The Changeling of Illusions

As Aurelic prepares to leave his room, he notices a VERY pink envelope with a particular balloon seal on the floor in front of the door. Cautiously, he points it away from himself to open it, with the envelope practically exploding the second a tear is made. He holds up the letter with his magic.

Dear Aurelic, hiya! I need your help testing some new recipes down at Sugarcube Corner. Can you make it by 6:00? Thank you!
-Pinkie Pie.

Aurelic furrows his brow. "Strange, I haven't been invited to test any recipes before... Eh, whatever. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Who'd turn down free food?"

-<>~--*--~<>-<

Forge steps into a completely dark Sugarcube Corner, unsure why the lights were out. "Must've forgotten to pay the electric bill or something. Wait, they use gas lamps. Or... maybe a magic thing?"

Suddenly, the light is flicked on, as ponies all jump out from various hiding spots all around the shop yelling one word in unison.

"SURPRISE!" The room seemed to yell all at once from all sides.

Forge is extremely startled, jumping a good meter in the air, nearly hitting his head on the ceiling. Before he can collect himself, Pinkie suddenly appears right in front of his face.

"HiyaForgegladyoucouldmakeittoyourbirthdaypartytoday!" She blurts out extremely fast.

Forge shakes his head, adjusting himself from being startled. "Woah, it's my birthday today? I guess I've been so caught up in my work and projects I forgot..." He takes a closer look all around the room. Some of the crowd is definitely feeling less than happy, and it seems like those feelings have been lingering for multiple hours. "Hey Pinkie, why are so many ponies so down?"

"Oh... that..." Pinkie slightly deflates. "It's cider season, some of the town didn't get any. I was hoping the birthday party would help, but if you can tell it's not... I need to try harder." She says, a new look of determination on her face. Then, she suddenly remembers something. "Oh, and I invited your friends from Canterlot. They seem nice, even if one of them's a griffon..."

"No fu- uh, freaking way you got all of them down here." Forge denies.

The group in question approaches. "Hey there, so these kinds of parties are why you take those days off eh?" Solid Weld asks, smirking.

"I can see why you enjoy these so much. It's a lot of fun!" Hearth Aspis remarks.

Gina sort of half nods, but definitely isn't feeling all too welcome.

"I will admit, at first glance I thought it was childish. But now that I've been here for a bit, it's deceptively engaging." Frigid Pauldron says.

Forge blinks, and blinks. "Woah, all of you came? You guys didn't have to, but I'm glad you're here." He says, right as he's pulled into a group hug.

"Of course we did. Just cause we work together doesn't mean we can't be friendly outside the job." Solid says while giving Forge a light noogie. "Now let's show these Ponyville folks how us Canterlot folks party!"

-<>~--*--~<>-<

After only an hour, Forge notices Pinkie, along with the rest of the mane six minus Applejack, exit the party. Forge follows, with his own group following close behind. Soon enough, they reach the outside of Sweet Apple Acres, where a particular contraption that looks like it's straight out of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang sits with two very lanky unicorns dressed in garb similar to that of a barber shop quartet.

"Flim and Flam, literally con artists named after the word flimflam." Forge thinks, glaring daggers at the two, who aren't even paying attention to what's going on right now. "Look at them just sitting up there, smugly... God I want to punch them so badly."

Meanwhile, the rest of the royal blacksmiths are gawking at the strange trackless train in front of them.

"Keep your mouths open and you'll get free flies in them. That thing's made shoddily, and isn't even that good of a cider maker as those bozos claim." Forge says to his coworkers, looking on as ~~The Doctor~~ Time Turner starts the hourglass timer.

The machine starts off strong, producing three barrels for every one the Apples make. It doesn't take very long for Twilight and company to assist the Apples in their cider production. Forge opts to join in as a third inspector, alongside Granny Smith and Rarity.

"The faster these apples are inspected, the more cider output we'll have. Gathering's plentiful enough to warrant this increase in inspection speed." Forge reasons as he scans every apple at a quick pace, quite literally, while keeping cover under the guise of his illusory magic. Every bad apple gets thrown into the bad pile at a high enough speed to cause whooshing sounds through the air.

Meanwhile, the barrel rate has increased significantly, even more than what would've been made without his involvement. Forge's coworkers watch Forge in disbelief, while the crowd watches the barrels in awe, to Flim and Flam's horror. Once all is said and done, the barrels are tallied up. All in all, Flim and Flam had just barely managed to win, by a single barrel.

Once the crowd gets a taste, they spit out the flimflam cider in disgust, looking at the twigs, dirt, and worms that had managed to slip in thanks to forgoing their quality control. Within moments, they're driven out of town, speeding off on their super shitty cider squeezy 6000 as cider cups are thrown angrily at them. Forge sets a full barrel of the poorly made cider in front of Solid, who kicks it so hard it flies into the distance, bonking one of the brothers on the head.

"I still can't believe nobody managed to pick up on the fact that a flimflam is a type of con." Forge says with a smirk.

"I did, but we've learned not to judge a book by its cover. Unfortunately, it was a picture book." Twilight replies.

"Solid Weld's pretty built, only other pony I know capable of bucking a barrel like that's my brother." Applejack notes with a hat tip.

"Well, I wasn't always a blacksmith you know. Before then, I'd been hauling carts of ore through the Canterlot Mines. We'd stopped since further mining would've upset the structural integrity of the mountainside the city's built on." Solid elaborates.

The remainder of the night is spent drinking and laughing as stories are passed around. Meanwhile, a particular little wasp observes the goings on.