Author's Note

And we’re back to our main universe for the story. When you see the ending chances are you’ll know what’s planned for the next chapter.

As always, feel free to use the materials I’ve provided you, just remember to contact me or send me a copy before moving forward, I like to help when I can.

Ember's Twilight Deal

“Um, Spike,” said Twilight completely naked in Spike’s room, “is there a reason you are insisting on me be completely devoid of attire here?”

Spike just smirked and said, “It has something to do with an arrangement I have with Ember, nothing to be too worried about.”

“You promised her some ‘special’ alone time with, I get it.”

“Well yes, there is that, but only if she’s gotten my okay after you finish helping her with research. She wants to know how possible it is to grow crystal and jeweled plants outside this city’s boundaries, mostly so she can have little groves and the like in the rest of her territory, I’ve had Applejack and her family assist with the research, the results aren’t as promising as we hoped.”

“So now it’s on me, you want to see if I find how all the crystal flora came to be or at least the earliest known records and any recorded circumstances regarding their appearance so we can share the info with Ember.”

“Correct,” came Embers voice as she entered the room, “I very much like your figure, it’s just to the specifications Spike said they would. You will follow me to the room I have prepared everything, as you are, understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Twilight with a bit of hesitance in her voice. She resigned herself to following through, mostly because she knew Spike could just order to do just that and she wouldn’t be able to properly resist any of it. Besides, a little research might just what she needed to get her head back in the game, even if it wasn’t related to what she wanted to know, at the very least, she could compare notes to how it is back home afterward. When turned to leave she saw Ember’s lack of attire, all Ember was wearing, if you could call it that, was a petite bikini top and a diamond-studded silver tiara.

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After Ember popped up in at Spike’s room she led Twilight down a hall, the walk was very suggestive on Ember’s part, as was evident by the way Twilight’s attention kept going to the dragoness’s rear and legs involuntarily and the way Ember had given her knowing smiles during the ten minute walk; it also didn’t help that almost every male guard, pony and dragon, was showing some signs of embarrassment when they looked at either female.

The halls they moved through were mostly sparse, aside from the few guards and statues of Ember Twilight spotted as Ember led her through the halls. The journey finally ended when Ember stopped before one of the rooms and threw open the doors, inside was an array of a dozen or so research tables that were mostly stacked with books, scrolls, and other texts. Twilight’s eyes bulged in excitement, wonderment, and confusion.

“All these texts you’ve managed to confirm have to do with crystal plants and agricultural practices of the area?”

“No,” said Ember as she brought greater attention to her prominent bosom with b folding of her arms beneath her bust, “most of these just have at least one mention of development or growing of such plants. That said, the written dialects also seem to go back so far that even Sombra can’t do any better than get a glancing idea of a very small handful of words with the much older texts. You have your work cut out for you,” she then led Twilight to a set of four empty tables with a singular chair at the table closest to their approach, “I’ve instructed three pegasus guards to assist you in your query, they should be arriving here in a few minutes, I wanted to make sure they understood their orders properly and you were situated here when they arrived. The other three tables are for three categories: Useful, Semi-useful, and Not Applicable. I’ll leave it on you to decide which is which and instruct the guards accordingly. Once you have found what we are looking for managed to sort all the texts your work here will be completed. The reward you earn will be based on the results of your research.”

“But how will I be able to properly read the older material?” Twilight inquired.

“I couldn’t find anything to help with that, but Lord Spike said probably had a lead on that, what he thinks he’s found should be arriving here in the next few days. I made sure to make sure the newer material would be the first on your reading list, what you need for translating the older texts should be here by the time you get that far, at least that’s what Lord Spike has assured me of. We’re both also hoping your talent for research might also mean you can decipher the older texts with little effort.”

“Glad to see you have such high thoughts of my abilities and talent.”

Ember said nothing and just left the room. About a half hour after Ember had left, three crystal pegasi, two stallions and one mare, entered the room and Twilight started them off with getting her a few small armfuls of texts. It wasn’t easy for Twilight to ignore them, thanks to the fact they all had pin-up quality bodies, but she managed to do just that thanks to her academic nature.

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Three days, that was how long Twilight had spent going through the texts, and still had a little over half collection to go, she had actually spent several hours on a few because they had some sort of clue or just had really misleading wording. Thankfully, the monotony, which had the guards feeling extremely bored due to how their orders were worded, was interrupted by the arrival of Chrysalis, utterly naked if you didn’t count her horn ring and collar as attire, with a small box of some kind of small box twice the size of her fists bunched together.

“Master Spike,” said Chrysalis, in a sultry voice, as she approached Twilight’s table, “managed to procure these for you,” she set the package, still wrapped in brown paper and letter twine, on the table before Twilight, “although, he did mention he expected only one of them to be available for your use.”

“Probably had strike up quite the deal,” said Twilight in a bit of a sassy snark, “seeing as these sorts of magical items are hard to come by, not just procure.”

“Indeed,” said Chrysalis, “you’ll be told the necessary information when the time is appropriate.” With that, the changeling queen sashayed out of the room.

“Um, who was that?” The crystal pegasus mare, who had been unwilling to share her name with Twilight for some reason, inquired.

Twilight turned to look at the citrine mare for a moment before thinking about it for a moment and saying, “Chrysalis, she is Spike’s latest acquisition. She also serves as his personal assistant, and before you ask, yes, he does fuck, quite frequently. And yes, her figure is highly attractive and very lustful to look at, any more moronic questions before moving onward?”

The three crystal pegasi shook their heads as Twilight turned her attention to the package with an eye roll hidden from the three as she did so. It wasn’t hard to see two of the three were immensely attracted to Chrysalis, judging by the bulge in the pants of one of the stallions and the very overt look lust directed at the changeling queen the mare seemed to have. After turning her attention to the package, Twilight got to work undoing the packaging.

Within the box, she found three small items in cases of their own. Twilight first lifted out what looked like a glasses case, when she opened it she gasped and almost let go of the case and nearly dropped it; the item inside the case was a pair of Runic Translation glasses, back home Princess Luna had a pair on display in her personal museum that was open to the public, the establishment had an almost criminally low price of admission. She closed the case and turned her attention to the next item. Picking up what looked like it could pass for an overly large ring case, Twilight carefully opened the case to reveal what looked like a gold-rimmed monocle with runic symbols carved into the boarding gold; a Runic Informer Monocle, also extremely rare, Celestia had one in her private collection that she showed off every four to five years to societally high ranking ponies just to see and gauge their reactions, much to the chagrin of Twilight and several of the castle staff. After looking the item over she set the case next to the open case for the glasses then turned her attention to revealing the final item in the box. Twilight pulled up what looked like the case for some sort of necklace or pendant, opening it revealed a mask that was made from a kind of brass with a highly pronounced blueish tint; an Orichalcum Language Mask, the artifact predated the founders of Equestria by an almost incalculable span of time, the only one Twilight was aware back home was in a museum that was a good month’s journey by airship or boat from Equestria, and even then you needed to go through an arduous process of just being permitted to enter the building while also paying a small fortune just for admission. Twilight had never been to the place personally, but she had read numerous academic materials on the artifact in question.

Thinking over her options, Twilight carefully closed the cases for the monocle and mask and put them back in the box before plucking the glasses out of their case and perching them before her eyes. After all that Twilight got right back to work, this time going at a bit more of an accelerated pace.

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Twelve days and nine hours, that was how long it had taken Twilight to fully get through everything that had been collected for her to go through. Once she found the first genuinely promising document, which was feat in and of itself when you took the time to look at the veritable pyramids of reading material that were the Semi-useful and Not Applicable tables, the small and neat collection that was the Useful table didn’t quite look as intensive, the materials on the table were just barely enough to make a small cabin. And that wasn’t just visualization for the sake of description, her helper guards really did make structures out of all the materials in those designs out of boredom while waiting for her to complete the task at hand.

Emerald Sky, the green colored crystal stallion, was overjoyed when he heard Twilight say she was going to send one of them to get some writing materials for her to translate the older script to something more easily readable but felt the wind fall out of his sails when Twilight chose to send Kuzanite Wing, the violet-pink stallion to collect the materials she asked for. Kuzanite came back a half hour later with two boxes of materials, one filled with notepads and the other filled with writing pens that already had the ink in them.

Twilight spent a good six hours making four different copies; she sent one off with Emerald Sky and the other off with the citrine mare. After the two had left she turned to Kuzanite and said, “It’s interesting how you managed to hide the fact you’re actually a mare, I’m guessing you couldn’t use that charm without Lady Ember’s permission.”

“Um, yes,” said Kuzanite, who had been quiet to the point of making the rest of the occupants of the room think said pony was mute. “Citrine Burst,” so that was the orange mare’s name, “tends to make things different for other guard mares, her overtly open sexual attraction to mares tends to make things difficult when she is working with other mares, even when you openly and flat out tell her you aren’t interested. Lady Ember doesn’t do anything about it because she finds it all too amusing.”

“I see,” said Twilight, “if I can find a way to make things a bit easier for you I will, I’ll also leave a note regarding Ms. Burst in my reports to both Spike and Ember.”

“Thank you, ma’am, much appreciated.”

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“Thank you for your hard work,” said Ember as she looked over the notes Twilight had handed off to her some hours prior, they were in a meeting hall with Spike, who was now dressed in a business casual shirt and pants colored blue and pink. “Looks like I lost the bet, oh great Dragonlord,” she said turning her attention to Spike, “What was the wager again?”

“You get Twilight and two of mine of your choice if you win, I get one of yours and Fuck you for as long as I want if I win,” said Spike with a smirk. “Seeing how Twilight seems to have taken a shine to the pony known as Kuzanite Wing, I think I will be claiming her when we leave. But I think I’ll take up the rest of what you offered now.”

“I thought as much,” said Ember, removing the entirety of her attire, which only consisted of a petite bikini top and bottom.

Twilight took this as her cue to leave the room; she really didn’t want to see what it was like to see two dragons going at it. She also made haste to be as far as way as possible, she had no intention of hearing the sounds of two dragons fucking each other.