have been between noon and one o’clock then,” she mumbled to herself as she made some mental calculations and jotted down some more notes. “And you’re sure that you didn’t see or experience anything else out of the ordinary yesterday?”
Once more, Allen shook his head. “Not that I can think of, why, what’s going on?”
Putting the finishing touches on her final thought, Twilight closed her notebook and slipped it back in her saddlebags. Focusing her full attention on Allen for the first time since she had sat down, she replied a serious look on her face, “There have been a couple of strange occurrences over the past few days. A batch of rain clouds meant for Sweet Apple Acres went missing, and nopony knows what happened to them. Rainbow thinks they were a defective batch from the weather factory, but Cloudsdale says otherwise. Regardless, new ones had to be ordered, and Rainbow isn’t happy about having to do that.”
“Okay, so some clouds went missing, maybe somepony stole them or a wind blew them into the Everfree?”
“Both are possible, but unlikely, stealing clouds carries harsh penalties if you’re caught, and pegasi are able to track the clouds to a certain degree with their innate magic. As the clouds from the weather factory have a special magical signature that differentiates them from wild clouds. Rainbow reported that there was no trail of magic that matched the missing clouds anywhere. So that rules out a random breeze blowing them away, as Rainbow could have just followed the magic trail and brought them back, and while it is possible that somepony could have stolen them. The needed magics and gear to hide the magic trail the clouds would have made is expensive and not worth it for the small quantity that went missing. Then there are the local animals acting strangely.”
“In what way?” asked Allen curiously, “I haven’t noticed anything odd with mine lately.”
Twilight shook her head. “Perhaps you haven’t been around when they act out or they aren’t able to show their unease as obviously as Equestrian animals. My friend Fluttershy has told me her animal friends will randomly become agitated and afraid for a short time, as if a major disaster is about to happen or a large predator is nearby, before then returning to normal as if nothing had happened. It’s only happened a few times so far, but she’s worried something is going on.”
“Odd,” muttered Allen quietly.
Twilight nodded in agreement. “And now we have the seemingly random appearance of a nearly fully grown sunflower along with a perfect circle of soil surrounding it that is not native to the area.”
“So what do you think is going on?”
Twilight shook her head. “I can’t really say, not without more data,” looking around at Allen’s dining room, she grimaced, “but from what data I’ve collected, I have two hypotheses,” she stood up and began pacing back and forth as her lecture mode was engaged. “The first is that this is simply the after-effects of whatever spell Discord used to bring you and your farm here to Equestria from your world.”
“After effects?” asked Allen.
“Yes,” nodded Twilight, “chaos magic is highly unstable by nature, its use can cause... instability in the fabric of reality if used in great quantities, which is why Discord is so dangerous. He can bend reality to his whims, which of themselves are random and chaotic and change like a leaf in a windstorm. The fact that he was free for nearly twenty-four hours before we managed to defeat him allowed him to unleash a large amount of chaos magic in the local area. Even though the Elements of Harmony banished most of the magic when they resealed him, the proximity of The Everfree Forest could have prevented the Elements from purging all traces of chaos magic from the area.”
“But wouldn’t that magic just go away after a while?” interjected Penny from her spot at the table.
Twilight shook her head. “In theory, yes, but the problem with chaos magic is just that, chaotic, if you don’t remove it all in one go it will stick around and mutate, potentially creating mutated creatures such as chimeras or change the local ecology such as what happened to the Everfree. What’s worse is that if there is enough chaos magic in an area it can create a positive feedback loop where the chaos magic creates chaotic events that create energy that feed the magic which allow it to create bigger events that release even more energy and so on.”
“Like a nuclear reaction,” commented Allen quietly to himself.
“A what reaction?” asked Twilight, a very curious look on her face at the prospect of learning something new.
Realizing he had voiced his thoughts out loud, and not wanting to be the one responsible for opening up the pandora’s box of nuclear goodness in this world, Allen quickly said, “Nothing important, just thinking out loud.”
Shooting him a suspicious look, Twilight slowly lowered her quill and paper that she had suddenly magicked into being at the thought of gaining new knowledge. Giving her head a shake, she reorganized her thoughts before resuming her lecture. “Yes, well as I was saying, that is one possibility. The problem with chaos magic is that, unlike harmonic or dark magic, it doesn’t follow any known set of rules, which makes it hard to figure out how to counter it if one were to find it in the wild. Of course, it is also possible that the chaos magic won’t have enough energy left to create a chain reaction and it will eventually break down into harmless mana that will eventually be absorbed by the environment, and what we are seeing are just aftershocks. However, that’s not what worries me the most.”
“It’s not?”
She shook her head. “No, what worries me more is that Discord’s fail-safe spell still is active. If it is, then what is its ultimate purpose? Is it just going to continue pulling things from other worlds, gaining strength as it goes until it completely destroys this world in a burst of chaos, or is its purpose to create enough chaos so that Discord can free himself from his prison like he did last time?”
“What do you mean ‘destroy the world in a burst of chaos?’” asked Penny nervously.
“Well, as we have seen, with both Allen’s farm and the now this sunflower. This spell can exchange parts of Equestria with other worlds, right now I’m not sure if the swap goes all the way to the center of the planet or if it has a maximum depth. If it’s the first option, then having parts of our planet’s core mixed with core fragments from different worlds could cause problems in the world’s magic field. On the other hoof, if the swap is regulated to just the upper crust of the planet, it’s not as bad as the first scenario, but could still cause major problems. Imagine having an active supervolcano replace Mt. Canterhorn just as it’s erupting or a mile-high glacier appearing in place of the badlands and what that would do to weather patterns, not to mention potential flooding. That’s not even considering what would happen if some disease that we have no immunity against were to suddenly appear without warning. The point is, that we have been very lucky that whatever Discord did hasn’t pulled something here that could bring about an end of the world type of scenario.”
“So... is there like a plan to prevent something like that from happening?” asked Allen hopefully, though in the back of his mind, he didn’t think that very likely.
“I... don’t really know,” admitted Twilight, a worried look on her face, “I’ve written at length to Princess Celestia about this topic, and other than a short reply telling me she has ponies looking into the matter, she hasn’t said anything else on the matter other than for me to keep her informed of any new developments.”
Allen massaged his face with his hands, a frustrated groan spilling from his mouth. “I need a drink,” he mumbled through his hands, before then dropping them to the table carelessly with a meaty smack as his hands impacted the table's surface.
Levering himself up from the table, he walked over to his fridge and pulled out a couple of beers. Popping the top of one of the bottles, he took a long swig, draining nearly half the bottle in one go. Pulling the bottle from his lips, he let loose a content sigh before promptly resuming his seat at the table.
Turning his attention to Twilight, he gave her a serious look and asked, “Alright, let’s assume we’re dealing with the first case. That this is just leftover chaos magic causing shenanigans, what is the likelihood that this will just burn itself out?”
Twilight quickly poofed several rolls of paper into existence and a chalkboard for good measure in reply and rapidly set to work jotting down equations and notes. Allen meanwhile just sat back and watched, taking a sip of his beer every so often as he watched the nerdy unicorn fill-up the chalkboard with numbers and equations, before quickly erasing them and starting over again, muttering quietly to herself as she went.
Penny meanwhile simply sat in awe as she watched Twilight work, her brain tried to keep up with the high-level magical equations, but she quickly became lost and gave up her effort, instead she nudged Allen’s elbow. Looking back over his shoulder at her, Allen cocked a silent eyebrow as if saying, What?
Looking down at Allen’s unopened beer bottle, she gave him her best, Please may I have some? smile and puppy dog eyes. Rolling his eyes, Allen shook his head but decided to give the mare his spare bottle after popping the top off of it.
Shooting him a thankful look, Penny quietly accepted the beer bottle and took a swig. It wasn’t as good as Equestrian beer, but it had an acceptable taste, and right now she just wanted the alcohol to ease her jangled nerves, the taste was just a consolation prize.
Turning his attention back to Twilight, Allen quietly watched Twilight work as she crunched numbers and ran scenarios. Finally, after nearly an hour, she set her much-reduced chalk piece down and after checking several of her notes, she gave a satisfied nod and said, “Alright, I think that should just about do it.”
“Alright, so whatcha got for us?” asked Allen, his beer long since finished.
Taking a deep breath, Twilight replied, “With the limited data that I have to work with, all I can give you is a limited guess at best, and wishful thinking at worst.”
“I kind of figured, just give it to me straight here, how screwed are we?” asked Allen, a hint of tired frustration coloring his voice.
“Surprisingly, not that much,” replied Twilight calmly, “now obviously this could change if a new variable is introduced, but as of right now, assuming that this magic isn’t being controlled by Discord, we have three possibilities. The first is that we are just suffering aftershocks of Discord’s spell and that it will eventually peter out, the second is similar to the first, except that the aftershocks will get worse as time goes on, however, unless something changes, they should remain fairly localized and ‘small’ in size and intensity.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Penny curiously.
“What I mean is that these aftershocks will not be able to get very big or powerful. During my initial calculations, I remembered reading about how the Everfree Forest interacts with local magic fields and ran a scenario that included the Everfree Forest acting as a magical heat sink so to speak, and the math checks out,” she explained, a pleased look on her face for thinking that possibility up.
“And that means... what, exactly?” asked Allen.
Sighing, Twilight flipped the chalkboard around and began writing on it. “In laypony terms, the Everfree Forest has been known to pull magic of varying types from the surrounding area and use it to, for lack of a better word, power itself. Long ago, when Princess Luna fell to the nightmare, she and Princess Celestia did battle in what would eventually become the Everfree. Obviously, the nightmare used dark magic against Princess Celestia in an attempt to kill her, while Princess Celestia used harmonic magic to save or at least stop her fallen sister. This culminated in Princess Celestia using the Elements of Harmony to stop the nightmare, with the result being that Princess Luna and the nightmare were both imprisoned on the moon for a thousand years. Now, with the amount of magical power of both dark and light being thrown around, it... changed and corrupted the land that surrounded their old castle and created the Everfree Forest in its place. Scholars have studied the forest's properties for years and while they do not fully understand it, what they do know is that the Everfree actively absorbs magic from the surrounding area and... does something with it. Nopony is one hundred percent sure exactly what it does, but it does do something with it. Some think it uses the energy to fuel its growth as they believe the soil is not capable of supporting the forest through natural means. While others think it just acts as a giant magical heat sink that purifies magic taken in and dissipates it into the earth, but regardless of what you think, everypony all agrees that the forest does absorb magic at a steady rate.”
“So what you’re saying is that you think the forest will act as some sort of magical limiter on the growth of chaos magic around Ponyville?” asked Penny as she cocked her head to one side, a questioning look on her face.
Giving a proud smile at her fellow unicorn’s quick uptake, Twilight happily replied, “Exactly! The forest will both slow down the rate of growth and act as an upper limit to what this magic can do in the future. If my calculations are correct, we won’t see another noticeable event for at least another month or two, as the forest will actively drain the chaos magic over time, and the magic needs to reach a certain threshold before it can activate and cause a chaotic event.”
“Which the forest will drain as it is happening, thereby lessening the amount of overall energy that the chaos magic will uptake,” finished Penny with a relieved smile.
“Precisely!” chirped Twilight happily. “In this scenario, while the chaos magic will remain present in the local area for some time, if my calculations are correct, eventually, the forest will simply drain the magic away over time until it can no longer replenish itself,” turning back to the chalkboard, she flipped it back around and pointed at two numbers on the board, “This first number is the likelihood of the first scenario playing out, and with my calculations, it has a fifty-four percent chance of occurring, while our second outcome is around eighty-five percent, with a plus or minus six percent error rate.”
“And what is the last outcome?” asked Allen as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair.
Twilight’s smile faded and was replaced with an uncertain look. “That one is that the chaos magic will overpower the Everfree and expand at an exponential rate. Most likely, it will re-empower Discord and he will escape from his prison again to exert some form of control over the magic. However, there is a chance that it will get away from even him and cause an end of the world scenario where all life is essentially destroyed.”
A tense silence fell over the trio and after looking between themselves for a time, Penny was the first one to scrape up the courage to ask, “And what is the likelihood of that happening?”
“I don’t know.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.031 seconds
Total duration
719 users online
701,980 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Chaos gonna chaos, news at eleven.
10900820
Welp, they're going to be having nightmares after this. XD
Oh hey, look, Ponyville could become Pripyat soon! I wonder if the magic will also concentrate into specific anomalies and later crystallize itself into artifacts that attract greedy or desperate STALKERs into the exclusion zone?
Honestly I hope this doesn't become a "save the world" story. The slice of life thus far is so delightful that adding too much to it would spoil the balance.
I wonder how the dirt compares to the stuff that came with Allen?
This all reminds me of scientist trying to predict earthquakes. Sure, they have a good idea where they will happen and the general magnitude but it's still all highly educated guesswork because they can't see the whole picture-- We know California is boned because of this huge fault but we dunno when or if it'll go off like the horror movies show in the most dramatic ways...
And the same could be said about the volcano building under Yellowstone. Will it just smolder, erupt a little or go full caldera and end life as we know it?
That little mention about how deep the swapping goes is also worrying for the long term prospects.
10901128
Surprised she didn't try comparing them yet, to see if it's from the same world, if a different location.
10901621
I was referring to him representing all of the world as America and nothing else and I wasn’t making a negative statement. How you have to pay for healthcare on both sides and other various Americanizations of human and pony culture. Lmao
Can we not have this ruin the story? The whole "chaos magic gone cuckoo" seems like a cheap way to inject a subplot into a good slice of life story. Also: ear scritches addicted ponies when?
10901811
Oh ye of little faith.
So the red soil, is this a sunflower out of Georgia then?
10901844
Possibly, though it could just be from somewhere that has similar soil coloration to Georgia. Who knows?
Well you have written a very interesting story that has kept me distracted for far far longer than it should have. 9/10 Excellent job so far I just hope the next update doesn't take a year to arrive.
10902397
Hey, this update only took an extra week and a half this time, lol.
10902355 Ah ain't having no no-good, love-stealin' bug ponies a-swarmin' all over mah land! *sprays DDT all over the place*
*The Chernglerngs mutate into Skittles Bugs* DAG-NABBIT! Now they're just lame and boring!
It was getting so good!
10902401
Man don't drag me back into this shit.
i am now up to date on this grate story and i can say i am impressed.
do keep up the good righting Timothy48
10901844 Or central PA, or northern NJ... given that this is chaos magic... I'd go with NJ. Natural affinity for chaos and destruction, after all.
Good chapter, though they are definitely going to need more beer after that
So, they're facing a possible XK Class end of the world scenario...
oh dear.
11194527
Possibly, or Twilight doesn't have all the variables needed to make an accurate prediction. We'll just have to wait and see.
Question what is with the ponies make things better then humans bits?
why is this N0 (zero) and not No or NO
11840557
No idea, but it's fixed now, thanks.