Dimensional Rift

One would imagine after the last time I decided to have Null Set do something that lasts through the night I would have learned my lesson. Instead of feeling refreshed, I'm shuffling around like a seventy year old. The only bright side is Null Set basically defragged everything.

A jade envelope is shoved through a crack in the door waiting to be read. Opening the letter I skim it before remembering I can't read. Calling down Twilight she reads it and relays the information.

“It's a formal invitation to a party Pinkie is throwing later on today. A bit redundant seeing as how she already told me about it. It starts later in the day so we have some time to do other things,” she explains to me.

“Nifty, that gives us enough leeway for what I wanted to ask you today,” I say not excited at all about the party. Its not like I'm going to be able to go, “Do you think I can get out of here for a while to move around? I think I've forgotten what the outside world looks like. Not that I don't like being surrounded by books but I can't exactly read the stuff on the shelves," looking at Twilight's face makes what I just said sink in. Oh hell, I just screwed myself for today didn't I?

“The written word is a wonder to behold. Once we get past basic characters and what sound they represent there's still so many interesting things to learn. Proper grammar, correct use of punctuation, especially commas, so many ponies use them incorrectly...” Of course, she completely ignores my question when I bring up reading. As I tune her overly enthusiastic rambling out, Twilight can barely keep from doing a happy dance in place at the prospect of me learning to read and write.

No, I have just spent twenty five days imprisoned in a house without a way to work my muscles, I am not going to stay inside any longer than is strictly necessary. I interrupt her with, “Look, I want to read as much as the next guy, but if I don't get out of here to do something I am going to go crazy. The only reason I haven't yet is I'm used to doing this already."

“Oh, right. With all the research going on I kind of forgot ponies need exercise,” Twilight looks like she's trying to think of a good way of getting me out of here today, instead of actually doing it, “I got it. I can take you over to one of my friend's places, she lives alone near the forest so there's little chance of being spotted. I should be able to get you over there in the cart I took over to Applejack's without drawing any attention.”

“That sounds wonderful, just a few things I need to ask. Is your friend really going to keep me a secret from any of her friends, and are you totally sure I'm not going to be attacked by her?” So far my track record is sitting at forty percent of the locals attacking me so I just need to have a little bit of reassurance.

“She's a very reserved pony, you would need to cause a calamity for her to even consider anything of the sort. She would never go around spreading sensitive information either," she answers my questions with a smile. It's not much but worrying too much about it isn't going to get me out and moving so I agree to be hauled out there like a bit of furniture.

After an entirely too long ride I hear a knocking and Twilight's voice ring out, “Fluttershy, are you home? I need to ask you for some help on something,” is the first thing I hear coming out of my half asleep state. We must be there.

A minute passes before an answering voice comes from inside, “I'm sorry I didn't get to the door sooner Twilight, I was getting everything ready to feed the animals. Do you need more help with your new friend?” she has shy in her name and starts off apologetic. Twilight appears to have been right, I should be fine here. In the background I can hear a menagerie of animals waiting to be fed. New friend, she's already been told about me? Damn it Twilight, well at least nothing bad has happened yet.

“I was wondering if we could use the area around your house for a little while, actually. He's been with me since last time I came over and he's afraid of what would happen if other ponies saw him so he hasn't been outside to exercise.”

Before Twilight can go any further Fluttershy cuts in with, “Oh my, that long? Even the injured animals here get restless if they can't move around for more than a few days, how is the poor thing doing?”

Consequences be damned, I'm not going to subject myself to more of this when freedom is right outside of the cart. I toss the blanket covering me and sit up so I can see what's going on. Twilight has unhitched herself from the cart and the pink maned yellow pegasus trying to hide behind her I can only assume is Fluttershy living up to her name. I can't keep a bit of irritation out of my voice when I say, “I am right here you know, either of you could ask me how I'm doing instead of dancing around it. As long as I get to do something, I'll be fine,” I change my manner of speaking to be more friendly to add, “So, do I have permission to wander around the premises, Fluttershy?” I hop over the edge of the cart to await the answer.

Twilight is instead the one to speak up, “Fluttershy, is it ok if he walks around while we continue this inside? I can help with the animals while we talk,” her answer is something unintelligible, a nod, and a rush into the house. Cool, I'm a menace to society now, “In case you didn't catch that, she said to go enjoy yourself. I'm going to help her with the animals, I'll be out when we're done. Go enjoy the sun,” Twilight says before following her inside.

With nothing left to distract me, I head around to the back of the house only to see even more animals. So Fluttershy's either a zookeeper, a vet, or crazy cat lady from hell. Considering she's the only one around here and Twilight vouched for her, I would put my money on vet. With so many animals here, I'm sure I can get one of them to have some fun. I don't have much time to weigh the options as a large, gray, wild looking dog bounds up to me with a ball in its mouth. Well that settles the issue, time to play fetch. Instead of standing around like a moron watching the dog have all the fun, whenever I throw the ball we both take off to see who gets to it first. The first couple dozen of throws all go in Fenrir's favor until I keep the ball after pretending to toss it. After he starts going in the direction the ball would have gone I throw it in the opposite direction and start after it. He catches on pretty quickly and rushes to catch up with me. It ends with both of us diving for the ball at the same time only for us to hit each other in midair. I scramble to get my prize before he does, Its close but I manage to grasp victory.

Realizing just how far away we are from the house I start walking back. Normally I'd say screw it and stay out here until evening but I kind of forgot to eat before we headed out and the only one that can understand me is back there. Fenrir is right beside me with his consolation prize of the ball and my undying gratitude for giving me an excuse to run around. Both mares are relaxing in the backyard looking over at where we are, talking and having almost as good a time as we had. As I get closer I hear the tail end of their conversation.

“I guess since I've been channeling the spell for so long I just forgot to turn it off on the way here,” Twilight sounds mildly annoyed that whatever she was casting didn't need to keep draining her power.

“I just hope it doesn't end up with you sleep casting. Waking up to that isn't pleasant from what Rarity has told me,” Fluttershy almost suppresses a giggle from some sort of catastrophe that befell this Rarity pony due to sleep casting.

Before they can get any further I chime in with, “So, it looks like you two are done feeding the animals. Would Fluttershy mind if I got something from her kitchen for the two of us?” Motioning between myself and Fenrir. Twilight looks dumbfounded for some reason, “I know you can understand me, we spent a month making sure of it. Why are you so shocked about it now?” I say in a joking manner, just trying to get a reaction out of her.

“I never said we were going to be feeding the animals, how did you know that?”

“Umm, she did when she opened the door. My hearing might not be great, but it doesn't suck,” I say as I point to Fluttershy.

“You can understand her? How?” she's looking back and forth between the two of us trying to make a connection that may not be there.

“The same way I can understand you, she speaks and the sound enters my head. Unless you have been using telepathy all this time, in which case you do an amazing job lipsynching,” the smartass tone probably doesn't need to be there, but it gets the point across well.

“Telepathy is a mediocre workaround for a proper translation spell. Besides, Fluttershy can't use magic. And if she could she doesn't have the correct lexicon to plug into it," Twilight explains.

“You have a translation spell that apparently works fine and you didn't bother to tell me about it? A simple 'I'm casting a spell to understand you better' would have been fantastic,” I say already tired of the absurdity of it all.

“Sorry, but I thought hearing me speak in your own language gave it away,” great, now we're snapping at each other, “How could you not know when you started hearing me speak like this?”

“Speak like what, you sound exactly th...” trailing off and sighing I do the only sane thing left and just facepalm, hard. Once I'm able to speak again I say, "Damn it, we've been working in the department of redundancy department,” I rub my temples to mitigate the inevitable headache, “Null Set, temporarily disable the translation program. Twilight, say something, anything really.”

“Who's Null Set, and what did he disable?” of course, give her free reign and she asks questions. At least I have my own question answered. The spell even comes with the same reverb Null Set gives off to ensure that I don't notice anything strange.

“Null Set is this wonderful piece of technology,” I point to the blue shard embedded in my right ear, “that consolidates every possible facet of the modern day into one solitary device for convenience while having a near limitless power source,” the pitch men for the Nexus storage system would be proud of my delivery, “what he disabled was a subroutine that takes whatever any of you say, matches it to my English equivalent, and provides that word instead. Having our first interspecies misunderstanding is all well and good, but can I get some food now?”

“Fine, but we're continuing this later," turning to the house Twilight asks in a cheerful tone, "Fluttershy, can you show Lyndon to your kitchen?” sometime during the half angry debate between us Fluttershy managed to sneak her way back into the house.

“Ok Twilight, if you're sure. Mister Lyndon please follow me and watch your head,” she says from the door she was hiding behind as she retreats further in.

Right, turning the constant translation back on would be pretty handy right about now. Since I missed what she said I ask Twilight, “She either offered to give me food or ran away thinking I would eat her. The door is still open so I assume its the first one right?” Twilight just nods. After I walk in I ask, “You think you can do some translating? I want to know where she keeps the good stuff.”

That was totally worth it. I didn't know they could actually change colors when sick, but now I feel kind of bad for doing that to Twilight, I should probably say sorry when she gets back from her 'walk'. She was totally blindsided when she found out what I really wanted the chicken for. Luckily for me, Fluttershy takes care of so many animals she needs to have a large variety of foods for them all. She only started getting nervous once I started cooking it, I guess even handling raw meat that often doesn't prepare you for smelling it cooked. Fenrir however, just sits there staring at me trying to get some food tossed his way before I'm done with it. Unbelievable, this is the first time he's ever had anyone cook meat near him and he already knows to wait for handouts. The end result of my cooking escapade is overdone chicken with onions, tomatoes, cheese, and hot sauce. Not being able to cook meat in a month throws off the timing for pefection. It still tastes amazing, but if it wasn't the first shred of meat I've had in almost a month it would not have been worth the cleanup I now have to do. Heading back into the kitchen there is nothing to do, all of the stuff I used is already clean and put away. I would be hard pressed to do that in the amount of time taken to eat, doing it with hooves and no magic is something I would have paid good money to see. After washing the one dish I brought with me, I go looking for Fluttershy to see if I can get a time frame for Twilight returning.

I find her out back with even more animals before finding a good way to explain myself without a handy drawing board. Fenrir bounds over to her to jump around her in circles. I sit down on one of the nearby benches to relax and think of how I can ask about Twilight.

“Don't worry, Twilight will be back soon. She just has to get something from Rarity before it gets too late,” or she can be psychic, that works too. With no real way to tell her thanks, I just give her a nod and a warm smile.

Having nothing better to do I just enjoy the scenery. The birds burst into a song that sounds really familiar. Looking to see which ones are causing the sound, it turns out Fluttershy is acting as a maestro to the lot of them. All of the other animals calm down just a little as the song progresses, with the exception of a white rabbit that came out of a burrow to start angrily gesturing at Fluttershy. She leaves the choir to sing on their own as she tries to convince the rabbit to calm down. She gestures to me with a wing and the rabbit looks at me with daggers in his eyes. At this point I'm convinced there is no middle ground when something involves me here. Someone is flipping a coin to have everything get a positive response or beat me face first into the ground, Applejack is the flip that landed on its edge. The rabbit gives me what is apparently the universal I'm watching you gesture of pointing to its eyes and then to me before heading back into its home. Really wish I had a holy hand grenade for the thing, just in case.

Twilight returns in much better shape than when she left, no longer green and ready to lose the contents of her stomach. “Welcome back. How was your walk over to Rarity's? Get what you need?” she takes an awkward step when I mention Rarity, but recovers before falling over.

“Yes, it was just a little something for the guest of honor for Pinkie's party. How did you know I went to Rarity's and how do you know who she is?” I set myself up for those so I can't really complain.

I almost say magic but since that's actually a thing here that would just cause problems, “We went over this remember? I have this thing whispering in my ear all the time. Fluttershy told me you went over there to get something, other than that I don't know anything. You ready to head home? You must be cutting it close to get to the party on time,” it shouldn't matter too much, but she seems the type to have 'fashionably late' turn into, 'Oh god how did everything go wrong' and I would like to avoid that if at all possible.

“Fluttershy is coming with us to the party, so we can go when she's ready. Can you wait for us in the cart?” she asks. I make my way there, already thinking of relaxing alone. A full night of uninterrupted reading will be the perfect way of finishing the day.

Instead of cracking open one of the two remaining unread books, I go back to reread one of my favorite short stories just to pass the time until we get to Twilight's. It works just as planned for once, when I finish the cart is being pulled into the private garden. Twilight leads the way in with me lagging a few steps behind. A sense of unease washes over me, making me take a step back to brace myself and steeling me for the chorus of surprises. Streamers, balloons, a banner saying “Welcome Lyndon”, and six familiar faces plus one other smiling at me clue me in that this is ground zero for Pinkie's master plan to kill me with a shock heart attack. The crafty sadist almost got me with it.

“Did I surprise you this time? What do you think of the colors? Do you like anything other than brownies? What do you think of the music? Enjoying the party so far?” Pinkie asks in rapid fire succession. Thankfully she's at least giving me time to take in everything mentioned.

“Pinkie, ya do remember he can't hear ya or talk with us until Twi gives him his gift right?” Applejack tells her.

Twilight steps forward from the back of the small group of ponies levitating the box next to her and says, “In honor of being the first contact of our two species I bestow upon you a small gift in order to foster continued good relations between our cultures,” while presenting the gift.

“Wow Twilight, what book did you get that corny speech from?” Rainbow asks, failing to hold back some laughter. The better question is why get me anything to begin with. I haven't done anything worthwhile here yet.

Twilight looks back at her scowling and says, “That's not important right now, stop ruining the moment.”

Taking the opportunity to see what could possibly be inside, I pry off the lid to find a small, weird shaped ruby with a hole drilled in the center and a cream colored silk choker embroidered with topazes. I'm not one for jewelry but I guess I can humor them for the rest of the night by putting it on. With no clue on what the loose ruby is for I just pocket it. It's like I'm not wearing the choker at all, rolling my head around causes no discomfort from the gems or the fabric.

“Ok Twilight, how do I look?”

The white unicorn with a purple mane speaks up instead, “Honestly Twilight, when you asked me to create those items for 'a friend of yours' I thought you were keeping a stallion from us, not some gangly creature,” so this is Rarity, and she's a bit of a jerk. At least her craftsmanship is good.

“So, now that we have her opinion, what do you think? Also, care to explain why there's a party going on here in the first place?” I again ask Twilight, hopefully I can keep her distracted enough to not tell the others I can understand them.

“Well, unless somepony was looking for the choker, they wouldn't be able to tell you were wearing it,” she finally tells me, “As for the party, Pinkie always throws one for any newcomers. Normally it involves half of the town but considering the circumstances I thought it was best to only have the eight of us here,” half the town to welcome someone? She's a special kind of party animal.

“Fine, just one last question before we get this started the right way. Whats with the jeweler and the reason I was coughing up blood?” I say pointing to both of them. Dash looks uncomfortable, guess she knows I'm bringing up our last encounter. I get tackled by a very soft yellow missile trying to get my shirt off. Animal magnetism isn't supposed to work on animals.

Everyone starts speaking at once, but the voice I choose to listen to is the one trying to disrobe me, “Are you still in pain? Where did she buck you? Why did she do it?” Fluttershy prodded, both with words and hooves.

To her I say while defending my shirt, “Chill a bit, I'm ok," she backs off a little but is now watching me closely. To everyone else I practically shout, “Alright, can everyone calm down for a second and will one of you explain how you can understand me?” I have a pretty good guess, but I would like it confirmed first. Looks like my plan of having fun with a one way language barrier backfired, hard.

Twilight being the only one not shocked into silence answers the question, “It's the choker you put on, the gems detect the vibrations of your throat when you speak and use the enchantment on them to send out a secondary set of sounds in our language,” well then, it's not a spell, not directly anyways.

“So magical talking rocks, got it,” I say to put it into simple English for myself, “Now that you guys are done freaking out, can I get my original question answered?”

“We already know why we're here. This party is to get to know you so why don't you tell us how you got here?” Pinkie chimes in. She's just going to keep doing this until something snaps, I've heard that tone with that smile attached too often from dad.

"You know what, fine. Since I'm the topic of the day how about this. Each of you can ask me a question and in return, I get to ask you one as well, sound good?" I at least want something out of this too. No one has a problem with it so I get the freebie out of the way, “Alright then, I was the first person to try to teleport between stars when something went wrong and ended up here.” Ignoring Twilight who says something about magic I ask my question to Rarity, “Since you made this,” I point to my neck, “could you tell me if this does something?” while showing off the ruby I put away earlier.

“That would be a hearing gem. Normally it would simply amplify the sound coming in through the hole. Since Twilight modified the enchantment after I gave it to her, my best guess is that it allows translation of our language into yours as a compliment to your neckpiece. Though it seems to not be needed," she gives a quick look over me and settles on, “Now my question to you Lyndon, is why did you get that sapphire embedded into your ear? Fashion statements are usually not so... permanent.”

“It's just a piece of glass that allows for quick and painless replacement of Null Set if I want an upgrade or if it ever gets corrupted. I always thought it looked nice, do you think green would have been better? No wait, that's a dumb question. Of course it wouldn't” now that my totally not useful answer is out of the way my next question is for Fluttershy. “Fluttershy, what was the name of the dog I was playing with at your house? I was calling him Fenrir.”

After mentioning the dog she stops shrinking away from the attention to reply with, “Dash named him actually, she calls him Gnawsome,” really Dash, really, a pun for a name? “If you don't mind me asking, why did you need to cook your food so much? Most other species don't even bother cooking the meat.”

Twilight suddenly loses enthusiasm about hearing my reply. AJ and Rarity are in varying degrees of being repulsed that I eat meat. Dash looks mildly interested. And Pinkie is going to take notes? Where did she... not important enough to kill my brain over.

“Simple answer, it ensures there's nothing harmful in the meat. Personal answer, I can't stand the texture of it undercooked. Overcooked sucks too but it's a lot more tolerable,” hopefully getting this out in the open means I can convince Twilight to buy some for me. The next one to get a question is Pinkie, just so I can get it over with and start ignoring her, “Pinkie, how exactly did you know my language when we first met?” I already know I'm not going to like the answer but if I don't ask it will drive me crazy, well more crazy.

“That's an easy one. The first step in making someone feel welcome is to know their name, since you didn't know Equish I needed to ask in English,” she says like it makes total sense. It doesn't and now a headache is threatening to start, trying to see how two plus two equals chair, “Now for the most important question you will ever answer in your life, care-a-mel or car-a-mel?” I honestly can't tell if this is a joke or not, she has the perfect poker face.

She's not saying anything else, so that's what I'm going with, “Care-a-mel, don't you want something... I don't know, more useful, answered?” with a question like that I kind of feel like I robbed her.

“Nope, I'm good,” she says while writing a lot more than just caramel into her notepad, "Wait, I got one. What are you? A new pony in Ponyville party doesn't work if you're not a pony. I need to know so I can add it to the list along with zebra, cow, donkey, mule, griffon..."

Twilight cuts her off with, “He's human and there's absolutely no information about them. It makes zero sense considering literally every other species between our two languages is exactly the same phonetically and nearly the same aesthetically,” yikes, I knew she had spent countless hours trying to find a reference to humanity in some books but she sounds about ready to punch someone in frustration.

Pinkie on the other hand, walks right up to me and starts poking me, “Huh, your skin isn't made of metal.”

That is the most nonsensical, dumbest and outright odd thing to think about me, “Why in the world would I have metallic skin?”

"Because the stories say you should and I can prove it. There should be a copy of it here somewhere, back in a sec," and she just heads to the shelves to look for a book.

Twilight is stunned into silence and I can't decide if that's more amusing than Pinkie just nonchalantly tossing out that Twilight overlooked a book. It can't be more than a minute before she comes back with a large book that has very few pages.

It's plucked from Pinkie and floats over to Twilight who immediately starts reading it out loud," 'Tyke Meets the Neighborhood' Pinkie, this is a foals book," I get into a position where I can see the pictures that should be in there. She clearly doesn't believe the answer is in there but she starts reading regardless, "Pony, zebra, griffon. Diamond dogs don't have that kind of social structure. Minotaurs use mazes as defensive measures, not homes. Saurians have been extinct for a few centuries.

"Pinkie, these are not the same humans. They look like a crazy engineer went overboard with the brass work, and from what Lyndon has told me they aren't a dimorphic species," she says rattling off some information I've told her.

From what I can see it looks reasonably close for a steampunk setting. The female looks like a standard Clockwork creation with gears showing around the articulation points. The male looks like a silverback gorilla whose skin got infused with metal and transformed into a suit of medieval armor.

"Well it's not us, but whoever drew this sure got the steampunk down right, Twilight. If she spoke I can already imagine the tinny quality of her voice clearly. At least the artist got close and you have some of your own info on me. Can we continue this without getting any more sidetracked?" I ask, trying to get this done and over with. Yes it was my idea. No, I don't have to like it.

With that nonsense out of the way I look towards Dash for my next question. “So Dash, what made it seem like a good idea to kick me really hard in the stomach?”

Everyone focuses on her as we all want to know the answer, “Well, when you and Twilight were doing the whole picture talking thing I was making sure you didn't suddenly do something to hurt her. I kind of overreacted a little when I thought you called us horses.”

“I did call you horses,” two heads turn their glares my way while the rest stay on Dash, “would you care to explain how that deserves so much pain?”

“You can't be serious, you said we all slept with other ponies for bits. Can you not see the terrible insult there?” so she got mad I called them all whores? Whore, horse, God damn it stop with the puns already.

Actually no, if this keeps up then maybe I can start indulging in the pun fountain and not feel like a terrible person. Dash takes my moment of reflection as one of back then, not of one of the future, “It didn't cross my mind that you had no idea what you were calling us that day, so like I said, I overreacted. Sorry about that. I didn't really hit you that hard though," yeah sure, I'm counting having a near death moment as being hit pretty damn hard.

"So anyways Lyndon, what makes humans special, pegasi are nimble and can fly, unicorns can use magic and even earth ponies are really tough,”

"Absolutely nothing," is my immediate answer. It's not entirely true, but it beats having to say we have a knack for beating our problems into submission.

Twilight butts in with, "No, you are not getting away with a non answer on this one. There has to be something about your species otherwise you wouldn't be here right now."

I guess I'm going to have to humor her. I'm here because of mad science gone wrong, so let's just play that up to eleven, "Alright fine. You want the one trait that you can point to and say, 'yea that's a human for ya?' We take things to the extreme. We can run at seventy five miles per hour for forty minutes. We can push ourselves to run at thirty for a full twenty four hour day. The fastest traditional time around the world is sitting at just under twenty two hours. That point is made mostly irrelevant when we can teleport to any suitable space on said planet instantaneously. We can reach space and deep into the core of our planet, and survive comfortably. And you want to know the best part of all of this? I can't prove a word of it. I don't have the tools nor augments necessary to do anything even remotely close. Hehehehaha," the laugh is totally necessary. One does not simply talk about mad science without being infected by it.

Since Twilight is naturally not amused, my next question heads over to Applejack, "AJ, does the entire planet here have tattoos on their flanks, or did I just run into the group that likes getting inked?"

“It's called a cutie mark, and no, only ponies have them. Zebras have something similar with tribal symbols. They appear when a pony discovers their special talent, the one thing they can do that no other pony can match. Mine is being able to tend to the apple orchard my family owns on the edge of town,” neat, if not a bit unsettling. Especially if you happen to get one for being a lawyer. Being a good scum of the earth doesn't make people hate you less. With any luck that means Twilight's star mark means she's good at interstellar communication and not astrology. After a short pause Applejack's question is, “This can't be easy on ya, how have ya not panicked yet?”

"Running around like an idiot screaming my head off rarely helps anyone. Twilight jumping me and barraging me with questions came close. What would have happened if I bolted from that? Considering Dash was there I'd say probably a fair bit more damage than what ended up happening anyways. Beyond that, Being on new planets is kind of my job so I'm used to some rather odd things happening," before going into my entire worlds visited catalog I get my last question out of the way, “Twilight, just what kind of help did you ask for from Fluttershy and when did this happen?”

“I went to have a talk with her the afternoon of the day you arrived in town. I went to ask for ways to calm down lost and frightened animals, along with a few ways to stop them from lashing out if they got too aggressive without hurting them. I'm glad I didn't have to apply anything she told me, even after Pinkie happened,” Twilight admits before launching her own question. "Now, you have told us what that crystal in your ear is, I want to know what exactly it can do."

Oh boy, this should be fun. I start rattling off features, "It can let me communicate with other people that have one instantly. It holds my mail for me to check whenever I want. It can save audio and visual input to be reviewed later. It can hold a dizzying amount of information for instantaneous recall. But the best feature it has is one it can't do right now, which is connect to a system that houses almost everything ever done by my species over the past century and a good portion of our history as a whole.

"Null Set, eject an empty crystal,” I pop off the casing to Null Set in order to show the inside. The clear shard I pull out of Null Set is about an inch and a half long, “This is part of the storage system. Twilight, I need you to grab one of the longest novels in the library for a comparison.”

“Herald of a New Dawn,” she announces as the massive book hits the table, “almost one million words of a guard captain's rise and duty to the princess right after she banished her sister to the moon. Let me guess, you're about to tell us that what you have in your hand can hold the entirety of this book within it right?”

“...Yes, that just ruined a little bit of the wow factor, thanks for that. Anyways, the real question is just how many copies of that book do you think my crystal can hold? Make it a big number please, there is no such thing as overshooting it. Just give me a second to actually do the math,” my finger dances around near my head as I start doing calculations. A million words is about five megabytes, a hundred stories would be five hundred megs, two hundred for a gig, two hundred thousand for a tera, and one million for all five of them. Ok, that number shocks even me, holy hell I love technology, “Ok, got the number. As a word of warning, take whatever you were about to give me as your guess and multiply it by twenty five at the very least.”

“Twenty five thousand books. I was going to use how many I have here, but apparently you don't think that would be enough. How close does your crystal get to that number?” cute, she thinks she overshot it.

“To be honest, that is nowhere near what Null Set can hold,” I put a good amount of dejection into my voice to deliver that line. There's that hint of smugness from her, time to stamp it out, “I guess I can give you a second chance to get the right number. And this time try not to aim small.”

“Small? Small? How is that small!?” everyone else is wisely staying out of this, but Dash is enjoying the outrage a little too much. After a few seconds to calm down she tries another number, “Is five hundred thousand too much for it to handle at least?”

“I hate to say it, but no. this one crystal can hold one million copies of that book as pure text,” technology and magic, both really good at shocking things that are not used to it. While they all try to imagine that many books in my ear I put my crystal back into place and reseal Null Set.

"How about we turn the music back on and mess around for the rest of the night?" I suggest, grateful that it's over even if I got a bunch of good information.

“What about Spike? You never asked him a question,” Twilight tells me.

“Why would I need to ask your familiar a question?” that was something I didn't expect to be asked.

“He's not a familiar, hes my assistant and practically my little brother, I hatched him myself. What made you think I called him?” She demands.

“Powerful mages usually have a summoned servant to help with everyday activities. Spike is a miniature dragon that sorts the library, gets the groceries, cooks, along with doing anything else you tell him to,” I say, defending my claim. One that comes from fantasy novels, but still, “He can even ask me something first, I need to think of something.”

“Is that the reason you never tried talking to me? You thought I was a summoned helping hand and nothing else?” Spike asks, the little guy has an are you serious face staring right at me.

“Short answer, yes. Long answer, you were acting pretty much perfectly how a familiar is supposed to act, my bad. Mind telling me what the point was of incinerating the letter you wrote for Twilight? Seems like a waste of time to write it only to burn it,” that little show had slipped my mind until just now.

“I didn't burn it, I sent it to princess Celestia. Dragon fire is nearly instant, much faster and secure than using the post office,” he says, clearly proud at being the fast line to a princess. Wait, what? The person who's been housing me has direct ties to royalty too?

“Ok, let me get this straight. You are a powerful mage, have a dragon assistant that is not a simple familiar, instead you hatched his egg and raised him. Now you're telling me you are pen pals with royalty on top of that? I don't suppose you've saved the world from eternal evil as well, because that would be just perfect,” perfect in a way that would make Mary Sue jealous. My expression along with my somewhat annoyed voice makes it clear that I'm not believing it.

“When you put it like that it does sound a bit much. But princess Celestia is my teacher, not a pen pal. The girls and I have actually saved Equestria, three times in fact. If you want, I can get Celestia to write you a letter verifying everything,” as she claims this, Spike gets a quill and paper ready to write it down.

“Tomorrow, let's just get on with the party,” I can't even tell what kind of tone I'm using anymore, too many things running in my head at once.

The next few hours are spent playing Pinkie's party games and screwing around. It's been so long with only Twilight and cramming the language into my head that I almost forgot how to be a real person. During a lull in the festivities I ask about how they all met. AJ and Rarity have been childhood friends, Pinkie came to town one day and made everyone her friend, and Dash went to flight camp with Fluttershy. Then Twilight showed up and became fire forged friends with all of them on the adventure.

After listening through the campaign I say the only reasonable thing, "Please tell me you skipped a few levels for being able to do all of that in one night. There's no way you can pull all of that off so fast and still only be level two. At least you shouldn't be if Celestia is a good GM."

"We are not heros in an Ogres and Oubliettes setting, how can what we said make you think that?" Twilight asks. Really? You need me to spell it out? Then again what I do feels normal and I've had a few hero comments thrown my way.

"Tell me if this sounds like a gaming session. Twilight, you are under orders to oversee a celebration and bump into the rest of the group who just so happen to be leading various parts of the preparation. The big event is going on when the quest hook happens, instead of your glorious princess showing up to bring the day, an ancient evil seals her away and threatens to bring eternal night to the planet. Together with people you really have no business being with, you pass obstacles that can only be beaten by each of your unique skill sets. When you reach the castle you have a final showdown with new found power that purifies her to reveal that she is actually the sister of the princess that originally sent Twilight to the town in the first place," seriously, that's at least deserving of level eight.

"Alright, alright, it sounds like a game. At least we didn't all meet in a tavern," Twilight concedes the point and gets on a tangent of Ogres and Oubliettes in general. Pen and paper rpgs, one of the nerdiest pastimes in any culture. Now we just need to find a third planet with sapient life to confirm it. Twice can just be coincidence after all.

The first one to leave is Rarity, who takes off after learning that I've been wearing the same thing for a month and washing it when I shower. She makes an excuse of needing to design some new clothes for a client, I just think the thought creeps her out. Fluttershy's the next one out, saying she needs to feed the animals before it gets too late. I tell her to give Fenrir a hug for me, the name Gnawsome is dead to me. Dash leaves after looking out the window towards the forest and says she needs to be on call in case the storm over the Everfree gets really bad. Applejack leaves at the same time to go home. Pinkie helps clean up before showing herself out.

When it's just the three of us Twilight mentions that she wants to get some readings about the storm. She tells me that the Everfree has been acting even more chaotic ever since a guy named Discord showed up and screwed with everything. I'd ask about him but I have a feeling it's a long story that she doesn't want to make the time for. The worst of the outbreaks happened about a month ago, on the night before I got zapped here. With any luck maybe I can ride the lightning back home.

Since I don't really feel like reading now I decide to keep her company. Now that I have a decent grasp of the language I listen to the recordings of the early days so I can finally know what happened and delete them. We can see the storm clearly even this late at night, it's like they want to put on a show. Twilight introducing everyone and getting overexcited that I can talk, deleted. The clouds give off bronze sparks as lightning builds up within them, showing shapes of lions and wolves. Dash turning my insides into goo along with the resulting argument, gone. Peals of thunder making the clouds sound like the wild animals they represent ready to pounce. Me being able to ward off magic, now that is handy to know. I would ask Twilight about it but she is writing down everything she sees and hears in great detail. When there is a small break in the action I ask what she's taking notes on, she says that this is almost as severe as the night I showed up, but she didn't get a chance to record anything because of a massive cloud of miasma coming from the forest was making her feel all around bad. She tells me that she is hoping for it to happen again so she can study how it forms even if it means feeling terrible. As the night goes on the weather gets more intense, the clouds are now releasing hail over the forest, and only the forest. Lightning encapsulated within them that shatters on impact creating a multicolored display that rivals the grandest fourth of July celebrations. In the lull after the clouds have expended themselves I see the one thing in the corner of my eye that brings me tears of joy.

Signal received, synching.