This story is a sequel to Observations
At the start of the Classical Pony Era the pony known as Starswirl the Bearded was shown to have great influence due to his vast collection of spells. Through Starswirl's personal journal, Twilight finds that there were a lot of things about him that have been lost to history. She decides to translate Starswirl's stories into modern tongue so that others might find that Starswirl did more than just collect spells from almost every unicorn clan of the age, he collected a great number of other things as well. This is the story of Starswirl, and a story of bells and recipes too.
Second story in the Observations Universe!
Continued in Observations and Preservations!
Chapters (3)
GRR.... I know it has something to do with the recipies....
It's driving me nuts; totally losing sleep over this.
Sounds interesting, I hope there's a least a couple more chapters in this. I think the writing could use a little touchup. Some of my my thoughts on that:
I feel like this is phrased oddly, it seems like it might not fit together well. I gather you mean to convey that he thinks they don't really exist.
I also feel like maybe this:
ought to be more "I was just admiring my hoofwork when my mysterious visitors arrived." Mystery feels like it ought to be singular somehow, as in 'a mystery visitor'. When you say just do mean in the sense of only now admiring it, or that that was all he was doing?
Do you mean more than just noisy, because that word feels a tad out of place, granted that they sound like pretty terrible spies.
2086308 Thanks for the tips! I'll look into revisiting this portion of the series after I finish writing Observations in it's entirety.
2086340
As unnecessary as dates might be, if you can think of dates for some of those entries, I think it would help alleviate some of the monotony of "31st entry", "32nd entry"... and so on. You might try working in comments from Twilight on not finding a date or something or only having a few dated entries, if you wanted to go that route.
Okay.
2086520 Maybe.
Coming up with arbitrary dates for specific entries is quite a pain. They aren't even really useful unless you have something to compare them to as a frame of reference. Using Twilight as a way to bring about some exact dates is an interesting prospect though...
protégé
its
its
A puzzling statement, when no gestures are involved…but then one remembers earlier editions where it is the metal that impedes the mana flow, or whatnot.
corrections
pegasus
pegasi
its
a pegasus,
pegasus
are
its
I
pegasus
You were practically going down Twi's S1 spell-list. Where's the
?
ah.
I still find this appellation for the hornèd, wingèd ones dumb, when it refers to the material of a unicorn horn.
So is the cypher decoded in another story, or is it a reader puzzle? Reading on will tell me, I suppose. edit: well… it's very obviously the subject of the next story.
soldiers'
skidded
its
pegasus
…lacks a mention of how long it's been.
himself, since we're not at all unsure of Starswirl's gender.
consolation,
pegasus
pegasus
hoofiwork [cf. handiwork]
a horn.
7696416 True, but the use of alicorn as a means to describe a horned pegasus(or winged unicorn) has already been around here often enough to be considered a secondary definition.
I possess the solved cipher in google docs. Sadly, due to various formatting issues involved, I was never able to integrate it into the story properly.
7696372
7696237
As for the constant lack of dates, they don't exist because I'm terrible at relatively short periods of time. I think this shows up in my work from time to time, it's just more noticeable here due to the distinct lack of an actual date where a reader would expect to find one.
Give me an era or two to work with any day.
7696524
Did you miss the notice that imgur blacklisted fimfiction, so you can't hotlink them from here?
7730932 Ah, I didn't know that. Guess I have to find another host.
Edit: now the images are hosted on my deviantart. I've double-checked them using another browser this time, so everyone should be able to see them now.
These are upper case and shouldn't be.
Twilight is lower case and shouldn't be.
And a bonus stray upper case letter from the author's notes.
8226492
Thanks! I'm still constantly trying to keep myself from capitalizing anything.
i dont believe my eyes
I like the purpose you gave to Starswirl's bells.
8919924
I've always doubted that the greatest magician of his age would just have some arbitrary adornments. Granted, the reason isn't exactly an easy memory for him, but they aren't just a silly comical gag either. 
Thanks!