A Pact to Live

by OblivionShadow

19: Working in the Meantime

Nix was walking toward the town grocery store when he saw Twilight on the other side of the road. He gave a shrill whistle and she stopped, looking around until she saw him and a smile crossed her face. He trotted over to her and she gave him a hug in greeting. He moved slightly off to the side and she followed him with an apologetic look.

“Nothing?” He said to her.

“I’m sorry.” She apologized. “I was hoping we would hear something soon but nothing so far.”

Discouraged he said nothing for several seconds before he replied to her. “I guess that’s fine. I’m not in the greatest hurry but I think I know of a couple of others who might be.”

She looked uncertain for a moment before her eyes went wide for a moment as she nodded. “I’m sure they are more intent than you and I are. How is he doing?”

He gave her a look before a low chuckle in his mind told him what she meant. She was referring to the dragon that was always with him. Kahl chuckled and Nix gave her a thin smile to show he understood what she meant.

“I think he’s okay.” He informed her.

“I would send another letter asking for them to hurry with their reply but I don’t want to push too much.” Twilight reasoned to him. “We can’t ask too much just in case they start to question more than we want them to.”

“That’s a fair point.” He agreed. “Let me know.”

“Take it easy.” Kahl said to him and he paused in place to listen. “She is right. The last thing we need is to garner more attention than we want.”

“What is he saying?” She whispered to him as she leaned her head a bit closer to his.

He gave her a look. “How did you know he was talking?”

She gave a quiet giggle as she put a hoof over her mouth. “You always look away and kind of toward the sky when you’re listening to him.” The midnight blue Unicorn blanched and closed his eyes for a moment. She giggled again at his reaction. “I don’t think you even know you’re doing it. You kind of look far away and your head tilts a little when he’s talking.”

“Geez. I had no idea I was doing that.” He grimaced further as she put her hoof down.

He said nothing to her for a moment as he sighed and shook his head. She reached out and patted his shoulder. “What are you doing now?”

“I was going to grab a few things at the store but I don’t need them badly enough. I was just avoiding work for a minute.” He said to her as he barked a laugh. “I guess I should probably get some work done though.”

“What are you working on?”

“Magical storage, basically.” He supplied.

“Do you need any help?”

He opened his mouth to say no when the dragon made a noise to stop him. “Hmm?”

“With her help, we would be able to make more of the gems. With her magical strength, we should be able to figure out the ratio of what gems to use.” The dragon pointed out.

Nix was quiet as he considered what he had said. Twilight watched him closely as he thought it over. “What did he say?”

He cringed at the smile on her face as he realized that she knew the dragon was talking by his reaction. “He’s thinking that you could help with making the gems I have been making to store the magic. I can explain it further if you want.”

“I can help. I don’t mind helping since I have nothing to do at the moment.” She responded to him.

“Can you meet me at my place in an hour then we can see what we can do?”

She nodded in agreement. “I’ll meet you there in a bit.”

He smiled in reply to her and his horn lit as he gathered his magic to teleport. He gave her a warm smile as his magic peaked and he teleported back to his basement. He gave a low sigh as he looked around the room to make sure things were how he had left it.

“How many gems do you think we can make?” He spoke aloud as he moved toward the table.

“Between the two of you I would think you would be able to make ten or more. If I have her magical pool correct then she should be able to match your Unicorn magic pool.”

“My Unicorn magical pool? What does that mean?”

“What that means is that after our Pact your Unicorn magic was increased greatly. At her current level, she is a near match for that pool. When your magical pool is combined with my magic then she cannot match you.”

“How do you know that?”

Kahl was quiet for a moment before he went on to explain. “Through the flames of the world and the connection we have to it I am able to sense her magical strength.”

Nix fell quiet as he thought over what the dragon had said. His eyes went wide as he realized that the dragon knew his magical strength before he even began to talk to him.

“Of course I knew.” Kahl said to him with a chuckle. “I can sense the magical signature and strength of any pony or being in my radius. My normal radius is quite wide so I can sense anyone or anypony.”

Nix shook his head as he considered what the dragon had said. He finished moving toward the table after he had paused in the middle of the room. His magic flowed easily as he pulled out the original notes and his own, setting them to the side for Twilight to look over if she felt so inclined.

---

Nix’s ears flicked as he sensed the other Unicorn coming nearer to the house. Soon as she was close his magic opened the front door for her. He could hear her hooves on the wooden floor upstairs and he made sure to close the front door behind her. He looked up as she came down the stairs and he could see the questioning look on her face.

“How did you do that?” She asked him as he motioned for her to take a seat across the table from him.

“Do what?” He asked her as she sat down and his head gave a slight tilt in question.

“How did you know to open the door without me knocking on the door? You were down here when it opened.”

He gave her a questioning look until it dawned on him why she was asking. To her, it made no sense how he had opened the door without knowing where she was. “Do you remember when I was on Applejacks farm and I said I used a spell to locate you?”

She looked uncertain for a moment before she nodded as recognition went over her face.

“Kahl has the ability to find ponies and other creatures by focusing on them. If he has met them before he can find them easily. He taught me how to do it.”

“How does it work?”

“I’m not sure exactly. Kahl?”

“It uses the inherent magic within me to find others that I have memorized their magical signature.” Kahl explained. “I memorized her signature when we met her the first time and through that, we could find her. The easiest way it works is to picture the pony you’re looking for and focus on their signature.”

Nix parroted what Kahl had said and she tilted her head slightly. “What does it mean exactly?”

“The way he explained it to me and the way I have understood it is that everypony or everything has a magical signature of some kind. It might not be able to use magic but it still has a bit of it inside it. Kahl can focus on that tiny bit of magic and use it to track the pony or whatever he is looking for.” He replied.

Her eyes were wide as he explained what he understood. “How is that possible?”

“Kahl is the one that would know the exact way it works. Do you want to talk to him?”

She looked thoughtful for several seconds before she started to shake her head. “No. I will keep my curiosity in check until later. I told you I would help you with your project not question your partner all day.” She said with a chuckle.

“Do you want to look over the notes that the original pony had made?” He asked her as he looked at the thick notepad.

“Sure.”

“I will warn you about them though.” He said to her and she looked at him, her head gave a slight tilt. “The notes are really jumbled and pretty rambling. If you want to try to decipher them then you’re welcome to try it. I rewrote and organized them as best I can and I have those notes as well.”

She looked at the piles of notes on the table off to the side and a smile went over her muzzle. “I think I’ll read through your notes.” She replied with a chuckle.

His horn lit with their magic and he levitated his notepad to her and she took it from his magic. He waited for her to finish reading through it and he looked at the locked vault off to the side of the table. Inside he knew were the more valuable or controversial projects that he had been given but he knew that if he was going to use one of them then he would need to dedicate a huge chunk of time to them.

“So what have you been doing currently?” She asked as she set the notes down in front of her.

“At this moment I have been creating my own gemstones to allow me to bypass using the regular stones since they break so quickly.”

“How quickly do they break?”

“Only takes a minute or less to break them.”

She gave a low nod as he spoke. “And what are the ratios that you have been using?”

“So far the ratios are still being tinkered with. I don’t have a concrete ratio that I have been using for all of them. Currently, it’s just mixing them to see what they do. Once they break, if they do, then I pull them apart and separate them back into their separate parts.”

“Interesting. Does that mean even diamonds are breaking?” She asked. “They’re the strongest of gemstones.”

“The diamonds are not holding out. I’ve found that the diamond is not the strongest when it comes to what they can hold within them.”

“Explain.”

“The gems are being used for the strength that is inside of them not the outside of them.”

“That’s a good point.” She admitted as she nodded in understanding.

“So far I have found that the diamond does give added strength but it’s not able to withhold the pressure of the magical essence inside of it alone.”

She picked up the notes again as a thoughtful expression went over her face. He leaned back in his chair as he considered her expression as she read through what he had written down.

“What do you think?” He asked after a few minutes of silence.

“Well, I think your notes are pretty solid in terms of how to make them and what it would take to do that. But the notes seem to end after a point.”

“I admit that I have run into a bit of a block with it. I have been focusing on the ratios recently to try to get myself psyched up to push it further again. Since the last of the original stones broke I have been using the shards and pieces to make new gems through magical force.”

“Interesting,” Twilight said absently as she looked over the materials on the table.

He looked away from her for a moment before his eyes fell on the vault a few feet away from them. “Though there is one gem that I haven’t used or tried yet.”

“Oh?”

“I’m not sure how it will react, to be honest. A box of gems was sent to me with my projects from Celestia and I haven’t tried them. I’m not sure if using them is a good idea since I do not know-how readily available to get beyond what I already have. So I have avoided using them due to that.”

“Can I see them?” She asked as she followed where his eyes were looking.

He got to his hooves and went to the vault and set his horn in place to unlock it. The door swung open and he pulled the gem container out of it and his magic covered the case and held it aloft as he locked the door before going back to sit down. She looked at the case as he returned to the table and set the case down in between them. He opened the case as he sat back down and spun it to face her.

She stared at the gems as they glittered in the light. Their black color was solid and gave off no other color aside from dark even at their edges. He watched her closely as she stared at the stones, her eyes slightly narrowed as she looked at them.

“Any idea where they came from?” She finally asked after several seconds of silence.

“No clue. I haven’t even tried to look them up or ask about them, to be honest.” He admitted.

“Do you have any ideas about them, Kahl? Is he listening?”

“I am yes.” Kahl replied with a low chuckle. “I do not know where they might have come from no.”

“He’s listening and he has no idea where they might have come from,” Nix said to her.

He watched as Twilight leaned forward and leaned over the top of the jewel case and she seemed to be analyzing them as she looked closely at them. She was quiet as she leaned slightly back from her posture but after several seconds she remained to hover over them.

“Are you sure they don’t look familiar to you?” She asked as she looked up to him and he shook his head. “They look familiar to me.”

“Really?” He asked her as he leaned forward and tried to see what should be familiar to him.

“Yeah…” She fell silent. “OH!”

“What?”

“They look like the fossilized gems that are in the Canterlot museums.” She replied quickly.

Nix looked startled for several seconds by her certainty as he also leaned forward to look at them. “I guess they look similar.” He finally replied after several seconds.

“Do you think they could be one and the same?” She questioned.

“I guess.” He finally said to her as he looked at the gems.

He reached out a hoof and picked up one of the gems and held it in his hoof. He sat deeply in his chair and he stared at the gem closely. He was quiet for several seconds as she watched him.

“It’s a possibility I guess. To me, that just means that we can’t use them.”

“Why not?”

“They’re not readily available. Can you imagine how many of these we would need just to test them appropriately? It would take quite a while to gather a supply and even longer still to keep that supply flowing.”

Her face fell into uncertainty as she leaned back in her chair and sat down heavily. “I think we should try one of the little ones at least.”

“Why bother trying one?”

“What if we can combine the shards of the regular gems with the shards of this one if it breaks?” She reasoned and he motioned for her to go on as he listened to what she had to say. “If we can find the mixture that will give us what we want them maybe we only need a few of the fossilized gems to combine with the normal shards.”

“Hmm.” He made a noise in reply and put a hoof to his chin to think over what she had said. “Kahl?”

“I have to say that I hadn’t thought that those particular gems might have come from a time before.”

He looked at Twilight and she leaned forward and focused on him. “Hang on. Let me ask Kahl what he thinks.” She nodded as he focused on the dragon. “Could Mitsu be able to find more of them if we asked?”

“If we asked I’m sure he would be able to find large pockets of them if given the time to look.” Kahl replied easily.

He looked at Twilight as she gave a quiet giggle and he looked quizzically at her. She gave her head a slight tilt, looked past him, then back to him and he cringed as he realized that she was teasing him. He gave her a sheepish smile and she motioned for him to speak up.

“I was asking if we spoke to Mitsu would he be able to find more of those gems.” He said to her as he pointed to the case in front of him. “If we find out that they are strong enough to do it alone then obviously we need more of them.” She nodded in agreement.

“I hadn’t thought of asking the dragons to help out, to be honest. Kahl has no way to find them?”

“If they are close to the surface I might be able to. But if these are actually as fossilized as they appear then they would be buried deeper than what I can do normally on my own.” Kahl explained and Nix parroted his words to the mare.

“It’s an idea.” She said with a nod. “Do you think they would be willing to help out?”

“Mitsu is pretty agreeable so I don’t think he would have any issues if we explain why we are asking him for them. Ice and Suki are a bit iffy but Mitsu is the eldest and the calmest of them.”

“I think Kahl is pretty calm.” She giggled.

“Well yeah I think so too but I’m biased.” He agreed with a laugh.

Twilight barked a laugh and he heard Kahl chuckle in his mind as he put the gem in his hoof back in place with the others. The stones shone back at him in their velvet case and he was silent as he considered them and their uses.

Author's Note:

Sorry for the long delay with this one. I recently found some time to do the outline and get this one ready. Please enjoy!

Comments

[Fireeaters]

It feels like this AN should have been at the top, but besides that, the chapter was good.

[John bostock]

Can't wait for next chapter 😊