1 - Black Swan Event
Lyra Heartstrings - 19th of Megan, 17, 29 AE
Ponyville - The Dream Realm
Thirty Years Ago
Within the ever changing landscape of the Dream Realm sat a singular place of order, Ponyville. The town floated atop a sea of cold magma, riding on the lump of earth which had been taken along with it, like a toy boat a giant’s foal had misplaced.
The ancient town was not meant to be within this immaterial place. It was a place of reality, not of dreams, transported here by the Princess of the Night in an attempt to save the citizens from a gruesome death at the claws of monsters which had engulfed their home.
It didn’t work.
The Princess of the Night knew the Dream realm well and had placed Ponyville in a spot she knew to be safe. Unfortunately, the safe harbor had been flooded with Nightmares. The threat of flesh and blood monsters had been exchanged for a threat of immaterial monsters whose lack of a solid body meant little in terms of their ability to inflict pain, and far worse.
A Nightmare's greatest desire is to locate the person who dreamed it up and become their new reality. Mere minutes after arriving in the Dream Realm, Ponyville was filled with the terrified screams of ponies whose nightmares had found them.
Pure chaos of a kind not seen since Discord’s reign gripped the streets as a thousand different nightmares tormented their creators. Ponies ran from animated dolls, cowered in corners from phantasmal parents who mocked them, ex-lovers prowled the streets, laughing menacingly and calling out for those they once loved like spiders seeking flies.
In the midst of it all, the Knights of the Rampant Moon ran from street to street, leading every unaffected pony they found to the safety of Twilight’s Castle. Octavia Melody, Vinyl Scratch, Lyra Heartstrings, Bonbon, Colgate, and Twinkleshine (aka Meep) had been Princess Luna’s bodyguards for decades, hidden away behind the veil of obscurity. But now, to the citizens of Ponyville, they were true heroes and their last hope.
The six mares worked as hard as they could on their own, each taking a sixth of Ponyville to try and save as many as they could. Not a one of them liked working alone, the ancient mantra ‘Don’t split the party’ echoed worryingly in the backs of their minds as they ran from street to street and building to building.
Some of their fears were mitigated thanks to the enchanted bracelets Luna had quickly made for them. So long as the Knights wore their bracelets, their attacks could affect the Nightmares. A necessary tool, one which Lyra had used countless times in the last hour.
The mint colored mare stopped for a moment, ducking behind a collapsed stone wall to rest atop a tattered black and purple rug. Her chest and barrel heaved as she struggled to regain her breath. It was rare that Lyra got winded anymore.
Most of the Knights had become vampires in an accident involving a game of twister and a victorious cry of ‘Ha! Bite me, Octy!’ A very poor choice of victory cry when playing a friendly game with a recently turned vampire who had just started experiencing her first hunger.
In the many years since that day, Lyra had lived with the benefits of a vampire’s supernatural fitness. As she gasped for breath behind the pile of rubble, she realized that this very well may have been the first time since her transformation that she’d ever been truly exhausted.
Lyra sat back on her haunches and grabbed the messenger gem which hung around her neck with a hoof. The light beige gemstone glowed as she picked it up, signifying it was ready to make a call.
“Knights,” Lyra commanded, waiting a moment for the magic to link their gems before continuing. “Girls? Quick question. Anyone got a mana bar? Or a blood pack? I’m really tired.”
“I do,” Bonbon answered immediately. “But I’m clear on the other side of Ponyville. You should probably run back to the castle. I’m pretty tired myself… I think I’ll head back after clearing this house.”
“I’m not tired yet, but I’m feeling a bit winded,” Octavia replied.
“I’m still fine,” Vinyl said a moment later. “I guess this is just another drawback to you being the furthest away from dad. Sorry, Ly.”
Lyra smirked and shook her head slowly. Vampirism perks became fewer and less potent the more diluted it became. Vinyl was the biological daughter of the first vampire, a near perfect copy of his full power. Octavia was next, turned by Vi on their wedding night. Then Bonbon thanks to the Twister accident, and finally Lyra.
The last possible link in the vampiric family tree before the blood was too diluted to do anything at all.
“Meh, I’m used to it,” Lyra said with a slight smile. “Heading back is probably for the best. I think I can still make it there if I go now. Not sure about that if I keep going.”
The wind flared up, blowing clouds of dust and broken sheetrock around the streets. Lyra frowned, her ears twitching as she swore she heard something in the wind. A low hiss, like escaping gas.
“Go get something to eat,” Vinyl ordered. “Actually, everyone should fall back and get something. I’m low on medical supplies, I imagine you guys are too.”
“Yeah… There’s been a lot of injured ponies,” Colegate said, distress creeping into her every word.
“Woah,” Lyra said with a sharp frown. “Cole, get going now. You clearly need some rest.”
Lyra closed her eyes, doing her best to not think about what could possibly have disturbed Cole like that. Cole had kept calm when the knights had dismantled a foal trafficking ring. Whatever she saw today-
Lyra’s ears swiveled, homing in on the distinct sound of claws tearing into stone. Her heart began to hammer, something big was here.
“What the hay was that?” Octavia asked worriedly.
“It’s near me,” Lyra whispered. “I- I’ll meet you at the castle. Lyra out.”
She dropped her gem, the crystal dimming as it dropped, once more hanging from the end of its chain. Taking a deep breath to steel herself, Lyra timidly peeked out from behind the rubble, only moving a single golden eye out from behind cover to scan the street ahead.
A fallen lamp post. A deep crack in the road where a water pipe had smashed its way out of the ground. The remains of a nightmare-made golem Luna had fought yesterday. Lots of broken glass.
No monster.
Lyra pulled her head back behind and looked behind her, checking the street back the way she had come down.
A flattened building. A small stretch of eerily clean cobblestones. A dark, ash-colored, greasy smear against a wall where she had defeated a Nightmare five minutes ago.
No monster.
Lyra frowned and stood up just enough to begin quietly walking backwards into better cover. The scraping had come from ahead of her position. It wouldn’t be the first nightmare creature to be invisible. She’d just have to sit back and wait it out. The time to strike or flee would come soon.
“Hello, mother,” a voice whispered.
Lyra’s eyes widened in horror. She’d heard that phrase a hundred times in the past few days. The phrase a Nightmare said when it found its creator.
She pulled herself flat against the corner, the rubble wall to her left, the still standing part of the house to her right. Lyra’s eyes began to flick back and forth, searching the area, looking for the dark black and purple nebulous form she knew Nightmares to possess.
She had to kill it before it touches her. She’d seen the things they could do to a pony. She’d been told in no uncertain terms that a Nightmare's curse would persist into reality after they returned.
Worst of all, Lyra only had a few Nightmares. All of them equally horrifying.
“You are good at fighting us, mother,” the voice whispered, half proud, half cautious. “My brothers merged with me so that one of us would have the strength to overwhelm you. But I tricked them. I only needed cunning, and now I have their power as well.”
Lyra’s looked up, checking the sky above her for any sign of the Nightmare.
“Why don’t you come out and test that?” She asked, putting on her best ‘badflank’ voice to hide her exhaustion.
“I am not hiding, mother,” the Nightmare giggled.
Lyra grit her teeth. Each time it had spoken, the voice seemed to come from a different place. She wasn’t going to get a chance to strike first. There was only one thing to do.
Lyra took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down as much as she could. She closed her eyes, focusing all of her attention on the sounds around her, trusting her supernatural hearing to pinpoint the threat as soon as it attacked.
You can do this, Lyra, she thought to herself. As soon as it attacks, full power spellbolt to the face. Just like any of the other’s you’ve fought.
”There’s no need to search for us, mother,” the Nightmare mocked. “You will not hurt us. You’ve already lost. We were… patient.”
Lyra furrowed her brow. The Nightmare was close. Very close. It would attack soon.
“You haven’t cursed me yet,” Lyra countered.
“We want you to see it coming,” it laughed. “Look down.”
Lyra’s heart skipped a beat. The rug! It took the shape of a rug! She realized in horror, jumping up as high as she could, twisting mid-air to fire a bright gold arcane blast into the hideous shag rug.
The moment her blast connected, the rubble wall melted into a nebulous black and purple fog. Lyra didn’t have time to curse before the Nightmare pounced, grabbing her around the waist and sinking into her body.
Lyra screamed, not in pain, but in terror as flashes of the Nightmare raced through her mind as its alien magic warped reality itself, twisting the world into a waking version of itself.
”I don’t love you anymore, Lyra.” Bonbon said between sobs.
Lyra hit the ground, not even bothering to land on her hooves. “N-no! Please! Any other one than that!” she begged.
Lyra ran from person to person. Begging for their help, “She’s cursed! Please! I can’t break it myself.”
“There’s nothing I can do.”
“She says she doesn't want to change back, that she’s happier this way. Frankly, Lyra, I can’t see any curse here. Sometimes ponies orientations change. I won't help, it’s immoral to change somepony like that.”
“I-I don’t understand. That spell should have returned her to normal. That’s not scientifically possible!”
Lyra grit her teeth and twisted her head to point her horn at the Nightmare. Its ethereal form was rapidly fading to nothing as it converted itself into the powerful reality-warping curse. Her horn blazed as she fired a half dozen bolts of magic into the Nightmare. A half dozen bolts which passed harmlessly through it’s mostly decomposed body.
”L-look… I’m sorry. I just don’t like mare’s anymore, okay? We can still be friends,” Bonbon said, a smile on her lips.
“She’s forever lost to you, mother,” the last dregs of the Nightmare said happily as it faded away, finishing its conversion into a curse.
Lyra Heartstrings - 13th of Midsummer, 29 AE
Lyra’s Apartment, Deck 13, USS Phoenix - Phoenix
Present Day - 30 Years Later
My eyes snapped open as I sat bolt upright, cold sweat dripping off my body. It took me a few moments to understand that I was in my bedroom, rather than laying down in the streets of Ponyville sobbing.
I hadn’t had that particular nightmare in years. Luna had been keeping a special eye on me for a long time now. Not just for my mental health, but because she was afraid of what I was doing. She said she wouldn’t stop me, but I knew that she would, if things got bad.
I took a deep breath to clear my head and looked over at the nightstand on the left side of my bed and smiled. The quartz crystal held within the spider-web-like arrangement of carefully placed enchanted wires glowed brightly. I’d done it!
After thirty long years, I’d finally made real progress!
I threw off the covers and slipped out of bed, immediately plucking the crystal out of the dream catcher I’d made with my telekinesis. The moment my magic’s aura touched the Crystal, I could feel it.
There was no mistaking the alien feel of Dream Magic. Even a pony who had never seen the stuff before would be able to tell this wasn’t the usual Light Magic or even Dark Magic.
It felt, well, alien. Other. Like a thing meant not to be.
I flicked my bedroom light on with a hoof and held the crystal up so the light would shine through it. I could see the flecks of black and purple energy dancing around inside the crystal, filling the tiny intricately engraved arcane runes.
“Ha! Won't be having you again, jerk!” I laughed, mocking the trapped nightmare before setting the crystal down on my nightstand.
I never pictured myself as a wizard of any kind. I’d always been more of a Jill-of-all-Trades. I liked to learn lots of things. Focusing on one thing really hadn’t been who I was. But I guess that had been a simple lack of motivation.
I’d gone to everyone I knew for help to break the curse. Just like the nightmare had me doing every time I’d dreamed it. I had no choice, I had to. It’s the way the curse made reality be.
I’d known none of them could help. I knew how this nightmare went. It was the one I’d had the most after all.
I’d had some hope that Sky could help me in the beginning. He had some sort of tech that made him immune to mind-affecting spells after all. But no. He tried, he did come up with lots of ideas, we even tried a few, but they all failed.
I know why now of course. Dream Magic isn’t a traditional spell. It doesn't just make something happen when physics says it shouldn’t. No, Dream Magic takes something and makes it into a fact, a constant.
No one can help me free Bonbon, it was now a Scientific Law. Most ponies can’t even try to help thanks to mental compulsions, and those who can help thanks to having a strong will or protection, well… They simply fail when they try.
It’s no wonder Celestia not only outlawed Dream Magic early in her reign, but also ordered all information on the ancient art purged. Given enough power, a wizard specializing in Dream Magic could erase someone from time, making them never exist in the first place, and all kinds of other illogical, impossible nonsense.
The art allowed you to make dreams real. That’s dangerous.
Dangerous enough for almost every nation to ban its use. Which had made it hard to learn myself. Even in the limited capacity I wanted to know.
I wasn't insane. I wasn't going to rediscover how to make ancient WMDs and write that information down. Someone would inevitably steal my notes and hurt people. I just needed to know how to find, extract, and kill a nightmare.
Nothing about that nightmare had said I couldn’t personally find a way to end it. I’d spent the last three decades hunting down exceedingly rare books, scraps of ancient artifacts, anything that survived the purges four thousand years ago.
That’s why I had moved from Ponyville to the Emerald Changeling’s hive. The Citystate of Phoenix didn’t ban the study of Dream Magic, just its use. I could keep my library and collection here. Back in Equestria, well… I worked for Luna. She knew I had this stuff. She would have had to come over and burn it.
Besides, I hadn’t been able to live with Bonbon as a roommate… I had to move out anyways.
I gave the glowing crystal on my nightstand another look, savouring my accomplishment.
Few knew that dreaming created a living entity within the Dream Realm. A sapient manifestation of that exact dream. Every time you dreamed of something you had dreamed before, that’s the dream entity creeping back into your mind to feed on your emotions and become stronger. Sometimes, by accident or through forbidden magic, those dreams can slip into reality and do the one thing they want to do, become real events, things, or people.
My dream catcher had made a small hole through which one could slip. The crystal was a prison. That Nightmare was now trapped inside a slightly modified mana gem, unable to manifest itself or return to the realm from whence it came. As long as it was inside the crystal, I would never have that nightmare again.
Or so the rotting tome I’d read two weeks ago had claimed.
It was time to see if part two of my plan would work.
I trotted across the room, resisting the urge to do a little happy dance. While I had tried many other things out during the last three decades, this was the first time something had actually worked!
Many books and scrolls I’d recovered were incomplete, damaged, or just total horseapples. Which makes perfect sense. They were all at least four thousand years old, or copies of those ancient records. I’d managed to cast a few Dream Magic spells before, but anything more advanced than basic identification, monitoring, warding, and spells to conjure simple small objects had never worked.
“I’ll bet you never thought this would happen to you, huh?” I asked the trapped nightmare as I reached my workbench and switched on the DM/TC converter I’d built for this test.
I’d have to give Metal Head a call after this if it worked and thank her for the electrical engineering lessons. Getting indirect help from others was the one loophole I’d found in the curse. So long as I hadn’t asked them for help before, I could indirectly get help, as long as they didn’t know what I was getting it for.
Unfortunately, I’d asked all the big guns before figuring that out. At least Sky had plenty of ponies in his crew who were willing to teach me the odd skill or two!
Realizing that I was being a bit scatterbrained thanks to all the excitement, I stopped and took a few calming breaths. It was go time. I couldn’t screw this up.
If I screwed this up, I would be releasing a Nightmare into the waking world. The exact thing banning Dream Magic had been meant to prevent. I wasn’t being stupid, I’d taken all the precautions. As far as I could tell, the only reason things were dangerous back then was idiot wizards were hoarding the knowledge of the safety measures for themselves.
“Okay,” I said to myself as I slotted a charged mana gem into a slot on a ward generator I’d made.
The generator flashed pink, then projected an elaborate arcane circle onto the wood floor so the circle didn’t have the generator inside it. The circle brightened as the ward began to protect the area. I picked up the converter and placed it inside the warded bubble on the floor.
Next, I fed some of my own magic into the hexagrammic wards I’d covered my apartment walls, floor, and ceiling with. The wards began to glow a light pink as well, signifying everything was active.
If the Nightmare broke free of the crystal while I was using it, it would be trapped inside the warded bubble. If it broke the ward the generator contained, it would be trapped within my apartment.
I walked over to my nightstand and opened up the drawer. The silver bracelet Luna had enchanted for me all those years ago glittered as I took it out and put it on. I’d had to recharge it a few times over the years, but a tool which let me fight dream creatures was definitely something I needed on hoof at all times.
Especially since the enchantment was simple enough to copy. Which reminded me…
I made sure that the simple silver circlet was secure around my ankle, and then stepped over to my bedroom’s intercom, and pressed the button.
“Lyra to security: The dreamcatcher worked. I’m about to proceed with phase two of the experiment. Do you have marines standing by just in case?” I asked hopefully.
“Security here,” a female changeling replied immediately. “We’ve been on duty for the last three hours. We’re ready to move in if needed.”
“Good, I’ll keep you posted,” I said as I let go of the intercom button.
It took me a month to get permission to try this experiment. If it went off without a hitch, Captain Skritt would probably let me do anything else I wanted. As long as I submitted a report in advance that showed the safety precautions.
Taking a deep breath, I picked the trap crystal up with my magic, turned around to face the converter, and slotted the crystal into the socket on the left side.
The moment the crystal clicked into place, I cast three quick spells. Each one did the same thing, but in a different way, analyzed the Dream Magic and other forms of magic in the area.
I projected the spell’s data onto three different illusionary screens in front of me so I wouldn’t mix them up by keeping all of that information in my head. With one last nervous breath, I took note of the initial levels of magical energy and then flipped the small switch atop the converter.
The gold box hummed quietly, the vents in its sides almost immediately beginning to spit out waves of heat as the techno-arcane machine chugged away. I glanced up at the screens. The converter was working!
The nightmare's power was dropping. Not very fast, but it was noticeably going down. Reaching over to my desk with my magic, I picked up a pen and notebook and quickly jotted down the data points. I’d have to make this thing more efficient later on!
I kept watching, recording, and waiting for the inevitable failure as the crystal was slowly drained of energy. Then, after what felt like an eternity, the converter chirped then clicked off.
I glanced at each of the three screens. The crystal was empty. Not a scrap of Dream Magic left within the warded area. No leakage into the environment. The total amount of energy remained the same inside the bubble.
I’d done it. I’d deleted a nightmare! I would never have that nightmare again. It was dead. Dead and converted straight into something actually useful!
The converter hissed, releasing one final wave of heat as the side panel clicked open, revealing a glowing blue mana gem. If everything had gone correctly, that gem would hold about fifty-five percent of the captured dreams power. The rest having been wasted as heat by the conversion process.
I retrieved the charged crystal with my magic, gently plucking it out of the warded bubble, which would need to stay up for a few hours so the ward’s magic could cool off the superheated pocket of air the converter had made as a byproduct.
I carefully set the gemstone down on my desk. I’d ordered a specially made high capacity mana gem for this, but it still looked to be overcharged, even though I'd only gotten around forty percent of the energy I'd expected. Either I got ripped off when I bought this gem, or even if the converter was less efficient than I’d predicted, Nightmares held more power than I'd thought.
As soon as I was sure the gem wasn’t about to explode, I stepped back over to my bedroom’s intercom and pressed it again.
“Lyra to security: Mission successful. Security can stand down,” I reported proudly.
“Wait, you actually did it?” The security officer asked in surprise, something falling to the ground with a thunk.
“Yep! Not a scrap of it left. It’s all heat and thaumaturgic current. I’m going to start studying it’s arcane makeup now. Thanks for letting me do this,” I said with a smile.
I almost thought that the curse would have prevented them from allowing me to perform the experiment. But, then again, the nightmare didn’t say that I couldn’t fix it myself. I just hadn’t had anything close to the skill necessary until now.
“Okay, Lyra,” I said to myself, needing someone to talk to before I exploded with excitement. “You’ve proven the book’s hypothesis to be true. A nightmare can be captured so long as it hasn’t manifested in the real world yet, and a captured nightmare can be converted into raw magic.
“The question now is ‘Can you capture a nightmare after it’s manifested’?”
I pulled my chair out from my desk and sat down. Today was my day off. Luna didn’t need me to do anything, I could just focus on studying the arcane signature of Dream Magic. If I wanted to find a way to take a nightmare that had already done its thing, and pull it out of reality, I’d have to be able to detect how it was manipulating reality.
That’s a thing it had to do with magic. Because that’s what magic is. The force that tells reality how to behave. Hence, why I’d converted a nightmare into magical energy.
I picked the charged gemstone up and turned it over, inspecting it for cracks, or occlusions. The gem had been perfectly clear and flawless before I charged it. It looked a little cloudy now, but it didn’t seem unstable, just overcharged. I’d want to bleed some of that energy off soon.
But before that, I had to take an initial reading to make sure the bleed off didn’t change anything.
I closed my eyes to focus on an identify spell, and paused. I had said I would tell Metal Head if this worked. I should take care of that real quick.
I set the gem down and slid my communicator across the desk and started to punch in her’s number.
No one who lived in Phoenix used messenger gems. I can’t say I blame them, Phoenix was built inside the wreck of an ancient starship the Emerald Changelings had found in the ‘Celestia was young’ days. Their ancestors, and the ancestors of the ponies, zebras, griffons, and dragons who lived here with them, had spent thousands of years reverse engineering the ship’s technology.
At present, they’d worked out everything the ship turned underground city had to teach them. And we're making improvements to it. Naturally, Phoenicians prefer tech-based solutions to magic ones. Sometimes even when magic was more convenient. It’s a culture thing.
My comm buzzed for several minutes before chirping as Metal picked up.
“Hello?” The sleepy Earth Pony mare mumbled.
“Sorry for waking you up, CC,” I said greeting her with her prefered nickname. “It’s Lyra. That project I was doing, it worked! Thanks for the lessons! I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Oh, well that’s good,” CC yawned. “Glad things worked out for you. I’m going back to bed, okay?”
I blushed lightly. “Sure thing. Sorry for waking you up,” I said with a sheepish grin.
“It’s fine,” CC said, the comm clicking as she hung up.
Right, now back to work!
I pushed my comm away, just in case someone called me and the signal interfered with my spells, set the charged gem down on my desk, and cast my best identify spell.
My ears drooped as a wave of discouragement washed over me. “Oh, crapbaskets,” I grumbled.
The gem’s arcane signature was massively complex, and I was no Twilight Sparkle. “This is going to take all day,” I moaned, rubbing my temples with my hooves.
I spent hours recording everything I could and taking more measurements. Literally. Hours.
I’d expected things to be complicated. The scary part was that wasn’t the problem. The problem was the arcane signature was incomplete.
I checked the wards a dozen times. Read back through the recordings I’d taken while converting the Dream Magic to Thaumaturgic Current. Checked the gem itself five times, and even did a full diagnostic on the converter.
Everything had worked as intended. No part of the Nightmare had escaped. The energy loss from heat only diminished the total amount of energy, it hadn’t messed with the energy’s signature. The signature present in the mana gem was exactly what Dream Magic’s arcane signature should be.
Which meant I had made a discovery. Dream Magic was a corrupted version of something else.
I leaned back in my chair, six different pages of notes held in my magic’s grip in front of me, collectively holding the single scariest thing I’d ever read in my life.
“How can this be a corruption?” I asked myself, eyes flicking around the pages, searching for any pattern which would shed light on this terrifying discovery.
If Dream Magic was a version of something else, and a lesser version at that… What in Tartarus could it be?! Discord’s magic? No, it couldn’t be because Discord had failed to fix Bonbon, so Dream Magic couldn’t be related to his magic.
“It’s not dark magic,” I mumbled as I puzzled through things.
Light and Dark magic were two sides of the same coin. Light magic responded to positive emotions, Dark magic responded to negative emotions. Well, usually. Gross oversimplification aside, Dream Magic couldn’t be a member of the Light-Dark family.
If I added in the standard spell matrix for either of those kinds of magic, it would just make random noise. I’d have to work backward from Dream Magic. Puzzle out what it would be if I untwisted it.
There were lots of different families of magic. Each with their own unique way of casting, since that’s what a family of magic was. A way to think about magic so as to let your brain more easily think through your spells. Usually with some sort of unique perk for using magic that way, like how Light Magic made spells much easier to make exactly the same every time.
I knew Light and a bit of Dark. But other nations used different means altogether. Prance was big into using Elemental magic. A good number of ponies in Neighpone used Spirit Magic. Whatever un-corrupted signature I got out of Dream Magic, I’d be able to find its match easily enough.
And finding out what form of magic Dream Magic was based on would be a HUGE step forward. Especially if it was a form which wasn’t illegal in most countries.
After all, the Dream Realm wasn’t a natural place. Every book I had ever found which discussed its lore agreed that the Dream Realm had been created by a large group of wizards in the Prehistoric Era to prevent wizards from casting spells in their sleep and, you know, blowing up a town or summoning monsters.
Dream Magic, therefore, had to be based on SOMETHING. If I could find that something, I could probably devise a way to break this curse much more easily than how I currently planned to.
I got lost in my work. Hours flew by, maybe even the whole day. I had no way to be certain. This was a puzzle I needed to crack. Unfortunately, I wasn’t making any progress.
Though I had devised a very simple spell which allowed me to just look at sources of magic and see the arcane signature. I already knew one of course, but this version worked with this crazy magic. Which was more than a little helpful when trying to understand a pile of notes and keep an image in my brain the whole time.
Again, even after thirty years of studying Wizardry, I was no Twilight Sparkle. Training alone will never overtake training and talent.
I’d just taken a moment to pull back from my work and realize that I had made a little bit of progress by getting a single part of the matrix unscrambled when the intercom chimed.
Somepony was at the door.
“Please don’t be security…” I moaned, quickly setting everything down in a way which would make it easy for me to pick stuff back up when I could get back to it.
I didn't have a very large apartment, which made the trip from my bedroom to the front door very short. All I had to do was walk around the kitchen table and cross my living room to the sliding door.
The apartment doors in Phoenix have a really cool feature where if you press a button near the door, they turn transparent like a one-way mirror so you can see who's there. Unfortunately, as per usual, I only remembered that after I pressed the door release.
The door opened to reveal the large steel-walled park-like hallway outside, along with Vinyl, and one of the two new recruits to the Knights of the Rampant Moon, Orange Sherbert.
Sherbert was Scootaloo and Lily’s filly. Apparently, she’d been wanting to join us for years, but kinda had assumed she wouldn’t pass muster unless she literally went to Neighpone to become a ninja.
Silly filly, your parents, and aunts could have trained you here.
Still, she’d actually finished training at a ninja academy! Which probably explained why she always wore the black karate gi with her school’s name embroidered on the back in Kanji. Even though black is not really a stealth color.
So, well, yeah! That was cool an-
I blinked. My aura detection spell was still active. Vinyl had a super weird aura, was she using any enchanted gear or-
No. No, I just hadn’t seen this part so her aura before! It didn’t show up in the normal Light magic spectrum.
Huh. Weird. That must be the magic her parents used to bring her to life since vampires can only have stillborn foals. But… What is it? It wasn’t necromancy.
Vi raised an eyebrow at me. “Uh, Lyra, are you okay? You’ve been standing there silently for about… A minute?” She asked looking over at Sherbert.
The tall pale orange mare nodded in agreement. “At least, yeah,” she said with a little grin.
Whoops!
I shook my head and gave them an embarrassed smile. “Oh! Um, sorry. I’ve been working all day. Lots of analysis. Had a breakthrough!” I babbled happily before stepping aside. “Come on in.”
Vi tipped her head forward, looking at me over the top of her glasses. “Wait, really?” She asked in surprise before trotting inside, Sherbert following close behind, her silken gi making a cool swishy sound, so quietly that if I weren't a vampire I wouldn't have heard a thing.
Muahahaha! Vamp beats ninja! Well, except for when Sherbert was actually trying to sneak about... How the heck did she move that quietly?
I hit the door close button and then flopped down on one of my two couches. I’d set up my living room for tabletop games. We didn’t play here too much, but I liked the two couch and a game table set up. It was good for just sitting and talking too.
“Yeah!” I said with a proud, but tired smile. “I’ve got half the theory handled. I CAN capture a nightmare and destroy it by converting it into arcane energy. All I need to do now is see if I can reverse the process they use to become a living curse to turn it back into a Nightmare. Which I probably can do.
“I found a ritual spell for forging what the author called an ‘Aether Crystal’, which would be the tool I’d need to do that kind of thing. But you know how Dream Magic lore is, most of its horseapples. Even if the book claims to be a copy of Mage Meadowbrook's work.”
Vi nodded and took a seat across from me. Sherbert meanwhile just stood awkwardly near the table. Unsure of what to do.
Poor mare… She’d had less than a month to get used to how the Knights worked. And most of her time had been spent getting her own house for her and her herd. Which wasn’t easy since her wife Kazumi was well… Disabled. And not in a physical way.
I frowned and looked over at the new mare. “Hey, Sherbert? How’s Kaz doing? She feel okay in your new place?” I asked hoping to pull her into the conversation.
Sherbert nodded once. “Yeah… She’s comfortable enough with her room to feel safe moving around in it. Just that one room so far though,” she said with a sad sigh.
I winced. Ouch. I thought showing concern for her family would be an icebreaker… Nope!
“That’s too ba-” I said stopping cold when I noticed something very odd.
Sherbert had the same odd bits to her aura as Vinyl. Nowhere near as many. Vi was basically all whatever that was with a dash of Light magic and a splash of unicorn. Sherbert had only a trace amount.
The more I looked at the odd magical signatures, the more they creeped me out. The energy looked… Well, like a hole in reality. A nothing that was a something.
I frowned and stood up slowly.
“Huh… Hey, Girls? Did you guys do anything with magic on the way over?” I asked looking back and forth between the two of them.
Vi shook her head no. “Nah, we just came over. Didn’t even teleport magically, we used Sky’s pad. Wanted to see if you wanted to go out for dinner with us,” Vi said with a grin, which rapidly faded into a frown. “Wait, why do you ask?”
Sherbert nodded a worried look on her own face. “Yeah, is something wrong?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted honestly, flicking my tail as I stepped closer to Sherbert to look at one of the anomalies more closely. “I forgot to turn off a new aura sight spell I made and… You guys have bits I’ve never seen before. Do I have them too? Is this just some layer that’s normally hidden?”
I turned around looking into the large mirror I had hanging on my living room wall to inspect my reflection.
Nope. I didn’t have them.
“Nope… What the hay?” I asked myself, frowning sharply.
Then it clicked.
“OH!” I exclaimed before anypony could say anything. “I must be seeing the leftovers of Biomancy! Sherbert, your dad did some work on you, and Vinyl was stillborn, but her parents somehow breathed life into her. Had to be biomancy! That would explain the different amounts.”
Sherbert blinked in surprise and turned around to look Vi in her eyes. “Wait, you were!?” She asked in shock, her tail standing up in alarm.
Vinyl winced, her ears falling slightly. “Thanks for bringing that up in front of the new mare, Ly,” she grumbled. “Yeah, Sherb. I was. Vampires can get pregnant but we can’t give birth to a live foal. Just won't happen.
“Uh, I don’t know exactly how my parents raised me. So, I can’t tell you if your biomancy theory is right or not, Lyra. Mom does know a little bit of it, but I don't think she can raise the dead with it.”
I tilted my head slightly. “Wait, you… You don’t know?”
Vi shook her head. “Nah, they refuse to tell anypony. Even Celestia. She and I think they used necromancy to do it, but she refuses to investigate or punish them since she knew they were trying to have a foal for like three thousand years and were desperate.”
Sherbert finally took a seat, sitting on the couch next to Vi. She gave Vinyl a sympathetic look. “That sucks… But like, at least they have you now. Right?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Sorry Vi, my bad. I know you hate that being brought up. Just… Weird things are kinda my thing. I got excited.”
Vi nodded twice and gave me a dismissive hoof wave to let me know it was okay. “Yep. Don’t worry it’s fine. Sherbert’s on the team now. She’d have to learn sooner or later. Especially if we go to my dad’s for a holiday or something. Sooo… Back to the cool stuff. What nightmare did you capture? Is it like, Nightmare Moon, or-”
I held up a hoof for her to stop immediately. “No no no! Don’t get any ideas like that!" I insisted. "Nightmare Moon was an impossibly powerful nightmare that had already manifested itself as a part of reality. All I can do right now is capture the wimpy ones when they are still just living dreams, and convert them into magic.
“It’s not a very good conversion either. I get like forty-three percent of the energy I need. But it’s still pretty useful! This method was apparently used by ancient priests to gain the power needed for huge ritual spells without, you know, sacrificing a hundred ponies to use their souls, or having a thousand unicorns combine their magic and risk mana burnout.”
Vi hummed thoughtfully, one brow arching in that ‘Group Leader Mode Active’ expression. “So you’re saying that your wizard phase has paid off in the form of giving us a source for a LOT of mana?”
I nodded slowly. “Well, yes and no,” I agreed hesitantly. “I’m not very good at it yet. In another decade I could probably start getting a lot of energy this way but right now- Oh! How about I just show you the gem I charged this morning?”
Vi nodded once and flashed me a smile. “Sure thing! Should give me an idea of what you can do.”
I nodded and got up, trotting into my bedroom for just long enough to pluck the charged gemstone off my desk with my magic. As I pulled the gem towards me, I couldn’t help but give its aura another look in the hopes that the short break from looking at it would give me some sort of insight into its makeup.
Nothing doing.
“Dang it,” I muttered as I turned around and walked back into the living room.
“Okay, guys, here it is,” I said looking at Vinyl so I could levitate the gemstone over to her.
I held out the gem. The gem’s aura floated in my vision, right next to Vinyl’s. A side by side comparison.
That’s all my brain needed. With those two pictures, the answer was obvious. I could see how everything fit together logically.
I dropped the gem in complete shock, my eyes widening as my brain zoomed through a million different possibilities at once.
“WOAH!” Vi yelped, her own eyes widening as she caught the gem with her magic before it could hit the floor. “Lyra, what were you thinking!? This gem is way overcharged it could have ex- Uh… Lyra?”
Sherbert gave me a worried look. “What’s wrong? Are you sick? Do we need to call a doctor?” She asked, starting to stand up.
I shook my head to clear it.
The strange magic flowing through Vi. It was the basis for Dream Magic! Whatever that weird, hole in the world magic was, it was the core Dream Magic had been forged with.
“Y-y-your aura!” I stammered, my eyes flicking over to Sherbert. “Yours too! They contain- Sherbert! What forms of magic do you know?”
Sherbert frowned at my demand. “Um, I had a bit of an accident. I don't have unicorn magic anymore. Just the stuff my implanted gems gave me, and my special talent,” she answered.
I nodded. “Your talent is a temporary physical attribute boost, right?” I asked
Sherbert nodded. “Mhm.”
“And your gems let you teleport and shapeshift, right?” I drilled.
She nodded again. “Yep. That’s it.”
“Yeah, I can see all of that,” I confirmed. “And something else. Little flecks that are like… Holes in space. But not holes. There’s a thing there. It’s hard to describe. What’s that?”
Sherbert’s already pale face grew even paler.
“I can’t tell you!” She yelped in panic, her ears and tail standing up straight.
Vi and I gave each other a suspicious look before turning back to look at Sherbert.
“Why not?” Vi asked for me, getting up off the couch, looking at Sherbert suspiciously over the rim of her glasses.
“Because I promised Discord that I wouldn’t talk about it,” Sherbert replied.
VI’s horn flashed blue as she cast a quick lie detector spell. “Can you say that again?” Vi asked.
Sherbert nodded nervously. “I’m not lying. I really did promise Discord that I absolutely wouldn’t talk about it with people who didn’t already know about it. I’m sorry, but it’s super, super important that I don't talk about it. He made that very clear,” Sherbert insisted.
I looked over at Vi, she nodded and peeked over her glasses at me, canceling her detection spell. “She’s telling the truth,” Vi confirmed.
“Well,” I said with a slow nod. “In that case, since I doubt Discord will tell me… I think I need to have a chat with your parents, Vi. Because of the signatures in your auras? They match up with what Dream Magic would be if it weren't… Corrupted.”
Vinyl’s eyes widened in surprise. “I- um… Yeah. Yeah, let’s go do that. Right now,” she said decisively.
I frowned. “Vi… I have to go on my own. I can’t get help with this, remember?” I prompted.
Vi shook her head. “You have no chance of them telling you, Lyra. I mean, I know you found your loophole, and as long as you didn’t tell them that you wanted to know because it would help you, blah blah blah. But the thing is, they WON'T tell you.
“I’ve mentioned how they won't tell CELESTIA of all ponies how they raised me. I’m the only pony that even has a prayer of getting that info out of them. So come on, let's go.”
“L-let’s go?” I stammered, eats falling back in shock.
Vi nodded. “Yeah. We’ll port over right now. This is kinda important. I need to know what the hay I am if I’m full of some weird Dream Magic stuff that Sherb can’t talk about because Discord says it’s dangerous!” Vi said with a worried quaver in her voice.
“B-b-but… But you couldn’t help me before!” I protested, the world exploding around me as the impossible continued to happen. “It’s a law! If someone says they can’t help, that won't ever change. If they say they can, they always fail! You said you couldn’t help me when I asked you decades ago!”
Vi nodded. “Yeah, because I had no idea how I could possibly help you if Luna couldn’t. But now I know a way to help you, come on. Let’s go! This is important to me too,” she insisted.
“But… But… But you haven't offered help in thirty years!” I protested. “If you actually could, why haven’t you sooner!?”
“I honestly had no clue of anything I could have done to help you!” Vi rebutted. “You’re rebuilding a whole system of magic from scratch and I’m not a wizard, I’m a warrior! I don’t know the first thing about curses.”
Sherbert frowned sharply. “Wait, I know you’re cursed but no one can help you with that curse? I don’t remember hearing about that part,” she asked.
This would be the second time we’d talked about this infront of her. I guess she just didn’t pick up on the details. Or we hadn’t explained them well since we were all used to everyone knowing.
I nodded. “Yes! That’s what made the nightmare so horrible. That’s why Vinyl suddenly being able to help me is impossible. Part of the curse prevents help from being offered, or successful.”
Sherbert nodded. “Okay. I have a theory… I can’t tell you the details, but please ask me to do something to help you with this. Right now.”
My head tilted in confusion, seemingly of its own accord.
“Um… Okay? Would you please look at the notes on my desk and tell me if you see anything in them that’s related to the way Dream Magic correlates to your… Mystery thing?” I asked slowly.
“Sure,” Sherbert answered, looking around my apartment. “Which one is your workroom?”
I pointed at my bedroom door. “That one.”
“Thanks,” Sherbert answered, trotting off into my room rather quickly.
Vi and I waited quietly for a few minutes. I couldn’t say a word. My brain was too busy trying to comprehend how Vi could just… Ignore the curse’s effects. It made zero sense!
Vi was probably too panicked about what her parents did to her to talk. I mean, I would be. When Discord demands something is to be kept under wraps…
Sherbert cleared her throat as she came out of my room. “Well, I can’t tell you anything,” she said firmly.
I nodded, sighing in relief as normality was partially restored. “Right. You failed. Like the curse makes you do if you can agree to help.”
She shook her head, making her short mane swish. “No! I can see what it is, kinda. I’m not a wizard, but I can see the thing. I can’t tell you because I promised Discord I wouldn’t talk about it. But I did see the relationship.”
I blinked once, my brain coming to a crashing halt.
“W-what?” I demanded ears flicking randomly in confusion.
Sherbert frowned, struggling. “I- I Pinkie Promised, okay? But um, I think that it’s okay if I let you know that anypony with the aura bits like Vinyl and I have can probably ignore the effects of Dream Magic, or at least a Nightmare's curse. Sooo uh… We can help you!”
“Ooookay!” Vi said, her voice strained with worry. “Lyra, my folks, place, right now!”
This mystery was getting resolved TODAY. Especially since to pull off plan A… I actually did need help.
I nodded in agreement. “Oh yeah! Your folk's place, right now!”
Grabbing my saddlebags off the rack with my magic, I raced out the door towards this deck’s teleport station, Vinyl, and Sherbert hot on my tail.
Today was the start of something big. I could feel it.
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It's time, for a N-N-N-N... NNNNNNNNew Story!
Interesting though why hasn't Discord noticed that bit of Vi's aura..
NEW STORY YEA
8438010 She's too low power for them to notice without intentionaly scanning her for voidstuff specificly. Also the entity which raised her for her parents knows how to stealth...
8438013 Logical which would scare Discord but till recently he had no reason to look.
Ohhhhh Meep! Thank you for this beutiful eye candy of a story!
Oh near the end she lowers her eats.
This.. so many questions but I don't want spoilers.
8438053 Lowers... her... eats?
>> click on feed, idly hoping there's new Meep buried in there somewhere
>> new Meep story on top of feed
Well, day's off to a good start!
Oh shit, they're discovering voidstuff. That's..really bad. Really, really bad.
Unless they can harness it somehow 🤔
New story time 38.media.tumblr.com/52d3138f3a98bfc9ebbbbb2eb2c66ed7/tumblr_nq86em2toB1ra23i2o1_500.gif
And, as usual, this hype train has no brakes. New magics? Secret-y secrets? Potential for a massive amount of clean, renewable power? What's not to love?
Oh, and a potential solution to Lyra's problem. I guess that's also a thing.
So dreams are sort of like spells. Begin forming in the dream realm until they can be activated and made manifest in reality. Seems we just need a damned good dispel ability, or a disenchanter. The likes of which the world has never known.
OH MY GOD SEQUEL, WE MUST GET IT FEATURED NAOW!!!1
This is kind of an odd thing to write here, considering this bit of exposition from earlier:
You gave focus on the banning of dream magic as being the danger a user could effectively wield to wipe someone from existence, rather than the nightmares themselves. It just seems inconsistent. Now, Lyra may not know or think this, but this seemed to just be a bit of establishing exposition that leaned towards the banning as being the former, yet Lyra comments that it was nightmares that were the reason why dream magic was banned.
Using training twice here is kinda awkward. I know what you're saying here, but it feels like the second training takes emphasis from talent. A different word here might be able to balance it out.
Anyway, interesting start, not much more to say. The dream magic angle is looking to be a journey to unravel, and I'm looking forward to it.
I will recommend more exploration on Lyra's pain. This is her motivation for the devoting so much time and effort to this, yet in this chapter it's barely established or explored. Yeah, it's there, but to me it's a lot like saying "The hero is on a quest to slay the evil overlord because said overlord murdered his parents in cold blood!". Yeah, it gets the point across, but I feel functionally nothing for the hero. Here, I feel more for Lyra's frustration with trying to unravel the magic than I do for her utterly loosing her relationship with Bon Bon.
YES SEQUEL
,
That bit right there seems like the real loophole.
Hmn. Given the story title, is dream magic another avenue the void is using to leak into the universe?
Okay, seems that way, and apparently it's what Vinyl's parents used to successfully have her, too.
Probably way bigger than just fixing Lyra’s curse given the scope of what they just figured out.
8438409
There can be multiple reasons a thing was done :P Also this is a first person perspective, these are her thoughts. Do you think in a narrativly concise and precise manner? Does anyone?
Glad you're enjoying things :3
YOu'll get that :P The job of the first chapter is to set up a story. The job of subsequent chapters is to do the detail work. Lyra didn't realy ahve much of a reason to think about her own plans in detail here, but next chapter, since she's found people who can help her, that's when she'd have the time, opportunity, and necessity to think about and discuss her plan.
Again, this is a first person narrative. I don't pause every couples hours to think "Gee, I realy hope those car parts my friend is sending me get here soon. I need to repair that van's door so I can drive it this winter. Heck, I need the door fixed so I can get new plates for it and get it registered to me. I had better remember to get a K stamp on the plates while I'm there so I dont need to register it again. I also can't forget to buy Velcro strips and insulation to make panels to cover the rear windows up so it's not super cold in there during the winter."
No. I think about whatever I'm doing at the moment, and then remember my plans for my crappy van if the subject comes up.
8438599 You're on the right track, DJ :3
8439058
I suppose I'm still in short story mode, where definite sympathetic character traits and plot arcs have to be established in about 5-6 thousand words or so.
Anyway, I'm liking the look of this one.
8439325 Heh, yeah. Novels are a different format.
Congrats on the feature lol
Well, it looks like Sherbet CAN tell them.
She promised Discord not to talk about it with anybody who doesn't know. Lyra can see voidstuff contamination, which definitely counts.
She should still run that by Discord, but "Hey I found a person who can see voidstuff and is investigating a potentially massive breach, and a person who is practically made of the stuff, so even they don' know what voidstuff is can I tell them what they need to know so we can fix this?" seems like a pretty damn strong argument.
8439710 Yes, that's what she SHOULD do. But remember that Sherbert is a bit of a derp. Her assumption is that Discords statement is litteral, and that she cant tell them anything until they know what it is, even though Discord absolutely would want to know that Lyra discovered the stuff and would want Sherbert to say "This stuff is very dangerous. Please stop and talk to Discord right now." XD
8439710
Not necessarily. Sherbet is partially made of the stuff now, and VI's life was given by it. They are both void touched. Lyra, on the other hand, is for said purpose a Normal. She has no protection beyond a strong mind & magic, for all the fat load of nearly nothing those give against the void. At most she can hope that being altered by the nightmare brings her that little closer and helps staving of the madness.
So, the magic of fantasy come true it's a corrupted and paltry shadow of the raw stuff off universes themselves. Makes a lot of sense, really. And maybe that's one big hole a group of heroes closed in time immemorial... But the damage was already done. Well, it does give a new terrifying note to the Nightmare. It was quite literally Mythos corruption. Insanity, power and suffering given life. I don't envy Luna right now
8439754 Well, at least as NMM, Luna found an old moonbase and built a hottub from scrap to help occupy her time. So she had a hot tub :D
Twimkleshine/Meep... Where have I heard the name Meep before... HMM.
this is pretty god damn mother fucking fantastic.
camo.derpicdn.net/c53c73b9670f3293cff150100df50b63f3e9fd10?url=http%3A%2F%2F2new2.fjcdn.com%2Ffunny_gifs%2FMlp_84871d_5887505.gif
8439854 She's actually not a self insert. It's a common changeling name which translates as "silly". I tossed a joke in a previous story where Lyra got her confused with an author by the same name. Which is the closest I've gotten to a real self insert :P
8439817
A hot tub does go a great way into alleviating suffering. Did she find a rubber ducky and called it Kirk, too? Losing her ducky would explain the crankiness upon her return.
8439931
I didn't know how much I need that gif in my life until now. Thanks!
8439931 Let me just goahead and finish that meme for ya :3
*boop!*
8439754
Discord said outright "Hey, you can't tell people about this because it's super dangerous to have people dicking around with it and we can't go giving people ideas."
Lyra said "Hey! You're completely covered in this stuff I've been dicking around with! Lets go dick around with it more!"
Also, as soon as Creamsicle said "Discord made me promise not to talk about it" Vi and Lyra should have said "Ok, so we'll ask him to talk about it", because they are experts in fighting things that should not exist and know that if something scares a god step one of the threat assessment is asking the god what's scaring them.
It's not like they're intimidated by talking to immortal beings of incomprehensible power. That's their day job.
8440993 True, that is one thing the two of them could have gone and done. Howeaver, I think it's more logical for Vi to want to confront her parents on the issue immediately, and Lyra would jump on the chance to know more about the thing she discovered before asking questions of someone who classified the thing she discovered. Remember, she used to be a member of B.A.R.D., a group that specifically sought to discover the real truth behind things and would circumvent the law if necessary to get information.
And once again we will see meep's masterful use of my favorite trope "The Reveal"
oh and also Squeeee
8441259 :3 Glad you're liking things so far!
8441002
True. I just hope they remember to talk to him soon.
Book two? The Fun Has Been Doubled!
Pants to be darkened!
You know one of these days I'd like to see a layout of the Phoenix.
I'll take 10
I can just see the security teams in a firing line when something bad shows up, and the leader saying "You came to the wrong neighborhood motherbucker!"
HERE. It was here when reading I was all "OH MY GOSH! Dream magic is corrupted Void magic!"
But something else occurs to me here, something big. In Bats discord describes Void magic as being able to make things a reality, Dreams are the corrupt less power version of this. In Lifegiver Celestia tells us that Luna is dreams, that she can also make some dreams into reality...
Is Luna part Void Bourn?!?!?!?!?!
I would like to see that put to the test.
Hey 8437972 you added titanium walls and heavy amounts of security daka to this house right? Right?
And Lyra discovers void, Discord said not to talk about it with anyone who didn't know about void, does this count as knowing about void?
"Oh my little pony, what fun is there in making sense?"
Wait! Discord where did you come from?
"I decided to pop in."
You know I would be more concerned if I wasn't already so used to your antics.
"Oh, you humans can be as annoying as you are entertaining." *pop*
Ugh!
Alrighty, let's get this show on the road!
8448445
Yay! I'm not the only AT4W fan here!
I've been slowly working on that.
'But I'm here to sell thin mints :c"
"YOu came to the right neighborhood, motherbucker!"
Yes. Well done :3
No. Merely finding it dosn't count. After all, I could mail you a cube coated in vantablack. You have it, see it, understand that it was a cube, but unless you already knew what vantablack is, you wouldn't know why the cube seemed like a black void in reality, and why your camera only records values of 'no light' when you try to take pictures of it. Seeing something, observing it, and studying it, is NOT the same as knowing what it is.
DAMN IT VYNIL SCRATCH!
Oh, you say that to.
8556566
I know! she had one job. Keep Octy from biting anyone for a few months. Should be easy execpt...
The silliest little things often go wrong...