The Spirit Of Knowledge

That was by far, the most entertaining thing I've seen since that dragon war. Well, I only read about that, but it was still amazing. Those things are fucking brutal. Anyway, after I explained my idea to Codex, he brought up some stuff he thought would help. Since it would be boring to drop the note and not see her reaction (it's the best part) he recommended giving my librarians bodies of their own. I told him I couldn't create living things, and he immediately came up with a solution. His solution kinda made me wish I thought of it.

First, he created six smaller runes like his own, with small differences. Next we attached each of those runes to one of my six librarians, and codex split the runes from him, and connected them to my domain. I then created six crystal orbs, and codex loaded them with runes. He added all the necessary protections, and added a rune to let them control their own shadows. I then took the matrixes that are my librarians, and added them to those six aether runes, while added the physical part to each ball. With that, my librarians twisted their shadows, added power to them to increase their size, and created their own bodies out of shadows. I also made one giant crystal ball and placed it next to the big book. With that I could connect to each librarian and see what they see.

With all of that done, I wrote a note, gave it to my favorite, and dropped him off in the everfree. Each of the six look slightly different thankfully, or I'd never tell them apart. Each of their 'eyes' are the same color as their crystal ball, and they each have a defining physical characteristic. My favorite, has wings, two tails, and red eyes, I named him Vlad. The others aren't really that important, one has batwings, one has two tails, one has normal wings, one is just a panther, and one decided to be a lion. (cause apparently being a panther isn't cool enough for her.) Her and Vlad were the only two to define themselves as one gender or another unfortunately. The rest are just 'its'. Anyway, after I dropped Vlad off he snuck through ponyville and into twilights castle. From there he dropped the note, and hid in a shadowy corner while I watched through his eyes.

Twilight's reaction was priceless. She ranted about how 'terrible' I am for over an hour, before she wrote a letter to the princess informing her of what happened. When I saw her start writing, I grabbed a random librarian and manifested it in canterlot castle. I sent it to find Celestia to watch her reaction. Unfortunately it couldn't find her in time, but I did hear her laughter echoing in the halls. I pulled, (I'm going to call it shadow), Shadow from the castle and switched to watching twilight's reaction. It took a few minutes but a return letter finally came. I told Vlad to get a better vantage point, I wanted to read it. The letter said, and I quote,

Dear Princess Twilight,

Do not worry about loosing 'Codex', the journal originally belonged to Shade and he was only taking back his property. Though, if his assumptions are true that might not be the reason of your anger. Twilight, did Shade steal your special somebook? If so, I'm sure an arrangement could be made for you two to see each other. Jokes aside, I ask for you to not be to angry at him, this is probably just his way of venting his frustrations. A thousand years ago, me and my sister mistook Shade for an enemy, when he had just saved us from a terrible fate. It resulted with him trapped in stone, and with us having no way to free him. For an unknown reason the spell to do so wouldn't work, not even Starswirl could undo the petrification. I am honestly quite glad he is free, and I would like formally invite him over for tea. A little bit ago I felt something manifest from the aether in canter lot castle, the castle wards informed me that it came from a place I tried to enter long ago. If my assumption is correct, then shade is reading this letter over your shoulder right now. Tell him I said hi,

Princess Celestia

I watched in shock as twilight slowly turned around, her horn aglow.

"Celestia says hi." After she spoke her horn flashed with he casting of a spell and my connection to Vlad vanished. I remembered Celestia used a similar spell on Codex, so in all likely hood Vlad was fine, just trapped in a magic bubble in the castle of a crazed alicorn. Whelp, time for rescue operation part two.

"... Your Shade?" Twilight asked the cat floating in front of her. It had two tails, wings, and glowing red eyes. It seemed to be made of a black fire, and was about half her size, but still bigger than a normal cat has any right to be.

"No, I am vlad." The cat spoke with a deep masculine voice.

'Vlad' blinked in surprise when Dash flew next to the bubble. "Well if your not 'Shade' than where is he? And why are you spying on us!" Twilight rolled her eyes at Dash's antics.

"Father is most likely still residing in The Library, and I was spying because he asked me to." That seemed to grab Fluttershy's attention.

"If you're his son, then who is your mother? Do you have one? I've never met a creature like you before." She seemed to lose half her size when Vlad turned to look at her.

"I am not biologically related to Father, but he was the one to create me. I am an advanced rune matrix comprised and give from by magic. I am not a living creature, and would be shocked if there was any creatures but my sibling who match my appearance." Twilight arched her eyebrow towards the cat. In her eyes, such a thing wasn't possible.

"Impossible, ponies have been trying to make a golem for centuries! The practice was abandoned because such a thing is impossible!" Twilight was furious it would lie to her like that.

"Yes it's quite a shame ponies never managed to copy Father's work. The first golem created was Codex, I believe you know him?" Twilight slowly nodded her head. "Over the centuries many ponies examined and tried to copy his matrix, but none could understand how it worked. Eventually they just tried to create their own, and failed miserably." Everyone gasped in surprise when Vlad's chest seemed to pull back, and they saw a crystal orb with glowing symbols all over it. "This is the conduit I control this body with, as you can see I am an artificial being. You shouldn't compare Father's work to whatever ponies can fail at." Twilight was torn, on one side she was furious it was mocking her, on the other she was looking at a fully sentient golem that seemed to have magic of its own. She needed to figure out how it works! Then she remembered something he had said earlier.

"Wait, you said Shade is currently in the library!" Her eyes widened as she processed what he said. She was about to teleport to the library, but Vlad interrupted her.

"No, not your library, I was referring to The Library. Father is the spirit of knowledge, like you are the alicorn of magic. He gains power the more knowledge he has, and for the last 2000 years he has collected copies of every book written, and books containing the lives of every creature that has lived. He passed the time he was in stone by reading about said creatures, and practicing magical theory. This has made him quite the formidable force, and you currently have his favorite son, trapped in a magical bubble." He smiled, and his eyes danced mischievously, causing almost everyone to gulp. With wide eyes Starlight turned to Twilight.

"Tw-ilight, I think we should let him go. If what he said was true, then it's probably a bad idea to be holding him hostage." Unfortunately, Twilight had stopped paying attention when Vlad mentioned Shade's library. She was just sitting there, muttering the word books over and over again. Her friends all took a step back, when she suddenly stopped, and slowly turned her head to look at Vlad. Before anyone could react, she jumped and hugged Vlad's bubble, while screaming the word "Books!".

"Now sugarcube, I know you're excited and all, but I think we should let the poor cat go." All her friends nodded with what Applejack said.

"You're right!" Twilight's horn flashed, and the bubble surrounding Vlad vanished. After a few seconds, he seemed to just vanish before their eyes. Everyone looked at twilight worryingly, but she just kept on smiling, before holding up a crystal ball with a glowing point dot of purple in it.

"Wait for it!" The girls all watched the orb in silence, before the dot seemed to start folding in on itself. "What kind of direction is that!"

Twilight turned to Rarity, as she spoke up. "Well darling, I am sure if you were to ask the Princess, she could tell you what it means." Her eyes sparkled at Rarity's words, and she vanished in a flash.

"Alright do we have everything?" I asked Codex while preparing to rescue Vlad.

"I believe so." Codex preceded to go down the list, making sure we had everything. "We have the rubber chicken, pies, birthday cake, smoke bombs, whip cream, a bucket of freezing cold water, all we're missing is the fog machine."

I turned to my librarians with an eyebrow raised. "Did anyone remember to grab a fog machine?" They all either looked at anything but my eyes. "I guess not."

I was about to leave and find one myself, but the giant crystal ball flashed and my connection to Vlad was restored. Twilight and her friends were just staring at Vlad nervously, I guess they decided to let him go. I immediately pulled him back into the domain.

"Alright, what happened while I couldn't see you." Vlad opened his mouth to answer, but stopped when he saw the items littering the floor. He tilted his head at me, and gestured to it all and Codex's new body. "These are most of the pieces to my rescue plan, now tell me what happened."

The next twenty minutes was spent recapping what happened while Vlad was trapped. After he finished telling his side, and I finished scolding him for telling them so much, I told him about Codex's new body. I created a unicorn shaped crystal, with a hollow spot the exact size of my journal in its head. I placed the journal in there, and with Codex's help layered it with runes. Thanks to all the runes, Codex can cast magic through his horn, and no one can see his journal core. He looks like a real living crystal pony. His coat is blue, and his mane is a darker shade of blue, with a black streak going through it. I even made the body have crystal copies of real organs. We made runes to let him manipulate the throat and speak, he can move around, and there are runes that turn anything he eats into a physical liquid mana, that is constantly pumped through his crystal veins. What color is this mana? Why red of course! There is even illusion runes so he can make himself look like a normal, non crystal pony as well. I also tweaked the connection I made between us, so we can communicate mentally if we want to.

After I finished gushing over me and Codex's latest achievement, I noticed something strange on Vlad. Attached to his matrix was some kind of spell. It almost looked like a tracking... well shit. I erased it immediately, and strengthened the Library's defenses. I told my creations what I found, and for the next few minutes we all sat in tense silence. I was about to sigh in relief when I heard it. The sound reverberated throughout the library. Knock, Knock, Knock.