Arcanum Sombran

The first and most important step is confirming what one already knows.

Umber takes a deep breath. He has a number of thaumometers--electro-mechanical devices, with a ream of paper and a little quill wiggling back and forth--set to record his magical signature. He would spring for the all-electric version, but it won't do him any good. It would display the results in glorious color, overlaid on an image of him, but it would not be able to record it.

His horn sparks--at first a deep purple, then with an angry acidic green. He grunts softly. Even for a unicorn with no friends and few acquaintances, charging his horn with Sombran magic is difficult at first. He begins to worry that he will not fully charge his horn, and in that exact moment his horn surges. A nearby stack of papers suddenly flies into the air, scattering around his office; the thaumometers jolt and squeak as they record the sudden shift in power; and he yelps as he scrambles to sort the memos from the letters.

The second time, it happens faster. The third time, he is able to focus it into a gemstone he purchased for the sole purpose of focusing and containing this power while he studies it; the angry hues of green and purple bounce rapidly within the ruby, making it flash and hum.

"...interesting." He frowns, tapping the thaumometer. It registers only the static thaumic interference. It is evident that standard equipment does not even register shadow magic. He will need specialty equipment.

"I need a wide-band thaumometer," he says to the artificer. He does not remember her name. He does not care; she's only useful if she can wrap her head around what he needs.

"How wide?"

"I need to hit extra-low frequencies."

"The stuff I sold you the other day should read down to the low reds." Unicorn magic is known to have a 'natural' frequency, which determines its color, thus the use of color to classify it.

"It is not enough," he replies. He looks her dead in the eyes, and waits for her to blink.

"...Your little project," she mutters. "They actually said yes? They actually, really said yes to that?"

"It went all the way up to the Princesses."

"And they said yes!?"

"And now I have made my first discovery. Shadow magic oscillates at a frequency that your thaumometers cannot read."

He does not know her name, but he does know what makes her tick. She loves a challenge, and it took only a slight change of intonation to make this sound like a challenge. She grins. "Give me a day and I'll make one that can."

"I would have preferred a paper tape model."

"Well, now you have me to record the results."

Umber rolls his eyes as the artificer mare adjusts the lenses on her contraption.

"Okay, fire it up," she says, and it only takes a moment for him to light his horn. She gasps softly. "I'm seeing a lot of sub-kilo noise."

"Less than a kilo-Shine?"

"Yeah, around the 200 to 300 shine range."

Umber extinguishes his horn, wincing as the magic rings in his ears. There was a lot more energy in his horn than he had expected. "How much?"

"Upwards of 1500 Bells of output. There were some harmonies in the green and purple range, but almost all of it was sub-red."

"That amount of output, just from lighting my horn?"

"We can catch it in a prism if you want to look."

He turns to the gemstone he bought earlier--and squints. "Check the gem, please."

"What, did you cast at it earlier?"

"Yesterday."

"There's no way it held that energy for--" But she cuts herself short as she aims the thuamometer. Clear as day, on the viewing screen, is a spike of ultra-low-frequency magic--so deep below red that it loops around into the purple. It's not quite as powerful as it was coming direct from Umber's horn, but it's unmistakeable.

"Incredible," Umber mutters. "Absolutely incredible."