Nightmirror

by MostBrainWhyYes

The Cosmic Depth

Knowledge. This subconscious desire. Understanding. Its not the same thing as knowledge.

I see so many books. As pages open they color the void, revealing its contents in more than one way. Swirling acres of books painting the landscape with their contents. Amazing! A little hard to take in all at once. But I must know what they contain!

I gallop forward and up, kind of gliding, I quickly lash out a string of telekinesis to reel in a book, with confidence in my ability and strength. The book's knowledge stimuli encompasses my entire being. A book on giraffes. Why of all things Giraffes? Oooo~ they don't even sleep. I'm a Giraffe. No. I am but not am. I'm still Twilight Sparkle. I am experiencing what its like for Giraffes in general. Lifetimes, food stimuli of all sorts, mostly grass. It mostly tastes good, but different. Who knew they were sexually attracted to that.

I pop my head back out of the book. And quickly stuff my head into another. Titles such as the True Meaning behind Physics, Why water is wet, Worm mating habits, Why insects are biologically limitless given infinite time, and When to say no to cake. Enrapturing they are. So much new perspectives, new knowledge. Not just knowledge, experiences! I feel I am one with the contents of the books, I almost feel dizzy. I need more, theres so many books here. Faster. I need more knowledge faster. I must know everything. More titles such as, why Snail faces are optimal, How serial killers are spiritual, The ways in which the Wealthy are ignorant, The different tastes of dirt, Distraction 101, The Secrets of the Universe, Twilight Sparkle doesn't exist, and How to find yourself.

"Who am I?... Doesn't matter. I just need to keep consuming books." But why?

"Why am I here?" New books come up, some with existential titles like The Meaning of Life, What it is to Live, or What is magic really? Some seem to be documents on myself. Curious. Floating over due to the power of curiosity, Twilight presses her hoof to the book.

"Oh no." Endless loops of what happened last chapter. I remember my goal now, to determine why magic may vanish. But where does the book end and I begin? I try to escape but it loops my escape and I am unsure quite exactly how to. Its like waking from a dream into another dream.

Anxiety. Think Twilight think. I have a spell to escape, and an anchor spell. The anchor may reach too far back, I cannot lose this opportunity! I must cast a variant of the escape spell from when I first found the book that led me here, but how?

I cast a sensory spell, it illuminates in various patterns that seem almost random or exceedingly complex.
"What did I get myself into?" If this recursive book on loop shit doesn't stop I may go insane, but my motivation and certainty of self certainly seem progressively higher. I can do this! The problem for the complexity is probably that the book reopened variants of the same book from me repeating my thoughts, in mini-dimensions each book contains. Which means not only does this realm contain infinite space, I have an avenue of escape!

I cast a higher order spatial folding detection spell with a data tracker and inverter spell. I do not receive further data from my spells, its hard to ignore all the other stuff looping though.

Sweating while my horn glows an awesome power of radiance and I cast a spell ontop of the recorded spatial inverse formula spell to transport me appropriately folded. I couldn't handle all the information myself, but I could design a spell to act on all the information automatically!

I am launched through space in various directions feeling quite like I may puke. Suddenly I am ejected from the book, its dozens of pages fold non-euclideanly back into place and the book joins the storm of others. The sense of a Presence again. I am tired, sick, and feel like going home, but my sense of purpose is higher than ever before. I can hold out longer.

I shiver once I realize the danger I had narrowly avoided, the fur of my coat standing on end. That was very close, I should have been more cautious. I wonder how long its been. Doesn't matter, the sooner I obtain my answers I truly need the sooner I can leave. Although, with an organized mind and many pre-emptive spells, I could find a book on every invention I could ever need. The long standing impacts of that though would require too much analysis, I can resume that at a later date, but for now.

"Give me the book which contains the knowledge of magic vanishing!" A tome glides forth. Its a green, textured leather slightly shifting and morphing about. I frown, having just received negative stimuli from one of these books, the others were good though I just need to pick the topic carefully. Right?

I cast a few spells for safety and quick ejection and to maintain presence of self. Here goes nothing. Twilight presses her hoof to the leather bound book, and is transported inside.

Hmm. I'm back in Ponyvill- "Agh!" Suddenly everything shuttles up, Equestria vanishing beneath me suddenly, the cosmos around me rapidly shooting below. I scream but I cannot hear it. I look down and see our solar system, our galaxy, our galaxy cluster. Kind of dizzying, and the pressure is great horizontally, but vertically I feel light, like a stretched thin block of highly elastic rubber.

Suddenly I stop. And behold, the entire universe before me. My fur coat stands on end with a shiver and I feel tingles. Am I the only pony alive to behold such a sight?

But, something is moving. Something I can't see but can sense. I suppose I can cast a spell to see.

"Magic sight, make me behold my tragic plight!" I cast my spell and when I see, I gasp. Its like the ball of magic of the universe is being pinched by a colossal magic black hole, slowly sucking in magic like a straw. The aura and sound it gives off is quite intimidating. My jaw drops. Then I am dropped back through careening towards my planet. I scream and flail to no avail.

Then I am spat out of the book as soon as I impact the ground.

"Oof!" This doesn't look good. I must find a solution! A magic book appears. Its dusty. I blow on the cover. The title reads 'How to find solutions for novel problems 101'.

"BAH!" Twilight hurls the book back.

"A literal too literal don't you think!" Hmm whats the right question to ask. Another book shows up, covered in glitter and easy to read from a distance. 'How to ask the question 'How solve the problem of a magical black hole sucking my universe dry of magic Volume X''. What happened to volume one through nin-no don't think of that question! I quickly grab the book and am sucked in like a baby sucks its mothers milk.

'Aha! I knew it!' Theres a book inside a book. One entitled 'How to solve the problem of a magical black hole sucking my universe dry of magic Volume XI' Twilight tries her hardest scrunching up her face to suppress a thought. While still screwing up her face she quickly touches this book and gets sucked in like a mare flying out of a plane because the door flew open mid-flight.

Twilight hands on the hard floor.

"Ugh. Why is it so hard to move"(rhetorical question!). "Everything I look at is so detailed its giving me a headache!" My limbs feel like they are somehow more whole, but the same. Everything seems very high detail and sharp, like someone is projecting reality directly into my visual cortex rather than through the filter of my eyes. But its happening with all my sense! This is going to be a long day. Or night. Or whatever. Event.

In any case I better get moving, its not directly showing me anything so perhaps some exploration would speed things up a bit. I clumsily walk, feeling like a newborn, very sensitive and it feels weird to move. The ground you can literally feel gravity's increments pulling on you causing the illusion of a rounder plane I am walking on, and everything seems like its being viewed through a fish-eye lens almost. Prolly because my eyes are huge. I never really noticed how big they were before. Relative to other mammals that seems kind of odd. What was I doing again? Oh right.

I pick up my lethargic legs one by one and march through the nearest doorway. The sooner I solve this the better.

"W-what!?" I am back where I started. Sigh. This must be a test to make sure I am noble or smart enough to know the truth or its a spell trap that was placed by a different entity who visited this realm before. I quickly cast a spell. No theres no trap. Must be a test of the realm itself. Why am I being tested, perhaps I am whats wrong with this equation. Perhaps I shouldn't have triggered a book in a book loop again.

I shake my head. No this doesn't feel like the loop from last time. If I am being shown something it must be the first step to acquiring the right mindset to absorb the knowledge once I see it lest I make an error, or perhaps its too much for my mind to handle. I am feeling rather out of my element here, but I am the most qualified in equestria to explore this. In any case, I have a moral responsibility. Hmm.

I take a look around besides at the door. Perhaps I went about this wrong. Behind me it looks like a saloon or a bar, basic wooden surfaces, but the seats are not in front of the counter, but against the walls. Theres a staircase in the hall to the right on the left. Theres a few kegs behind the counter. I grab a cup from under the counter- huh they are all wooden. I pour a glass of whatever is in the keg. I could use a drink.

Unamused I go up the wooden stairs. Of course it poured a wooden liquid. On the second floor there seems to be a near endless staircase to the left, which defies spatial physics. This place is beginning to wear on me. I'll just walk in a random direction and hope I don't get transported back to the start.

No, I can't be lazy! Well its hard to take seriously when the realm itself isn't taking itself seriously. Maybe I am approaching this wrong still. Which path should I take? No book appears. Ok. If this is a test, its a puzzle. I can solve a puzzle.

Five hours later

"I can't solve this puzzle!? Buck you I can't solve this puzzle!" Twi's mane is frayed like crazy. What are you doing Twi you are starting to freak me out. Speak for yourself!

Suddenly the sound of a door closing happens. The sound of click. The sound of clack. Its getting closer. Its a-

"Of course you're a wooden pony, of course~"

"Welcome to my humble abode."

"Nothing humble about it."

"Care for a spot of tea?"

"Is it wood?"

There is an awkward silence.

"Is it wooden tea!?"

"Y-yes I'm afraid it is."

"Why are you offering me wood based fluids!?"

"Did you not try an illusion elimination spell?"

"...Its been a long day."

"Indeed it has."

"I'll take a glass of tea."

"Very well."

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

The cover art is so messy I can barely make it out. What's it meant to be?

[MostBrainWhyYes]

9800575
Its a deepdreamgenerator image I made. I used a sloppy abstract Chrysalis art as the base, and a darker art as the style for it. It came out good, and its meant to be hard to grasp because that's how the story kind of is. It being Chrysalis doesn't ultimately matter however.