Friendship is magic, sure, but what does it really mean? A young pegasus from Canterlot is about to find out, as the fate of Equestria will depend on him, making friends. Sounds familiar?
It's been about twelve years, since the defeat of Nightmare Moon. Princess Luna finds out about an artifact called the Steam Key, which hypothetically, can be a threat to all of Equestria. She sends her most faithful agent to a small town in the province, to investigate. But there's not much he can accomplish on his own.
Proof-read by VDtheBrony, Raryn and apparently Cenitopius (whenever he's in the mood).
Edited by Raryn
Artworks by chari-san
Chapters (7)
There it is. Was wondering when it would show up.
1015745
Long queue was long
Hmm the stories good so far this could be interesting :) and the pic with luna and cresant paints a nice picture of whats going on :D i approve of this you get a thumb and a track :3 cant wait for the next
Sounds interesting I can't wait for the next chapter :D
Nothing like an interesting story
I'm looking forward to more.
I like
ani ohev
me gusta
Sounds good, I'll track, like and fav. You're very good at painting the scene around the characters, and still leaving enough room for the reader to happily fill it in and personalise it.
A few errors I spotted, though:
“Oh great, thank you. ,” - You have a habit of doing that, putting a full stoop and then a comma before the speech marks.
“And what exactly is this ‘Steam Key’ - Your missing the second speech mark.
Luna was keen on arts and a few hundred years of practice had made her a really skilled drawer. - Artist, I think would work better.
Luna had had stories to share and Blackwing had been eager to listen. - You shouldn't have the second had after 'Luna'.
“Just let me get my father to join us Northstar. ,” - I'm not really sure how that reads. Also, it has the same mistake as the first one.
Both sons were really hungry but they tried very hard to eat slowly and elegantly, keeping to the aristocratic etiquette. - There's two spaces between 'they' and 'tried'.
“It’s good to be back, you know. ,” - Same mistake as the first one, again.
Other than the few mistakes, that was really good. I'll keep an eye on you.
1016134 the fuck?
1016194
Guy's been advertising this on several other stories. I've already reported him to Wlah (site mod) in the IRC chat. Let's see how this plays out.
This is excellent. Me gusta.
1016316
sounds fun, I'll get my popcorn.
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Wlah banned him and removed all his comments.
My work here is done
1016504 Nice job.
Good to know we still have mature, sensible people in the fandom. 
I'm not really sure what happened earlier here in the comments (spam?
), but it's good to see it has been handled.
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Thank you for the compliments and, more importanty, for pointing out the mistakes.
And in general: Thank you everyone!
Next chapters should be here soon, two of them are already written. I'll upload chapters 2 & 3 when they're pre-read, edited and supplemented with artworks (all of them by Chari-san).
1019051 Someone was trying to advertise.
You're welcome for the compliments, and the mistakes is something I always do - I feel I should be helpful to good authors.
Good to hear, though I'm afraid I won't be reading for a while - I'm kind of depressed right now. Not sure how long it'll last.
1019051
I should have the second chapter finished by the end of next week. And this time I mean it.
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Great!
Well, this is seeming to be an interesting story. We don't get very much good steampunk stories (if that's what it'll be) and the story also has some decent characgter development. A like and moving this from read later to watching is in order
Wow! I'm actually really excited for this one! Can't wait to read more! And curse you for making me crave donuts this late at night!
Balefast? As in Belfast, Ireland? Yeah! Irish ponies!
Interesting... That unicorn colt intrigues me. Hell, this whole story intrigues me. Keep it up, you may not get featured anytime soon, but don't let it get you down.
Great job. I had only just realized this hadn't updated for a while, and the new chapter was pretty well done. Som e things I may spot out though, in line of grammatical errors: a few misplaced commas, punctuation, and past-present tense spots could be fixed, and It did seem that you were rushing a few new characters in. My advice, if you have any brony friends in the area you could talk face to face with, make sure to ask them if you could read them an upcoming chapter. Most likely with the reread, you or your friend will be able to notice any flaws. If not that, I'd be happy to be a proofreader, just send me a PM
I wonder how much Luna's gonna freak heheh
MUAHAHAHAFUGH ACHAK... ugh, something stuck in my throat... Hold on, let me get this right... MUAHAHAHAHAA! THE GINGER PAWNBROKER OF GRAMMAR AND GENERAL TEXTUAL STUFFS RETURNES! I MEAN RETURNS. I'M NOT MAKING A GOOD IMPRESSION HERE, AM I?
Oh, hell to it. Here's your proofing, since I feel like doing it now. I prefer freelance, really.
The train arrived in Balefast right before noon and Blackwing had had just enough time to get from the train station to the harbor.
Double space - between 'Balefast' and 'right'
There were only a couple stops along the river, in small villages. The ship’s crew would unload some supplies for the local stores,
Double space - after 'Villages.'
He was an almost completely bald unicorn with sideburns and a pale blue, nearly grey coat.
Double space - after 'an'
“The tool had too many drinks and had gotten rowdy.
Double space - after 'gotten'
“I’m here on a research visit from the Royal University of Canterlot.” The academic work was the usual cover Blackwing used;
Double space - after 'Canterlot."'
“Um hello. I’m Blackwing and –”
Formatting - space after 'and'. You showed that you weren't using spaces when Tank interrupted Blackwing while he was requesting a place to stay.
They entered a big dining room which was dark, save for a few faintly glowing pieces of coal in the fireplace.
Double space - after 'glowing'
One such force has especially left its mark throughout the history of ponykind. It is usually referred to as ‘destiny’.”
Double space - after 'ponykind.'
he didn't want it to affect other ponies.
Double space - after 'it'
Blackwing stated.
Double space - after 'blackwing'
Coldie grinned at Blackwing and trotted off.
Double space - after 'at'
It was a quiet afternoon in the Shadington marketplace. There weren’t many customers and the grocer was happy to see a regular patron
Double space - after 'marketplace.' (Hey, that rhymed!)
“Personally, I blame the weather Look at how cloudy and dark it is! The sky looks like it’s gonna start pouring any minute.”
General grammar (*Salute*) - a comma is needed after 'weather' to separate clauses.
Cold Pint’s face, already orange because of her friend, was now slowly changing towards bright red.
Double space - after 'face,'
“Just passing by on me way home. Finished work early as we often do on Fridays,” he explained indifferently. Then, something caught his attention.
“Hey, look who’s comin’ our way.”
Light contradiction - Coldie would know that Tank finishes early on Fridays because he would come home early and tell her so. Rewrite this line so as that Mrs. Maury asks him why he's out of work early, and he replies '"Oh, we usually finish early on Fridays."'. Then you might want him to go on and tell her how his boss is kind or some such thing, but that's less important, it would just indicate a casual conversation.
green unicorn mare stumbled on some hole in the pavement and hit him in the side.
I'm assuming that this mare has some later significance in the story and this only happens to allow Darkwing to remember her later. I would mention her mane colour to avoid weird mental images of ponies coloured in luminescent green, which would distract readers from the story and stop them from being drawn in.
“I wasn’t allowed to the archives. Need ‘the mayor’s written permission’.”
*'"I wasn't allowed in to the archives.'" Archives are a place, so the 'in' is needed.
'"Anyways, you don’t happen to know that unicorn, the one who collided with me?"'
'Collided' isn't a very good word for casual conversation when referring to something alive. 'Walked into' would make a good replacement to make the speech flow slightly better.
“Her name’s Crystal Vial. She’s a, uh... an herbalist roun’ere.”
Grammar - 'an' is only used to replance an 'a' before a word with a voul as it's first letter, hence 'an 'a''.
AH'M BACK, BITHEZ! Okay, I can't do the all caps thing, leave me alone...
Anyway, this was a productive way of avoiding what I'm meant to be doing. My mind is good at this game.
1854006
I'll take care of all this later.
The amount of fun that you apparantly have, while doing this may be just slightly disturbing, but thanks anyways.
By the way, good to know that someone is really reading the stuff I put here.
Well this was excessive.
___________________>A scroll, wrapped in a dark blue ribbon and sealed with the simplest candle wax seal, materialized out of thin air and fell onto Princess Luna’s face, waking her unpleasantly.
~Space du le double (Double space between 'air' and 'and')
'“What is it now...”'
~Naow Ah'm Not sure't 'is be a rule, but shoul'n't 'ere be a quest'n mark aft'r t' question? The space's kind'a implied...
[That - if you can read it with it's strange Southern-American encryption - explains the difference for future reference.]
'I hope my bat-winged colleagues are keeping you company in my absence. Be well,'
~No! Vis is unacceptable! Vou must finis' vis at vonce!
[French people do funny full-stops, in my experience. Apparently so do you. Scentences can never carry across paragraphs and somehow I doubt that even in some tired stupour Blackwing wouldn't ignore grammar in a letter to an important friend.]
T'was at about this point that I felt the need to point something out: this is something I noticed in one of my English lectures, is that the best way to carry the reader's attention is to use connectives at the start of paragraphs that are based around the same topic.
Let me explain - I split paragraphing reasons into two different groups; TiPToP and Effect.
TiPToP is an abbriviation of the rule used in most schools where you should start a new paragraph whenever you change [Ti]me (in chunks, skipping out details that would of happened and leaving them to either not be bothered with or be filled in by the reader), [P]erson
(in dialogue or text, including cross-cutting or anything similar), [To]pic (Using connectives to link the previous and current topics) and [P]lace (If a character was walking down the street and you skipped to the end of the street, that's classed as 'time', but if you skip to a different area to something happening at the same time, like in cross-cutting, it's classed as 'place'. Basically if you could fit 'meanwhile' at the start).
Then there's Effect, which is frowned upon by schools but it's the way that things are done.
This is when you're paragraphing for effect with no logical point to it.
Facinatingly none of my more common reference books are showing examples of this at first sight, so I'm going to terrorise my English teacher next time I see her.
'“Sounds great.”'
~WOAWOAWOAWOAWOA.
Whoa.
Did Blackwing just say something casual? You might wanna flip that if it's not so on purpose.
'It was a warm evening and the workshop’s doors had been left open allowing Blackwing to... ...chair and hurried over to meet them.'
~Whazzat?
[This is a bit of a wall of text, things which I find so tiring to climb that they're normally the points where I'll put a book down. I'm doing this in my own time because I've got nothing better to do with my time, so that's pretty pointless. Try seperating things out a bit with a couple of paragraph markings.]
'...left open allowing Blackwing to get a look at the interior as he and Tank entered the building. The interior was rather dim...'
~Repetition of the term 'the interior' makes the text sound cluneh.
'“Hi there Tankard! Glad to see ya.” The unicorn’s accent was as hard as Tank’s or even harder.'
~ 'The unicorn's accent was as strong as Tank's, if not stronger.' - it flows better this way.
I take this moment to enquire weather people mark the date of something that's happening around them on their calendars? I thought they were like alarms, for planning ahead - journals and diaries and blogs are for the past, right?
'“His neighbor, Mr. Paddle, owns a tugboat. In the past, it was used to tow barges on the river. The boat’s old as hell, but it stays afloat somehow. Paddle offered to take him tomorrow.”'
~As you picked up on writing again near the end of this chapter, it seems, you pulled up on hte grammer quite a bit too. Only mistanke here is the double space between 'boat's' and 'old'.
'Also, part of him ridiculously feared, that the mayor might turn out to be the dangerous, rogue mage he was looking for.'
~Your second comma here seems to be a little off. Try getting rid of the 'that' after it and it makes a bit more sense.
'Then, out of the corner of his eye, Blackwing spotted a motion in some dark cross street. Or he thought so. For when he glanced in that direction, there was nothing. He blamed it on shadow play and his own, silly fears. Tank just nodded.'
~Add a few connectives in there, perhaps an elipses or two for effect.
'I’m glad everything seems to be proceeding as planned and you were well received by the citizens of Shadington.'
~Blank deux. [Seriously, why does everyone miss these double spaces? Between 'Everything' and 'Seems' this time.]
'You should establish good relations with some locals. It’s important; sometimes it might even save your life.'
~Well that was a bit forward for a cliffhanger. Try something more along the lines of 'It could come in handy' or 'it could save your life'. They flow better and don't so much highlight that part of the letter. Seriously, spoiler alert.
'In the meantime, keep working, investigate, and make good relations with the locals.'
~Repetition is painful for the reader to sit through. Try and rephrase 'make good relations with the locals.' in some way.
'Contact me if you find anything; or if more visions occur.'
~Okay, I've seen this before but this time it bugged me. You seem to have taken a recent liking to semi-colons which can be quite annoying when you use them where there should be a comma at most.
'Blackwing walked to his saddlebags, which was lying by... Crystal Vial'
~This part seems a bit clunky. Firstly, you need to get your plurals straight so as that the reader doesn't get annoyed with 'saddlebags' and the word 'was'. Secondly you need to try to variate Crystal's speech pattern a bit. I can see that you either struggled here or wanted her (I'm assuming that she's female) to sound a bit cryptic but it's really just hard to read.
Finally, kill those brackets and the talking to animals. It's a really annoying concept for people who're into mysetery style texts, and the mysetery in this story is your biggest asset.
Can I just point out that it's good you avoided 'Lavender Unicorn Syndrome' here (The scene with the chocolate cake after cross-cutting from Luna's point of view) - you could easily of slipped and mentioned 'a certain pink earth-pony' which is something people hate because while it's making them think, at the stage that it might come into use in the story they're just picking up on clues as to the interesting areas of the story.
Unfortunately I see hints of this where Blackwing is being questioned as to his field of research and at the end when you refer to Cameron as 'The chameleon'.
Great chapter, you've really caught me on the cliffhanger. I'm not gonna look at the next chapter until I'm awake though - it's 20 minutes past 3 in the A of M where I am and I'm pretty shattered.
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Any help is very welcome, especially in my case. I'm really (='in fact' - that's not courtesy) grateful.
Thanks!