Magic Mishaps

“Wake up, I’m tired.”

Trondason slowly woke up from a surprising comfortable sleep, despite literally falling asleep on rocks. The moon was a bit more illuminated than earlier, so he could see slightly more of the cave. Black-light picked him up and gently placed him just outside of the water surrounding the rock bed. “I kinda found out how to move my wings, but it’s like figuring out how to use new arms. Kinda doable. Nite.” Black-light climbed onto the rock, shifted himself so he was on his side, and quickly fell asleep.

“ I woulda figured he would snore obnoxiously, too.” Trondason was feeling great, so he pondered what to do. On one hoof, he could wander around the cave, and see what Black-light found. On the other hoof, he could mess around with his magic. He has made more progress in an hour than anyone else in the same situation. First off, he would try to figure out the most basic unicorn spell. Levitation.

Unfortunately, he has no idea how to begin.

Black-light shifted on his rock. “Tron, I found a paper with barely legible english. It had only one non-faded spell on it. Guess what it is? Levitation. It’s over in the corner.” Black-light pointed his hoof near where a rock splits off from the wall of the cave. At it’s base was a few things organized, but still pretty messy. They were on the ground, after all.

Trondason lit his horn, which took less energy to do now, and trotted over to the stuff. He didn’t care about anything else at the moment, so he only picked up the faded paper.

Levitation: The simplest of spells a Unicorn has access to.

Convenient.

The board has been getting rid of ponies trying to make spell use easier to grasp. Why? I have no idea. That’s none of your concern, now, is is? You came to learn how to pick things up.

Traditional texts say to reach out with your magic and grip an object. That is wrong, for magic has a ‘slippery grip’ as they would say. The key is not to simply grab something, but to attract it to your horn. Think of a magnet.

A magnet can simply stick to metal, and won't let go unless enough force is used to pry it off. That is what makes levitation tricky, as well as simple. The first thing you would do is put more energy into levitation than normal. While it seems more tiring, it’s not.

The first thing a foal must do to even begin to lift things is light his or her horn. It is extremely tiring, but a good night’s sleep is the perfect remedy for that. You would notice that once your horn is lit after waking, you could keep it lit for a long time.It’s because your internal magic reservoir has grown to accommodate the spell.

As practice for l would want you to reach out with your mind (use a disposable item for practice), and pull your magical energy to a concentrated spot. This is also a good technique for building your internal magic reservoir. Enclosed in this box is a key that could be used to open a door in the upstairs room. In there is a notebook that...

The page ends right there. There was a large tear that ripped the whole damn thing in half. Whatever the rest of the paper was going to say probably had nothing to do with levitation (or whatever this new thing is classified as) anyway.

The first thing the paper said to do was to draw magical energy to a single point. How to do that exactly, was anyone’s guess. The simplest method to try is to imagine the magic flowing, and then will it to happen.

Trondason lit his horn, closed his eyes, and imagined energy being pulled onto a single spot two meters away from himself. Even with his eyes closed, he could kind of see the world around him in a monochrome color. He could feel something happening, but when he opened his eyes, the energy was gone before he could see it. “Well shit.”

He then tried to repeat what happened. He continued to draw power until he could feel the same thing from earlier. Once he had it, he kept his eyes closed in case he just didn’t have enough stored the first time. Trondason kept this up until his knees started to buckle. Once he felt a bit nauseous, he opened his eyes, hoping to see what was happening.

Nothing.

It was his watch, so Trondason couldn’t afford to continue much longer. Not until the sun came up, anyway. He trotted towards the entrance, to try and see how much time has passed. When he looked up, the moon was in the same place as it was earlier. The brisk wind felt slightly warmer than earlier, but that wasn’t a bad sign, right?

He took a place on the ledge of the small cliff, and looked out towards the woods. For miles, all he could see is the green of the forest, and he could hear the growls of large nocturnal predators even from this height. Trondason wondered if he would ever get back home.

He sighed, and looked at the moon once again. As he looked, it began to move slightly west, then it started moving towards the horizon more quickly. Normal moons aren’t supposed to do that.

As it got closer to the horizon, the sky behind it began to light up. He thought the morning sun was coming out, but then the moon stopped right next to the skyline. What the hell is going on? The moon began to twitch on the horizon, and then dipped into it. Eastward, the sun came out.

On the edge of the forest, Trondason could see a faint yellow color, right on the edge of his vision. Since most of the trees are green, he could only guess that was a settlement of some sort. Maybe he could ask Black-light to look over there with his pegasus vision when he wakes up.

Trondason could hear shuffling from within the cave, as faint as they are. Either somebody found their way into the cave, or Black-light woke up. “Goddammit, it wasn’t a weird dream! I’m still in hell…” Yep, Black-light woke up.

He lightly trotted outside the cave, and tapped Trondason on the head with a hoof. “How long was I asleep?”

“It’s hard to tell. The sun and moon are crazy here.” Black-light was about to ask what he meant by that, but he lost interest in his curiosity, and looked at the sky. “It looks like the sun just came out. I should probably go back to sleep. Nah.” Black-light said. “So, what ya doin out here?”

“I’m was looking at the forest, but then I saw some yellow in that direction.” Trondason pointed his hoof towards the yellow. “I was hoping you could make it out, using your special eyes.”

Black-light aligned his head with Trondason’s hoof, and looked at the yellow for a moment. “Yeah, I see something. Ponies, a lot of ponies. They’re just minding their own business, but I can’t see too much. Closer to our position, there is an old fashioned cottage. It has a pen and such. Carnivorous ponies?” Black-light shuddered a little bit. “I’m not sure if I want to be eaten right now. At least, not in that way.” He walked away from Trondason, to the other side of the cliff. “A dragon eating me would be better. At least they’re carnivores.”

“Just because they keep livestock, doesn’t mean they eat meat. There are other uses. For one, I recall the Apple family keeping pigs, who were fed their scrap, and were used as a source of fertilizer.” Trondason looked towards the town once again. “You said there was a cottage, right?”

Black-light nodded. “Good, that means we might know what the town is.” Trondason added “Assuming this forest is the Everfree. Then again, there are probably other towns bordering it.”

“I swear, if that’s Ponyville, I’m going to kill a duck with a truck...” Black-light grumbled, then walked back into the cave. “We have supplies in here, and we could sell the candy to a shop.” His voice echoed from inside the cave. “But if this is the Everfree, we would need some weapons.”

“If we’re lucky, we won’t. The Mane 6 have traveled through several times defenseless.” Trondason looked off the cliff, once again. The town seemed pretty far right now. That, and on the off chance it was Ponyville, he wasn’t sure how Black-light would handle being there. Trondason wasn’t sure what he had about Ponyville, since most of his stories are centered about the damn place, but right now getting there was all that mattered.

Sure, the only danger in the Everfree was a hydra or manticore(and the other creatures), but if six mares could walk through it multiple times while talking, two stallions could do it making no noise. That is, assuming Black-light could be trusted to not make any noise.

“Hey, I found two bags that were enchanted to hold extra stuff in it. A spatial displacement spell or something like that. We can’t hold much in these, but we wont have to have all our stuff out in the open like that.” Black-light paused for a moment. “Let me see how much stuff we can take from this cave. I’m also keeping the candy in your bag. That alright with you? I’m putting it in there either way.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“We should head out before the sun starts moving. I think the princesses are drunk or something. At least the moon is void of any mare shaped spots, so the Nightmare incident has passed, I don’t really want to be a part of that.” Trondason sighed. “Do you have what you need?” A bit of shuffling could be heard from inside the cave. Moments later, Black-light trotted out and tossed Trondason a small pouch.

“We don’t really need then things that I didn’t put in the bags. I found some golden coins, probably bits, and some other things. I’m not sure if they’re enough to buy a house, but hey-you never know.” A pause settled over the two, and they both heard growling from inside the cave. “I think there is something in the cave…” Black-light said.

“No shit.”