(AMF) Update 13

>Twilight began to stir after a few short hours.
>It was slow at first, but once she was awake enough to realize where she was, she was out of your arms like a shot, blushing furiously.
"OH! I, uh..."
+Feeling better?+
"...Yes. Though, could you please not tell anyp0ny about this? None of them know, not even Celestia. I was afraid they would think I'm a terrible friend and--"
+You're not.+
"But--"
+Discord is stuck in a statue and you still have your friends. Whatever it is you think he did to you, it didn't stick.+
"It shouldn't have happened to begin with!"
+But it did, and you can't change that. What you CAN do is not treat it like some kind of ultimate failure. Nobody is perfect.+
"...When'd you decide to go all inspirational on me?"
+When I realized you were beating yourself up over something that wasn't your fault. Besides, assuming he's cunning enough to think about the long-term, Discord probably WANTS you to sit here doubting yourself, so that you'll be more easily dealt with if he manages to escape again.+
"I... are you sure?"
+It's what I'd do.+
"He didn't seem rather worried when we'd confronted him with the elements a second time, you may be right. Though that may have just been overconfidence, I've seen that a lot when dealing with threats to Equestria."
+Overconfidence.+
"It's that or sheer stupidity, and Discord didn't seem like a moron. Now the changelings, they were dumb. The very same queen that was able to overpower Celestia thanks to the love she'd stolen from my brother didn't think that Cadence's love would be able to help him put his shield spell back up to stop her changelings."
+You're joking.+
"It happened. You can ask the others, they were there too."
+Must be nice to have such self-solving villains, the few I've dealt with weren't so courteous as to defeat themselves.+
"Oh? What sorts of evil does your world have?"
+In the case of the ones I've faced personally, fellow men. On their own they weren't especially dangerous, but give them enough followers...+
"What did they do?"
>Your reply is delayed as you consider your options.
>For all of Twilight's apparent innocence, she seemed remarkably able to spring back from unpleasantness.
>No sense in putting this off any longer, she was as ready as she was likely to get.
+They orchestrated the Day of Mourning. An entire nation, along with everyone and everything within its borders, died that day.+
>As your words sink in, Twilight's expression changes from shock to horror.
"That... how?"
+Magic. Powerful magic.+
"Why?"
+Because of me. I don't know if he had the support of his house, but a Cannith artificer had designed psiforged in secret, secured a creation forge, and started building a small army of us. Rumors started cropping up about a secret weapon being worked on in Cyre, and some people got worried enough about it to destroy an entire nation.+
"They did that to stop a small army?!"
+They didn't know where or what they were trying to stop, just that it was in Cyre.+
"How can you possible know that?"
+Because when I found the ones responsible, I tore the information out of their minds before killing them. Once I had the knowledge of how they did it, I was able to come up with a way to end the aftereffects of the Day of Mourning and let life return to Cyre.+
"Did it work?"
+I don't know. I had been in the middle of the ritual before I ended up here. It seemed to have been working up to the point where I realized I'd pushed too hard and everything started to fall apart. For obvious reasons, I don't know what happened after that.+
"How can you just... I would probably go crazy not knowing what happened!"
+Not going to pretend I'm not interested in finding out, but I had a lot of practice with being patient while preparing my ritual. Celestial alignments take time to occur when there's nobody that can move things around up there like some ponies I've heard about.+
"Better be careful how you say that, you're talking to a member of the Unicorn Council."
+The what?+
"One of the few surviving customs from pre-Equestrian history. It's admittedly more or less a ceremonial position ever since the royal pony sisters arrived, but before then, the council was in charge of moving the sun and moon. The last time the council was required to perform their duty was the week following Nightmare Moon's banishment."
+So any unicorn that can manage the spell could do it?+
"Not quite, one unicorn alone isn't strong enough to actually move them, the council needs to work as a group."
+Hmm. So is Celestia really that powerful, or does she have some other spell that makes it easier?+
"I... don't actually know. I never thought about it before. Given her cutie mark, part of it may be that it's her special talent, but she also handled the moon for a thousand years."
>Twilight gets up, a determined look on her face.
"This calls for a letter to the princess!"
>The sun was starting its final descent by the time you made it back to town.
>You and Twilight talked magic the entire way.
>Between your observations and what she told you, you'd put together a decent idea of how magic worked here.
>All ponies had some magic in them, which was how earth ponies were good at growing food and such, and pegasi could control the weather and stand on clouds.
>Unicorn magic had no measurable effects when not in active use, but could be channeled through the horn for an assortment of purposes.
>Any unicorn was capable of telekinesis, and most had an innate knowledge of spells related to their talent, but it was theoretically possible for any unicorn to use any spell.
>A properly transcribed spell was easy to learn at a glance, it was the casting that was difficult.
>Much like your own powers, the actual casting was essentially impossible to explain without a common frame of reference, Twilight's best attempt coming out as [spoiler][/spoiler]"You picture what you want to happen, then push the magic into the proper shape to handle it."
>After she got done explaining Equestrian magic, you shared what you knew of your own world's magic.
"So anyp0ny could learn magic in your world?"
+In theory, yes, anyone willing to put forth the effort could manage it. It comes naturally to some people, I suppose they'd be similar to unicorns. And that's just the more traditional magic, people are always looking for routes to power, making pacts with powerful outsiders and the like.+
"Plus you... what was the word again, psions?"
+Correct. From what you've told me, our particular style of magic seems to be closest to your own. The others use the magic in their surroundings, our power comes from within.+
"Does that make a difference?"
+Not especially. There's plenty of difference in how it's used, but a lot of the end results are the same. Each particular style of magic has its strong points and its weak points.+
>By now you've been standing in front of the treebrary for a few minutes while you finished talking, and she opens the door and looks around.
>The pile of books is gone this time, and Spike is nowhere to be seen.
"Spike! Spiiiiike!"
+It's pretty late, he's probably asleep by now.+
>Moments tick past with no sign of the little dragon.
"Well I'm not tired at all thanks to that nap, what do you normally do at night?"
+Depends on how the day went, but generally a mix of contemplation and meditation. I'm getting closer to being able to make that fabric for Rarity.+
"Hmm. I guess I can get started on some ideas I had, I'll be down in the lab."
>With that, she trots over to the basement, leaving you alone with your thoughts.

>Morning arrives and Twilight is still locked away in the basement.
>Either she fell asleep or she was real busy down there.
>You had an exciting day of helping move apples ahead of you, so you left for sweet apple acres once it was late enough you knew the Apples would be done with breakfast.
>As usual, they were already hard at work bucking apples.
>After a quick confirmation of where today's harvest was to be moved to, you begin your contribution to the efforts, grabbing a few bushels and hauling them to the designated cellar.
>The first two hours were predictably boring, but as you return to where Applejack was bucking to get your next load of apples, you find her talking to a tired and disheveled looking Twilight.
"Twi, ya really aught ta go get some rest, ya look frightful."
"No! If I sleep now, it could throw off my circadian rhythm, and I'm not about to go through and modify my daily schedules because I started going to sleep and waking up at different times. I just need to make it through today and go to sleep when I normally do. Besides, I need to talk to-- Ah, Anonymous, just who I was looking for!"
+Looking for me? What for?+
"Science!"
+...Science.+
>She levitates some objects from her bulging saddlebags. They appear to be based off of some of your arm and leg fittings.
>They're swiftly followed by a folding table, a stack of books, parchment, ink, quills, three sets of safety goggles, and her video camera.
"Science!"

+++Video+++

>Anonymous and Applejack stand in the lane between two rows of apple trees, with Twilight off-camera.
"Don't see why ah have to be involved, there's still plenty of applebuckin' ta get done."
"A proper experiment needs some kind of control group so you can tell if your experiments are having any effect. Since there's only one of Anon, you're the closest we've got. Now then... this is the first of a series of experiments to introduce Equestrian magic to the extraplanar visitor Anonymous. Being the first attempt, our primary goal is to determine if such a thing is even possible, future experiments will focus on a wider range of magic assuming it is found to be possible."
"Ya already told us that!"
"But the camera wasn't running then! Anyway, let's get started, go ahead and buck the first set of trees."
>Anonymous and Applejack go to their respective trees, and give them a mighty whallop.
>Applejack's tree shudders, and all the apples fall from it shortly thereafter.
>Anonymous's tree has no reaction.
"...Coulda told ya that would happen."
"Yes yes I know, but we needed to establish a proper baseline. Ok, hold still for a moment Anon."
>The set of warforged parts float into the field of view, surrounded by Twilight's magic aura.
>They move over to Anonymous, and his old pieces are pulled free as the new ones snap into place.
"Ok, next set of trees."
>AppleJack and Anonymous move to the next pair of trees and buck them, with the same results as the first time.
"Anon, the camera can't hear your telepathy, remember?"
"Oh, right. That didn't seem to do much."
"Well of course not, I haven't tried putting any magic in those new parts yet. You can't go changing too many variables at once, it's bad science!"
"So are there any more variables before we start getting to the actual experimenting?"
"Nope, make sure those safety goggles are secure, it's time to make science! Now, the spells I'm basing my attempts on have a noticeable sensation when active, along with a general idea of how long it'll last, to help prevent any accidents with things like cloudwalking spells, but for these initial attempts, I stripped out everything but the essentials to make modifying them as we go easier. Once we find something that works, I can add all that other stuff back in. What that means for right now is that I'm not expecting there to be anything noticeable when I cast it, but if you do notice something, let me know."
>With that, the experimental parts on Anonymous glow with Twilight's magic for a few moments, retaining a faint gleam afterwards.
"Hmm, visual aftereffect. Unexpected, but useful, it's a sign the spell is holding. Feel anything?"
"Nope."
"Right then, go ahead and buck the next tree."
>Anonymous's tree reacts this time, giving a slight shudder, but not near as much as Applejack's, and no apples fall from it.
"I don't know if your camera picked it up, but I felt the tree move a bit that time, normally it just sits there motionless like you'd expect from kicking a tree. Well, like you'd expect where I'm from.+
"And you hit it the same as the first two? Remember what I said about variables."
"Yes, I hit it the same as I have been since I first tried applebucking."
"Promising... try a few more trees while I tweak the spell, need to make sure it wasn't a fluke."
>The rest of the film is full of Twilight casting her latest modification, followed by Anonymous kicking a few trees to test it. Results vary between attempts, leaning towards nothing at the start, with more and more attempts getting apples knocked from the tree as time goes on.
>Applejack had left to get on with applebucking early on, by then Twilight was so wrapped up in her work that she didn't even notice.
>The recording ends rather abruptly, partway through a reasonably successful iteration.

+++Anonymous+++

+It's not a disaster, Twilight.+
"YES IT IS!"
+You've been taking detailed notes the entire time, it doesn't matter that the camera ran out of film.+
"It's not the notes, it's the presentation! How professional do you think it looks to run out of film partway through an experiment and not notice until we're done?!"
+Mistakes happen. You can't expect to function perfectly with how long you've been awake.+
>Twilight begins a rebuttal, but is interrupted by a long yawn.
"...Ok, maybe you have a point."
+So what's next in your experiments?+
"Well, the hard part is more or less done. I've established a framework for applying Equestrian magic to a being that doesn't naturally have any. These kinds of spells are a lot easier to do with ponies, we already have the magic inside us, ready to be used."
+Perhaps a simpler solution would be finding a way to convert psionic energy into Equestrian magic.+
"I... hmm. Assuming conversion is possible, that would certainly make things easier, the main hurdle has been getting enough magic in you to have an effect without draining too much of my own. Where would we even begin to try something like that, though?"
+I have no idea, but between my knowledge of psionics and your knowledge of magic, we ought to be able to figure something out.+
"This is so exciting, I can't wait to get started!"
>Yawn.
"...Maybe it can wait until tomorrow."
>Another yawn.
"It can definitely wait until tomorrow. I'm going to bed."