Chapter 3: Prime Time Riddles
“So what happened then?” asked Apple Bloom.
“Tell us what happened next!” said Sweetie Belle.
“All in good time Miss Apple Bloom, Miss Sweetie Belle,” replied the Doctor. “I will tell you later, but we must take a break from the story right now.”
“What! You can’t stop at a point like that—tell us what happened!” said Scootaloo. “Did Rap find a way to catch the ice dragon?”
“I will tell you everything in due course. But right now it is four o’clock, which means it’s time for tea. And we have freshly baked scones with strawberry jam this afternoon—we don’t want to miss that.”
He trotted off across the plaza. Twilight and the three crusaders followed through the doorway into the west hall, where the ponies of the modern-day Order were serving tea. They sat down at one of the long wooden tables and helped themselves to tea and cakes. Twilight politely levitated a knife to slice the scones in two and applied butter and jam. She then lifted her teacup to her snout and sipped it like a princess. The Doctor tipped his into the saucer and slurped it up. The crusaders followed his example. They all bit into the deliciously fresh scones.
“Now will you tell us what happened?” asked Apple Bloom.
The Doctor drained his saucer and restarted the story.
For the first time in five years, the Abbess's heartbeat rose above a hundred beats per minute. But she quickly composed herself, and with total calm, put on her gown, and walked out of her room, down the staircase, across the hall and out onto the plaza.
By now there was a small crowd of ponies gathering around the frozen Minute, including the Practical Scholar, the Dean, and the porters. They were all looking at the mechanism in dismay. The chute from the cistern, where the water should be flowing, just supported a glittering arc of solid ice connected to the half-full bucket. The lever arm was quite stationary and the clock-face—and time itself, as they defined it—was frozen at 6:47.
“How was this allowed to happen?” asked the Abbess.
It was a fair question. Given the low temperatures, it was hardly an unforeseen risk that the water would freeze. The streams higher up in the mountain had been frozen since early December. However the main source filling the cistern was a hot natural spring piped directly into the side of the tank. Thanks to deep geothermal heating, this water remained warm throughout the year. Once it left the ground, however, it would quickly cool, and it was the duty of the porters to heat the chutes and channels of the Minute in mid-winter to ensure an uninterrupted flow.
The head porter—a brown stallion with a black mane—looked a bit embarrassed.
“We kept the channels clear of ice as always,” he said, then paused and looked at his hooves. “There was a layer of ice at the top of the tank, as always happens, but it was water underneath… At least… it was… it seems the entire tank is now a frozen block.”
The Abbess took in a deep breath.
“We'll melt it as soon as we can,” said the porter. A group of unicorns were already standing on step ladders around the tank focussing their magic on the top. Other ponies were bringing the burning braziers close by. “But it could take some time until the water is flowing.”
The Abbess and the Dean exchanged a solemn look. This was the gravest catastrophe to hit the Order in over a generation. Before they could discuss it, their attention was distracted by further events. With a clatter of hooves hitting flagstones, Princess Luna and her retinue landed on the plaza. At almost the same instance, Celestia arrived with the solar guard.
“It seems we have arrived early,” said Luna, looking up at the clock face.
“We have a technical issue,” said the Abbess. “Time has stopped temporarily. We are working to resolve the problem and it will restart as soon as possible.”
“But time hadn’t really stopped?” ask Apple Bloom.
“Technically, yes,” said the Doctor. “Of course, things continued to happen. Nopony can stop time in that sense, or at least, if they did, nopony would have time to notice. But time, as in the number of minutes past the hour it was, was set by the water clock, and that had stopped.”
“But couldn’t they find another clock?”
“They could—but remember that the Order followed their rules to the letter—at least the rules concerning the keeping of time. If they used a different clock, they would have to change the way they defined time. And they didn’t have time for that.”
“So what did they do?”
Luna laughed, but without much merriment. “Please make haste. While we do not object to the night lasting forever, in principle, we would like to go to bed soon.”
“You need the heat of the sun,” said Celestia. “I could raise it… Before it is time?” She said this cautiously knowing that the suggestion would not be well received.
The Abbess did not reply. In theory Celestia's suggestion was reasonable. If the clock had not frozen, it must now be about time for sunrise, so why not start the day, then thaw the ice under the sun? However the statutes of the Order, as written by Starswirl the Bearded seven centuries ago, clearly stated that the sun could not be lifted above the horizon until the prescribed time for that day, as set by the water clock in front of them. In such a crisis it was important to follow the statute to the letter, otherwise who would ever respect it again? If she allowed Celestia to lift the sun thirty-seven minutes early, then Luna might ask to raise the moon at any time she liked. Of course it might be okay, but it would set a very dangerous precedent. She stared at the clock, willing the hands to start moving. She could push it forwards with her magic, but that would not keep it moving, and there was a strict rule forbidding spells around the cogs and axles, due to the fear that residual magic would interfere with the movement. They had to get it moving again by restarting the water flow as soon as possible. At the top of the cistern, a row of unicorns, horns aglow, were doing their best to melt the ice, but had so far just produced a small puddle of water at the top. The braziers brought in below had warmed the metal pipes and open channels, but there was no water flowing from the stone tank—it was just a huge block of ice—and nothing would flow until the ice at the bottom melted. But to get to that, they first had to melt the ice above it. This could take a while.
The Abbess looked at the Dean. They were both thinking of the same obvious solution to the problem. Neither of them liked the idea, but the simple necessity of the situation compelled them.
“Strombol?” said the Dean.
The Abbess nodded. She turned to the princesses and said, “Please excuse us.” Then, together with the Dean, walked away from the clock towards the door to the east hall.
Strombol was the Treasurer of the order, with the responsibility for guarding and administering the gold, silver, jewels and other financial assets of the abbey. He was also a grown fire-breathing dragon, who could melt a large block of ice in less than a minute. And he was a thorn in the Abbess's and Dean's side.
Strombol had arrived in the abbey, nearly two hundred years before the time of this story, as an egg. This had been a gift from a pilgrim, who had travelled in many distant lands, and presented the curiosity to the Abbot of the day in return for the hospitality received. For years it had sat on a shelf in the library, until the Practical Scholar of the day, a talented unicorn wizard, decided it would be a fun exercise to hatch it. After extensive research, practice with chickens, and a few miss-spells [1], he succeeded, and the resulting hatchling was adopted by the abbey community.
[1] One of which turned the Dean of the day into a cactus.
This was all recorded in the abbey records, which the Abbess had studied well. The accounts described how adorably cute the little baby dragon had been. How he would waddle around on two legs. He quickly learnt to read and write, clutching a quill in his tiny claws. As he grew older, he was always willing to help the ponies where possible, running errands, fetching books, sweeping the floor, and taking notes for the scholars. He was much loved by all.
Dragons grow up slowly. When he reached the age of fourteen, he was still only a tiny little creature. But as he was by then such a part of the abbey community, it was felt only fair that he should join the Order as a novice member. The Abbess could understand this decision, and also why, ten years later, he was allowed to graduate as a full member. However she felt it had been somewhat short-sighted of the head of the Order twenty years hence, to allow Strombol to become a full Fellow of the Order. They really hadn't thought through the implications.
Fellows of the Order were appointed for life. In return for their services to the abbey, they received lodging, meals, and as much cider, ale and wine as they could drink. They would then enjoy this lifestyle for another thirty to fifty years, before passing on quietly, and leaving the next generation to maintain order, keep time, and drink up the barrels and bottles which their predecessors hadn't managed to finish.
Strombol had been a Fellow of the Order for one hundred and fifty-six years. And he was still young for a dragon.
As he had grown too large to move through most of the abbey interior rooms, he had moved into the undercroft beneath the east hall. This was the space used to store the treasure of the abbey. Piling all this into a large hoard, he then lay down on top of it, and fell asleep. This was, of course, all part of the life-cycle of a dragon. The Librarian had studied many ancient texts on the behaviour of magical creatures, and explained this to the Abbess. He would spend most of his time snoozing, and only an hour a day, at most, awake.
Strombol explained that he was fulfilling his duty to the abbey by safeguarding the treasure. And he pointed out a footnote in the statutes which stated that attendance at the ceremonies was not compulsory for members over the age of seventy.
The Abbess disagreed with this interpretation of the regulations. But she was powerless to do anything about it. As the oldest Fellow, Strombol had the privilege of seniority. This presented another serious potential worry. The fellowship elected an abbot or abbess from their own ranks to lead the Order, with the Dean the acknowledged deputy. However if both of them were not available, authority automatically passed to the oldest Fellow. It was a worry for the Abbess, that if the fellowship could not agree on her successor, then the constitutional crisis could see this lazy dragon given ultimate responsibility for keeping time and maintaining order in all Equestria.
For a while she had hoped she could gather enough support within the Order to persuade Strombol that he might like to move to a quiet cave in the mountains, or go and live with other dragons. But he insisted that it was his duty as a Fellow of the Order, and as a Noble Dragon, to stay in the abbey. He made his own allies, befriending the novices, especially the pretty unicorn mares, giving them little necklaces and other trinkets made from his gems so they all thought he was wonderful. The Abbess and the Dean could barely stand him. But on this occasion, they could not deny that they needed his help.
“Will he cooperate?” asked the Dean as they walked around the east hall, and down a set of steps and a short passage which led below the ground floor.
“He can hardly refuse,” said the Abbess. “But he will do all he can to make us grovel first.”
She opened a huge wooden door—several times her height—and they walked into the dragon’s lair.
The undercroft covered the entire hoofprint of the hall, divided by numerous brick columns and arches which supported the weight of the building. A few lamps were burning in holders attached to the columns. This light reflected off the piles of gold coins and gems. The abbey was extremely wealthy—the hourglasses they made were regarded as the finest in the world, and sold for a high price, and the prestige of the Order meant that many foreign ambassadors felt obliged to pay a visit and offer valuable gifts from their homelands. In addition to the gold and jewels, the room was lined with exquisite works of art. Stone and metal sculptures, oil paintings, tapestries, intricately carved caskets were all stored here. The long term investment strategy of the Treasurer ensuring that no abbot or abbess was tempted to solve a short term budget problem by selling off any part of such a priceless collection.
Stretching the full length of the room, lay a large green dragon with purple spikes along his back, lying in a pile of gold, with his head by the main doorway, and his tail bent around through a brick archway and along the full length of the cloister to one side. The Abbess walked up to the head and shouted with the full authority of her position.
“Strombol! Wake-up!”
The dragon's body did not move, but a single eyelid—the size of a small cartwheel—flicked open and looked at the visitor.
“Oh it's you Abbess Prime Meridian,” said Strombol. “So nice of you to visit. And Dean Median Measure too. Welcome. What time is it?”
“It's 6:47,” replied the Abbess.
“Oh so you just popped in before sunrise. So sorry I can't join you for the ceremony, but you know how stiff my joints are—especially in this weather. I hardly ever get out these days.”
“Strombol. The Minute has stopped at 6:47. The water tank has frozen solid. It is imperative that you use your fire to thaw it this instant.”
The dragon did not visibly smile, but the Abbess could tell from the glitter in his huge eye that he found this very amusing. His other eye flicked open but he remained silent for a while before replying.
“Until I am measured,
I am not known,
Yet how you miss me,
When I have flown.”
“What was all that?” asked Apple Bloom.
“It’s an old riddle,” said Twilight. “The answer is time.”
“Strombol. This is not a time for games,” said the Abbess.
“Indeed. It is a tragedy! How did the Order allow such a thing to happen? To think of all the ponies we are letting down...”
“Exactly. Which is why we need you to get outside now and fix it.”
“Of course. I do wish I could help—I really do. But it is so painful for me to move.” To emphasize this he pulled up his forelegs, and raised his neck, twitching with each movement. “Oh! Oh! The pain! Would you be so kind as to rub some mineral oil on my back? I'm sure that would help.”
The Abbess bristled at this suggestion, but there was no way she would let this dragon make her lose her cool.
“Strombol. As the head of the Order, I command you to go outside and assist in melting the ice block, to restart the Minute.”
“Now now—let us not be too hasty. Foals rush in where alicorns fear to tread, you know. At my age, I have found it is best to take life at a steady pace, and think things through before jumping into action. If time has stopped, as you say, then you need not fear missing your next appointment. That reminds me, I heard another riddle the other day. Would you care to hear it? It goes—
“I never was, am always to be,
No one ever saw me, nor ever will,
And yet I am the confidence of all,
To live and breathe on this terrestrial ball.”
The Abbess knew what he was playing at. He was trying to stall her with a diversion. Riddles were a favourite game within the Order, and he knew that once asked, no Fellow could resist trying to guess the answer. Even as the Abbess forced herself to ignore this, a part of her brain was already distracted. Fortunately the Dean came to her aid.
“All the order are waiting for you,” she said.
Strombol did not reply.
“All the novices, and members and Fellows,” continued the Dean. “They're all so scared now that time has frozen—especially the young fillies—some of them are crying—they don't know what's going to happen. But we told them that you would surely come and save the day and then they were all happy and reassured. You won't let them down, will you? They're all waiting for you: Lovedot, Peony Poset, Paragon...”
At the mention of the final name, Strombol lifted his head—the first significant body movement he had made. “Well... I suppose I could...”
“And the answer to your riddle is tomorrow,” said the Abbess.
Strombol bent his neck ever so slightly, as if to acknowledge defeat, then raised his long body off the ground and crawled out of the undercroft through the open doorway. The Abbess and Dean followed, greatly relieved that they had not been obliged to prostrate themselves, or get mineral oil and dragon scales on their hooves.
“Who's Paragon?” asked the Abbess.
“Third year novice,” replied the Dean. “A rather pretty white unicorn mare. Whom Strombol has taken a certain shine to.”
“Should we be concerned?”
“I think she can deal with it.”
Rap dug her small hooves into the ice cliff on the side of the mountain, pulling her body upwards while flapping her small wings to maintain balance. Her iron horseshoes chipped a foothold into the ice, and she propelled herself higher. Reaching the summit, she briefly planted four hooves into the snow, then leapt high into the air, and away from the cliff. Spreading her wings, she sailed across the sky, landing on another peak, then leaping onwards and gliding across the mountain landscape. She landed on a crevice marking the edge of a broad valley, and looked down to the foe she sought. The ice dragon was asleep on the gravel-strewn stony landscape. It's long pale blue body curled around a collection of loose boulders, the moonlight glittered off the ice crystals attached to its scales. Every time it breathed out, a huge cloud of cold vapour formed in the air beside its head, which would condense into snowflakes and fall to the ground.
Rap grinned to herself. This was going to be perfect.
Too perfect. The realization that she was dreaming hit her, throwing the vision into her infinite mental chasm of unfulfilled desires. Shucks.
She shook herself awake and remembered that she was lying on the library floor. It was dark but she could make out the shapes of Patina and Ginger asleep beside her, breathing steadily. She had no idea what hour it was. Evidently still some time until sunrise.
She became aware of the sound of dozens of hooves pounding against flagstones. Ponies were descending the stairs in large numbers. But she hadn't heard the bell to mark the call to the sunrise ceremony. She prodded her friends with a hoof.
“Wake up!”
“W-what?” said Patina, yawning. “Oh no! We fell asleep in the library—I hope we weren’t snoring—it’s against the rules to make loud noises in the library. What time is it?”
“I don't know. But something is happening. Something interesting.”
The three fillies left their book fortress and trotted out of the library and down the wide spiral staircase. On the ground floor they joined a steady stream of ponies all filing out of the main doorway and onto the plaza.
Outside a large number of ponies were all crowding around the Minute in an atmosphere of chaos and confusion. Any pony could instantly comprehend what had happened—the clock-face was fixed with the hands showing thirteen minutes to the seventh hour, and the mechanism was quite still. The water in the meridian channel was frozen. But the clarity of the situation did not stop countless individuals asking what had happened? What did it mean? If time had stopped what were they all supposed to do with their time? And the most urgent and important question of all—when would they get breakfast?
The unicorns standing on ladders around the tanks, who had been focussed on the glacial job of thawing the huge block of ice by magic, were now being continuously disturbed by other ponies trying to get a view of the top of the tank, or ask what was going on, or offer to help. The Steward, Cellarer and Librarian walked back and forth in front of the crowd pleading for everypony to remain calm, in a futile attempt to maintain some level of order.
“Please keep yer calm everypony,” said the Cellarer. “It’s just a little temporary temporal trouble, which the Abbess and Dean will sort out. There is no need to panic.”
Watching over the situation, Princess Celestia stood on her podium with a look of concern. Luna watched from the western hemisphere with more relaxed look of mild amusement, but not without some anxiety. The librarian walked up to Celestia and spoke to her.
“You have magic beyond what we know. Can you restart the water flow?”
Celestia shook her head. “My power is tied to the sun. It must be in the sky to let me try such magic. I cannot lift the sun until the head of the Order asks me to.”
At the back of the crowd, Rap jumped up and down in the air with excitement.
“This is so awesome!”
“It is nothing of the sort,” said Patina, looking at her friend sternly. “Don't you see what has happened? The primary duty of the Order is to keep track of time, and the Minute has stopped completely.”
“But it's such a good opportunity. If I can find a way to melt the ice and get it started, then I'll get my cutie mark for sure.”
“How will you do that? You can't do magic. And if there was a simple way to do it, the Abbess would have already fixed the problem.”
Rap paused a moment to think. Her creative imagination quickly brainstorming ideas.
“We need a lava flow. There must be a volcano somewhere higher up the mountain. I could climb up and get it to erupt and direct some hot magma onto the ice, which would melt it...”
“That won't work.”
“Maybe not... Let me think...”
On the other side of the plaza, the Steward was listening to a not dissimilar monologue from the Practical Scholar.
“This is a situation for a clear application for atomic theory. When heavy atoms such as uranium break apart they release large amounts of heat. We just need to find a way to inject a small amount of uranium into the ice, and get them to undergo spontaneous fission. It would melt it all in no time...”
These discussions were halted by the arrival of the dragon. Strombol walked through the main arched gateway, which connected the courtyard to the road down the mountain and the main door to the eastern hall. The crowd of ponies instantly stopped talking and watched, gasping, as he raised a leg to salute the Order. He then turned to the Minute and jauntily waved a claw at the unicorns standing on ladders around the stone cistern to signal that they should get out of the way. They did so quickly.
Strombol paused for a moment and waited for the agitated crowd of ponies to fall quiet. Once he was satisfied that every pony was watching him, he took deep breath and blew a perfectly formed jet of flame onto the top of the stone tank. The wooden poles of the ladders were turned to charcoal. The puddle of water created on the top by the effort of a dozen unicorns was instantly vaporised sending a cloud of steam into the air. By the mysterious, and somewhat unphysical, thermodynamics of dragon breath, the block of ice quickly melted, and a steady flow of water emerged from the chute and ran into the metal bucket.
For a minute, nopony dared to say anything. Although they could see that the water was flowing and everything was back to normal, they did not dare believe it. Then once the bucket was filled, the lever arm swung down, shifting the cog-wheel by one pin. The long hand on the clock face moved forwards such that the time now read 6:48.
The crowd burst into spontaneous applause, hammering their hooves on the flagstones. Strombol turned to face them, lifting his neck, then bowing to the audience.
“Thank you, thank you everypony. Now you must excuse me, but I shall leave you with a riddle to ponder:
“I build up castles,
I tear down mountains,
I make some ponies blind,
I help others to see.
What am I?”
“Sand.” The Abbess shouted out the answer from the back of the crowd in a loud clear voice.
“How does that one work?” ask Sweetie Belle.
“Sand is part of the mortar used to build castles,” said Twilight. “Mountains are eroded away by tiny grains of sand. If you get it in your eye, it can blind you. But we can also turn it into glass, to make spectacle lenses.”
“That was a tricky one.”
“Well done Abbess,” said the Treasurer, not sounding too pleased at her quick reply. “How did you know that? Since you are so smart, I will leave you with another question to ponder. I have watched the water freely flowing from this rock for over a hundred and ninety years and it has never, until this night, turned to ice. What is the reason for this? Why has it only now become so cold?”
He took his leave, and falling to the ground, moved his huge body out of the courtyard and back towards his undercroft lair.
Some of the younger novices cheered as he departed. Celestia and Luna politely joined in. At the back of the crowd there was slightly less enthusiasm.
“Strombol. We should have thought of that after all the reading we did on dragons last night,” said Patina.
“That dragon is such a show-off,” said Rap, pulling a face.
She was overheard by the Abbess and Dean, standing behind her, who suddenly felt considerable warmth towards the little pegasus filly.
The excitement of the crowd was soon abated once everypony realised that there was nothing to do now except wait for the remaining twenty-two minutes until the scheduled time for sunrise. There followed a lot of awkward attempts at conversation until the bell rang out to mark the eight minute warning. Then the ponies knew what to do and swung into their usual roles for the morning ceremony. Directed by a solo chant from the Abbess, Luna moved the moon from the low angle where it had been waiting to beneath the horizon. Celestia then dutifully lifted the sun into the sky and the plaza was illuminated with the dawn rays. Everypony smiled at the sun with joy and relief that the night would not last forever and everything was back to normal.
Once day had clearly broken, the crowd all remembered that the next event on the schedule was breakfast and there was a stampede towards the dining hall as they all raced to get first in line for pancakes, oatmeal, fruit and toast.
The Abbess and the other Fellows lingered in the courtyard. The princesses walked over to greet them as diplomacy required.
“That was something which should never have happened,” said the Abbess. “We must ensure it is never repeated. I suggest that we meet at the third hour after noon for a council of the Fellowship.” She turned first to Celestia then Luna. “Will your highnesses be so kind as to join us? We will conclude the meeting before the evening ceremony and feast.”
The two alicorns nodded in agreement. They then turned away and took flight in opposite directions. The Abbess's face was neutral but the Dean could read her friends emotions.
“It's not your fault,” she said. “This could not have been foreseen. We haven't had weather this cold since—since before our records began.”
“We can’t afford to let this happen again,” said the Abbess.
The Dean nodded. “Strombol will become even more unbearable if we need to ask for his help again. But we can find a way to heat the water cistern so it doesn’t turn to ice again. It only happened this time because the porter never thought the whole tank could freeze.”
“But what if the water spring which feeds it freezes? Right into the mountain? Then no amount of dragon fire could help us?”
“Could that ever happen?”
“If it keeps getting colder, it will happen one day. I hate to admit it, but our Treasurer was right to ask his final question. We need to understand why it is getting so cold. And maybe we should look into building another sort of clock.”
“Not the Practical Scholar’s famous atomic clock? All we need is some way to get a billion atoms singing and dancing in unison on the head of a pin.”
“Maybe not that one.” For the first time since she had woken up the Abbess smiled, and walked with her friend in the morning sunlight, across the plaza, to the main hall for breakfast.
“So did they find out why it was so cold?”
“Did they make another sort of clock? How did it work?”
“Did Rap get her cutie mark?”
“What did they have for breakfast?”
“All in good time, my little ponies.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.086 seconds
Total duration
799 users online
1,183,938 hits today, 2,561,572 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.®
Goodness, dragons are vexing. Challenging riddles, too.
So if I understand correctly, the effect of time temporarily stopping was to let everypony get an extra hour of sleep?
I wonder what this order thinks of daylight saving time.
I see that unicorns deciding it might be fun to try and hatch a dragon egg is hardly a modern problem.
In fairness to Strombol, I suspect he serves as a very good guard for the abbey treasury.
Hahaha, it seems that male dragons and female unicorns is also not a new development.
Green dragon? Purple spines? Hmn.
Thank you, Twilight, we never would have guessed.
...do they tell any riddles that aren't time related?
Ahh, so not just dragons and unicorns, but dragons and white unicorns.
Wow. Yeah, a fission reaction probably would melt the ice.
Twilight's table manners are directly related to her distance from Ponyville, I see.
But he's following them to the letter, Abbess.
I'm not sure how the genetics of dragon scale coloration work, but Strombol seems to be related to Spike. Interesting.
And so we see the perils of letting the model reign over reality. It manages to be both more and less absurd when the model actually dictates reality, rather than just trying to predict it. Still, reforms will be needed, both in method and climate. The cooling trend seems to hint at some rather distressing possibilities. Either windigos are taking advantage of the sisters' strife or, even worse, Starswirl's model is flawed.
Definitely looking forward to more.
Starwirls model was set up for a particular set of conditions, but if he failed the freindship spell, maybe he forgot, or didnt realise, to take into account the freindship of the sisters?
Imagine if Strombol had had teleport breath. well, thats one way of removing the ice from the cistern. Pity Celestia immediately ends up wearing it as a saddle.
Which one of these genii is Harrison? three monstrosities, then something you carry in your hoof? Insane.
I was busy yesterday, but I am here now:
It seems that the timekeepers have 2 problems:
* Their reference clock is inaccurate and prone literally to freezing.
* Their world experiences global cooling. If they all die, they cannot keep time.
Strombol, is it? I see what you did there!
That one silly (B)Italian volcano that erupts ... regularly... and quite frequently! Ohoho!
5662291 their planet isn't cooling, exactly. Their nights are too long. Thier clock runs slower at night than during the day. The question is why this hasn't happened before. My guess is they had a cold snap, which caused ice in the steam and the longer night made it even colder and made the problem worse.
5656684 Daylight Saving Time is what would've happened if the Order had let Celestia raise the sun to melt the ice and restart the clock.
6586501
I was just thinking this morning: why didn't I make any jokes about daylight saving time in that story?
I really like the fact that you hid the answers to the riddles.
"Residue" works, but I think "residual" works better.
6610077
Thanks again. You're good at this.
Spain cannot be Arabic, because Arabic refers specifically to the Arabian Peninsula or the Arabic people from there.
What you were looking for was either Muslim/Islamic Spain or Moorish Spain.
6740859 Point taken. I'll change that. But the key thing is the ideas travelled from the Middle East to Europe by the Arab invasion of North Africa and Spain. All the key books were written in Arabic.
Butter? BUTTER?!
Not clotted cream?!
img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131228174822/mlp/images/a/a5/FANMADE_Ahuizotl_Objection.jpg
THIS DOCTOR IS NO TRUE BRITTON!! He knows nothing of proper tea time fare! *the court... which everypony suddenly finds themselves in, gasps in shock at the stunning revelation. The Judge, upon hearing this evidence, declares the verdict*
images.wikia.com/aceattorney/images/c/cd/Guilty.png
The Doctor is led away for banishment for pretending to be British. Equestria has very harsh laws...
6542073 It's getting colder cuz they're not burning enough fossil fuels!
Global warming will save them!
6811514 No, no! We need to keep all the oil under Equestria safe so we can use it to make millions of little plastic models of everypony!