Samudra's Journal

by vren55

Entry 47: Bearded is On

I told Starswirl, after much debate, after making him swear a magically binding oath not to mention or tell, or write down anything I told him.

It… it was nice telling somepony I could trust and yes, Starswirl, despite all his eccentricities, has shown that he is somepony I can trust. He is not the easiest friend to have, but he is good, and has put countless hours into assisting me, without expecting any wealth or great knowledge.

And so he listened with some trepidation and just… sat there, shock still.

By the Creator, he actually sat there staring at me, silent, rare for him.

But Starswirl did believe me, he explained that he was just trying to put the pieces together in his head and he offered me a few suggestions. Though, really they were more off-topic tangents as we discussed the solutions.

Starswirl believes in a strange power called “Harmony,” some kind of higher magical power that frankly, seems rather dubious, since he has no proof that it exists. He thinks that various virtues can concentrate into various elements that can combine together to emit a powerful purifying force that can protect the world against darkness.

Obviously, I wasn’t convinced and he had to admit he only had theories at the moment.

Another option we considered was whether we could help someone ascend to become higher beings. He theorized that surface ponies could actually ascend to become alicorns. Legendary beings that the Great Creator herself forged. He wondered if I could similarly uplift the seaponies and deep ponies to assist me.

Now, that wasn’t a bad idea, but it wouldn’t have helped solve the problem, which was that we couldn’t actually strengthen Yoth-Atal’s seal because of the depth of it. Since even I couldn’t enter that depth. Granted, if I did and could uplift sea ponies and deep ponies, they could provide a magical boost, but I didn’t know how to uplift a sea pony or deep pony.

So we sat there, discussing and brainstorming various ideas. Until we hit upon one so ludicrous that… I’m honestly not sure why I have agreed to this.

He wants to drop the city of Vale Auras onto the Primal God.

Then, he wants to channel a sealing spell directly into the amplifier at the top of the city to reinforce the existing seal on Yoth-Atal.

Diary… here’s some context. Vale Auras was one of the first surface world cities that Empress Panthalussa showed me. It was the largest city of it’s kind hundreds of years ago and it is still pretty big.

What is astounding about the city is that it can move. It’s atop a gigantic disk a few kilometers in diameter. The entire city floats and can be floated from place to place.

Why can Vale Auras move? Well most of the city is essentially a gigantic magic capacitor/amplifier. It draw upon magic from its surroundings and concentrates it in a massive ball of balefire. This is concentrated through the spire in the centre of the city. Unicorns casting spells through the balefire can find the effects of their spells amplified by thousands in magnitude.

Of course, this amplifier can be a bit unwieldy. It’s difficult to direct so much power into small spells or through complicated ones. So the primary purpose of the ball of balefire has always been to help the unicorns move the sun. From what I’ve heard from Empress Panthalussa, years ago, some catastrophic battle between the Creator and the Primal Gods caused the Sun and the Moon to stand still. Since then, unicorns have always needed to keep the sun moving.

Vale Auras was built, years ago, with earth pony, unicorn, pegasi, seapony and deep ponies to keep the sun moving. It allowed a few unicorns to move the sun when once you needed a hundred. It has existed since.

Starswirl has indicated to me though that two new alicorns have ascended, one who can raise the sun, the other who can move the moon. As such, Vale Auras and the unicorns, the Order of the Celestial Hoof, who steward the balefire, have ceased their sun and moon moving. Instead they serve to protect Vale Auras from others. Dark mages who would abuse the amplifier, or monsters who would harness it as a weapon.

The issue is that the Order of the Celestial Hoof is a monastic order. Their members are dying out faster they can replace them. But they aren’t sure what to do with the structure. Destroying it isn’t an option because it would probably release the energies concentrated in the balefire, killing every living thing, not just every sapient thing, every living thing within a kilometers.

Starswirl believes that because of this reason, he can convince the order to help us drop the amplifier into the abyss. There we will fire a powerful sealing spell that will ensure Yoth-Atal never escapes from her prison, while also cutting the amount of influence she can project.

Honestly, now that I write it all out, it isn’t a bad plan. It’s already floating. We have no guarantee of success, but I can’t see any other option.

There is going to be a lot of planning though. The sealing spell has to be very thorough. One misstep and Yoth-Atal may escape.

That’s not to mention guiding Vale Auras into the Abyss in a way that doesn’t smash itself to bits.

Oh by the Creator… this is going to be such a headache.

Comments

[SilverDiamond]

Very nice way to write something retroactively. Keep creating. =)

[ThatNoobPony]

Nice)

[nioniosbbbb]

I look forward to listening how they raised it up again.

[TartarusFire]

Ah the lore Tis the interesting bits that really get me

every living thing within a kilometers

I'm pretty sure kilometers should be singular here instead of plural

[Lato The Dat]

Putting a magic amplifier on an old god sounds like a great idea!

[Just_Me123]

Why can Vale Auras move?

Because it's resting on the back of four great elephants who are themselves standing on the back of a cosmic turtle swimming through the void... oh oops, 'scuse me, random crossover...