The Road to Healing

Chapter 6: A Numbers Problem

The Journal of Duskfall Sparkle Year 12 Month 3 Day 14

I have a tough decision to make. I’ve been around long enough that most of the people of this world know of me, at least. I know how to make clones, but none of them durable enough for any real use. At least, not unless I make clones that have far too high a risk of becoming independent. Still, I’m proud of what I’ve been doing. I’ve been a good little fuck toy for everyone who wants to use me. But now that I’m a known figure, which brings me to the choice I need to make. Do I settle down in one spot where everyone can find me if they need me or do I wander about, helping those as I come across them?

On the one hand, having a base of operations where everyone knows they can find me means that they can all come to me for the relief they need. However, there are those that won’t or can’t travel. There’s also the question of hiring some kind of staff if I set up shop somewhere. After all, if I’m constantly being fucked and/or dying, someone has to watch the place to keep rowdy customers from hurting each other.

On the other hand, wandering as I have been means I can appear before people who had no idea they needed to use me until I offer myself to them. However, it makes it more difficult for people who do know they need to use me to find me.

…Pinkie makes a good point. There’s no pressure to decide right now. I can just keep doing what I’ve been doing until I make a final decision. Of course, if I could make clones worth a damn, this wouldn’t be a problem in the first place! Over a decade of experiments and I keep failing! If it was just a matter of making a shadow clone, that would be one thing, but my clones need to be both durable enough and fragile enough to be able to provide all my services while also having enough intelligence to be a good partner while not being intelligent enough to become their own person!

I can do any one of those things, on a good day two, but I can never seem to get it just right. All of my spell matrixes collapse when trying to accomplish all four criteria. I just don’t understand why. They aren’t overloading, they aren’t incompatible, and they aren’t even from opposing schools of Magic! Everything I know says they should work perfectly. They’d be horribly inefficient, but there’s no reason for them to not work!

Pinkie says I should take a few days off from working on this. I don’t see how that will help. I’ve been working on this for TWELVE YEARS! I know it’s possible, but what am I missing?! I’ve tried every trick in the book and even a few I’ve picked up in my time on this world.

I just want to help. Oh, but for a day where everyone could have their own personal Duskfall Sparkle they could use to their heart’s content. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? No one would have to be lonely; no one would have to be ashamed of their tastes. I could serve them all forever.

Hmm, I wonder if I should look into a hive mind format? Linking the clones directly to my own consciousness would likely put a greater strain on the spells, but if I was in direct control of the clones it would bypass the intelligence problem. Of course, such a thing would be dangerous. I’m talking about eventually controlling potentially billions of clones simultaneously. However, the reward would be worth it. Not only would I be able to personally give everyone the care they deserve, but I would feel it all! That’s a win-win if I do say so myself!

I think that’s going to be my new project for the next little while. I’ll start out with some basic shadow clones and work on splitting my consciousness between them. I’ll leave the construction of more useful clones until I can keep control of, oh, 40 clones. If I really want to push myself, I’ll make it clones of different types. We’ll see after I’m done with preliminary testing.

End of Journal Entry

Data Log #1,242

First attempt to split consciousness. I’ve decided to use a shadow clone for this as it is the most flexible for how easy it is to make and replace. For now I’ve decided to use a hybrid mind swapping spell and attention splitting spell. It should allow me to partition only a segment of my consciousness for sending to the shadow clone. Then I add a modified version of the ‘see through another’s eyes’ spell and we should link up perfectly.

Obviously I’ll need to make modifications and maybe invent a whole new spell in the future, but for now I’m content with baby steps. Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all.

Duskfall was lying if she said she wasn’t nervous. Pinkie babbling on in the background wasn’t helping matters either. Still, what was the worst that could happen? Duskfall was already insane, how could she go more insane? At least, that’s what she was telling herself. She knew full well that she could go from a functional insane person to drooling on the floor yelling about turtles carrying worlds on their backs.

Duskfall summoned the shadow clone. It was a trick she had mastered years ago and was one of her favorites. No other method of cloning herself came close to the ease and comfort that came with shadow clones. From shadowy impressions of herself to beings of pure Darkness in her shape to those that looked exactly like her, shadow clones were quickly becoming one of her bread and butter spells.

Carefully, the purple Alicorn crafted the spells she wanted to use. First, break her consciousness into two parts. A simple spell used to help Unicorns multitask. The next part was trickier. The mind swap spell was supposed to work with two complete minds, not half of one being transferred into a blank space. Still, an override trick she had picked up five years ago would suffice to make only half the spell trigger.

“Well, this is weird,” The shadow clone suddenly spoke.

“Guess the mind swap spell did work,” Duskfall was pleased with herself.

“Can you link us up please? It’s really weird only being half a consciousness,” The shadow clone shuddered. Truth be told, Duskfall was experiencing a similar feeling of ill-defined uncomfortable sensations. Duskfall quickly cast the modified version of the ‘see through your eyes’ spell.

Both Duskfall and the shadow clone dropped to the floor. The sudden onslaught of additional sensations was overwhelming the single pony in two bodies. The feedback only lasted for ten seconds before the shadow clone popped and Duskfall’s whole mind returned to being in a single body.

“That could’ve gone better,” Duskfall groaned. She had a lot of work ahead of her.

Author's Note

Duskfall Sparkle

Mental Corruption: 75.3%

Afflictions:
Addiction to sex
Addiction to dying
Schizophrenia

Perks:
Insanity: [155%]
Darkness: [121%]
Magic: [84%]

As it turns out, shadow clones are tied to Darkness. Duskfall's been making liberal use of shadow clones for 12 years now. She's unintentionally been hardcore feeding her Darkness.

We'll just have to wait and see where this hive mind business winds up...