Chapter 63: Musical Manipulation
Putting their thoughts (and all the stuff Pinkie had brought) in order brought up some concerns. Twilight wanted to make as much progress as possible on learning the intricacies of her own MP, using her newly-enhanced maximums and the Party system's meters to better learn herself. Spike wanted to start putting his foot down on single-stat training, focusing on grinding his attributes as far as possible to figure out how soon he could meet the Story Arc's needs. And Pinkie... really just wanted to help, although she had big plans for some collaborative cooking along with Spike to get dinner ready for that night.
They had a wide spread of things they wanted to do, some of which involved cooperation and most of which needed them to work separately yet in the same space. At times they'd be moving from one concept to the other very quickly, and other times they'd focus on one thing for hours straight. Somehow they had to take advantage of the Party system, their supplies, each other, and their own niches all without any advance preparation.
"...Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Pinkie?"
"I think so Spike, but where are we going to get a one-mare-band on such short notice?"
"Uh. You brought one with you?"
Pinkie giggled and snorted, shouldering the harness of her instrument assemblage.
"Right! Haha."
Twilight looked at the two of them like they'd... Well, not like they'd grown second heads. More like they were Pinkie and Spike, which was entirely true but maybe more emphatic than usual. Spike pulled a scroll and ink out of his inventory and started jotting down ideas. Twilight probably couldn’t see his face from this angle, but he knew the smirk was audible in his voice.
"We're gonna need a montage."
"I. Yes. But. Alright, in the literary sense I can certainly agree that this would be the optimal scenario for that sort of thing. And there are records of Heartsongs producing effects of perceptive time dilation and significant increases in endurance and effectiveness... But are you saying you're going to try to force a montage?"
"Less force and more compose: Cantus has picked up a few songs from other ponies. All of those are original compositions they sang to themselves in times of need or high emotion. So... I figure if I'm the Gamer I might as well try to metagame myself."
It seemed like Twilight wanted to lecture him on the implausibility of that concept, but it was clear that her curiosity was going to win that fight. So rather than wait, Spike turned his impromptu lyric sheet towards Pinkie and began taking her notes on... notes, the musical kind. Within minutes they had a rough sketch of a first draft down. None of them were really songwriters in any meaningful capacity, Heartsongs aside. That much was made extremely obvious when Twilight wrinkled her nose at their lyrics sheet before eventually sighing in assent.
"Alright. We'll give it a try: Do you have a backup plan? I seem to remember you saying that the Cantus buff made a significant difference in training with the Crusaders."
He nodded, because that was the entire reason he was going out on this limb.
"I do, actually! When me and Pinkie were finishing up the tamale prep yesterday, I picked up a song that enhances Vitality, as well as Stamina recovery. It's not going to help us do more stuff in less time, but it should help us use the time we do have more efficiently."
"Good enough. In which case... Pinkie?"
The pink party pony put her prodigious pipes to the point of powering all the woodwinds and bellows in her rig. A few hoof-pumps, tail waggles, and mane-shakes at the strings and percussion later... They had a decent beat laid down for the lyrics to go on top of. He'd wait for the piece to come back around to the introduction (which was slower than the chorus and verses) and then they'd give this thing a shot.
Spike's opportunity came sooner than he expected, and he began forcing MP through his veins into the sequence that would trigger Cantus.
Sometimes you need to take some effort, and make your minutes count!
He could feel his magic trying to get a foothold in the music, a grip which slowly grew more steady. On the next line Twilight interjected with her part, and then Pinkie with hers, all right on the beat.
You've got a lot to do - and not much time - before you're down and out.
His MP was dwindling fast, so he began to fall into the Exposure-enhanced grip of meditation. Omphaloskepsis smoothed out the drop and he could tell it was starting to work. The effects were shaky, and slow... But it was working.
Working with friends can make it better, but if that's not enough?
Pinkie was smiling at him from behind her harmonica, Twilight had her Dissertation Face on, and they had eight hours between now and dinner. It was time to groove.
Work a song into it, a beat and a rhyme, and call reality's bluff!
Current Song: "Montage Song (Untitled Draft)" (+Growth, +EXP Gain, Minor Time Dilation)
Twilight was running an incredible number of calculations inside of her head, even as the magic around her kept dozens of objects in suspension. He could see hints of white light pouring out from the corners of her clenched eyelids, at least when he wasn't looking away. Pinkie had started him off with a series of stretches, crunches, lunges and lifting exercises. A week ago his body would have been an inflamed mess and he'd be aching or bedridden for days after just ten minutes. Now?
Your Strength has increased by one! Your Dexterity has increased by one!
Now there was nothing but blue sky ahead.
It's a montage song!
With composure, speed and grace.
Pinkie was so glad that Spike had brought her into this early. She'd been having sort of a gloomy-doomy mood lately and it was really good for her to get out and do things. Not usual things, those only made it worse: She'd decided to make the zacahuil on a random weekday for a reason, after all! And just like the tamale, this was exciting and new and extremely fun! For her, at least: Twilight had been spending the entire musical number doing mental brainy things, and now even Spike was reading... Although when he shot her a thumbs-up with one clawed hand, she decided it was appropriate to cheer even for things like that.
A skill has been created through a special action! Through lexivorous consumption a skill to inundate the mind with data, [Photographic Speedreading] has been created!
We've got a lot to do!
Against the clock we're in a race.
Unlocking a technique for reading as quickly as he could stabilize the text in front of his eyes... The timing was too good. He'd already been suspecting that the 'engine' of his game was trying to force him down certain avenues, and this cinched it. Either that, or Equestria's natural musical montage magic was interacting with his powers to produce appropriate dividends. He didn't particularly care either way: If Spike's engine was taking him for a ride? He'd strap himself into the seat and plunge down the road care-free, just to see where it took him.
We have to learn fast, our efforts need to last!
We've gotta stand fast or we'll end up last.
She'd 'accidentally' bumped into Twilight's levitating objects the first seven times, if anypony asked. Asking would have been silly because of course Pinkie wasn’t doing it on purpose... And it felt like her purple pal wasn't participating, and today had been way too alliterative for that to be OK! Until she realized that Twilight was the one doing it on purpose, bringing stuff near Pinkie just to mess with her! At that point it became a game. Or maybe it had been a game from the start and she'd been the last one to realize it for a change? It didn't matter much given the workout she was getting, chasing down the quill that had just drawn a crude moustache on her flank.
Cross-rhyming a word against itself absolutely breaks a rule!
But when the work is experimental, not trying makes you the fool!
It would have been easy to assume that Pinkie's influence had somehow corrupted Spike, when he first suggested trying to force a Heartsong. But given that his 'Cantus' ability allowed him to initiate them at will with known songs... Twilight was willing to give it a shot. And yes, her heart hadn't really been in it at first. But she noticed the change in the flow of time by the first chorus, and at that point it was undeniable. They had a lot of research to do in the near future... But for now, she was getting ever-closer to pinning down the value of her own MP, so that could wait. And in the meantime she could enjoy herself while working: She decided to give Pinkie a few backup dancers during the next chorus, in the form of animated spellbooks.
It's a montage song!
Doing many things at once
We've got so much to do!
Even if we're weighed down by lunch.
Pinkie slowed down as she came off the chorus, lying on her back and kicking her hoofsies up in the air: She really was feeling a bit burdened, which is saying a lot giving her usual appetite!
"I think the midline in the second chorus should end on crunch for a better rhyme: Somethin’ like ‘Time pressure, working in crunch’ or that sorta thing. Can we try starting over?"
He took a deep breath, while Twilight was still fully engrossed in her own research and had kept up the song without really thinking about it... Which seemed to be enough to keep the Cantus-controlled Heartsong going, even if Spike himself had stopped.
"I don't know if we'll have to restart... Keep the music live, hum a few bars, and let me try something."
Spike drew his mana back through his body, and began marshalling its flow more carefully. He'd noticed that the recorded lyrics in the menu for Cantus were strange: Differences in color and typography seemed to imply some level of... Criticism? Was his ability conscious? No, it would be more accurate to call it subconscious: His subconscious, given form through the power. That would certainly explain the system’s sense of humor.
Adjustments were made and corrections applied, and he couldn't help but grin when he saw the text change to a more consistent hue. He added an instrumental break behind Twilight's interjection about the fast/fast last/last rhymes, tightened up the second chorus, wrote a new verse... And then Spike's mana started slipping away in huge drafts, drawn down different paths adjacent to the old ones. He was reinvigorated, and could see that it was having the same effect on Twilight and Pinkie.
Spike didn’t even have to communicate the change in the lyrics to his partners: They both clearly picked up on the adjustments, some instinct of Heartsong or a natural effect of the ‘Accompanied’ mechanic. Either way, the song began to naturally morph into its new form during the next instrumental solo.
"Alright, so that worked. Second verse, not the same as the first, let's go ponies!"
By adapting the means of [Internal Alchemy] without the skill, your Mastery increases by 10%
Current Song: "Montage Song (Second Draft)" (++Growth, +EXP Gain, Moderate Time Dilation)
And the beat went on, and on, and on...
Stats
Page generated in 0.041 seconds
Total duration
1,038 users online
1,496,696 hits today, 1,822,946 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.®
So deliciously meta! I love it
Why settle for "Eye of the Tiger" when you can make the song about montages?
I call hax
Wheeee.. knowingly using, if not truely abusing the mere Idea of MetaGaming, has a good chance at the end of the completed sucessful montage of actually unlocking the MetaGame skill or Ability?
Which will be even better if they make some Grahams Crackers, to go with the Grahams Number Engine limit?
just as long as Twilight doesnt try to beleive the engine, just understand that its working, sahould let her avoid seeing Pinkie Space?
Spike can now have Pinkie give him Kato training, and Twilight give him Shooting Gallery training? Or even whack a Mole? Hold him in place with one field, possibly even in a multiaxis torsion rig, while firing various neutral, elemental and force bolts at him?
...
This seems oddly familiar...
Why do I feel like hes gonna use that ticket to make the instant dungeon skill?
10419335
media.giphy.com/media/6KG2pEyrnSWSA/giphy.gif
How long, 8 hours? 3 minutes?
I think Spike should FORCE Twilight to train her other stats. I don’t want Twilight to be a Megumin with her stupid-high MP.
Everyday for one year focus on development.
Probably filling travel time with mental excercises. 
One Tarterus of a year ahead full of training and working on the objectives.
Great chapter
One this year is done he will be one mighty dragon.
10419335
the gamer is fucking hax in of its self
10420348
Maybe have her work a bit on endurance/vitality; any optimizer will tell you that any points you can spare go to the not-dying stats, and it actually has a logical increase to all other growth by way of being able to train for longer before getting tired.
The real issue with Megumin is that she failed to branch out into other spells, much less spell schools. She has one spell, and she doesn't even have the reserves necessary to cast it without spending all of her HP in addition to MP. Twilight is going for more of the standard D&D wizard: casting stat first, HP second, everything else dumped because your spells and/or friends can act as a substitute.
10420348
Ah, but see, twilight knows more than EXPLOOOOOOSION!!.
I think by the end of this bit, they'll all have a fair bit of xp in bardistry. I'm sure Twi will find some spells to compensate for her lack of other stats, and since we're running a point based system and not a slot based system, she'll be able to use them whenever she needs to.
10419493
So that's where that's from
10423024
Hey I said god of mail fire not mail, completely different domain miss derpy.
You want a pony names fed ex.
Take your time beating him up. He's the fat pony who keeps cheating.
This was a fun chapter! I like how the conversation about changing the lyrics would fit nicely during the bridge.
10419317
Because "Eye Of The Tiger" absolutely slaps, next question
10423165
I don't disagree. It's a good enough song to get away with not rhyming.
10426934
no
10426973
Not gonna ask what kinds I mean?
10426976
no . . . I know what you men (me)]
10426981
Gonna say it anyway. Someone walked on my grave chills and that tingly feeling Pinkie gets all over her body when something awesome has happened or will happen soon to somepony close enough for her to throw a party for them chills.
10426984
and if the pinkie pie clone army was also alicorns too . . .
And the beat goes on
Well dang. Where's my Saturday fix? :D
10433010
https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/916842/quick-break
If you're worried about your fix, try to make sure you're either following me or have this story in a bookshelf that tracks announcements. :V
10433151
Awww.
Anyway. I actually stopped doing that, because with the number of stuff I add and shuffle around,
the devs're going to eventually kill meI get so many notifications it defeats the point. In fact, I'm developing client-side tools to help me with keeping stuff in order (mainly tracking things I know about, and the various states thereof).Also, forgot to put it there.
Also note: it was a lighthearted comment, not a demand. It will never be a demand, and if I ever imply such - shoot me.
Harmony levels are rising.
Peace nuke incoming. 
This is were the awe inspiring stuff starts
10465544
The last peace nuke i saw caused an infestation of happy hug zombies
Provide me with coordinates of ground zero and safe distance, i shall send a containment team
I wonder what the effect limit is? Or can they share exp while in different parts of the Planet?
Gurss that’s a best way to do music