A Quiet Rune Scribe

FEB 3 Monday. I get out of bed looking around the room I rented last night, I was tired and wanted to sleep so I didn't get a good look at the town or inn, I also had to make dinner last night as the inn's kitchen was closed when I arrived, good news is it should be open for breakfast.

As I gather my bags Entropy wakes up from sleeping on the beds headboard, she looks around for a moment before flapping her wings and landing on the floor in front of me, she gives a caw and waits for me to put my saddle bags and backpack on before flapping her wings again and landing on top the backpack and laying down as I leave the room.

I walk down a set of stairs entering a reception and dining room, a desk and kitchen entrance along the left wall and several tables along the right wall, after descending the stairs I go over to a table and sit for a while before a pony asks me what I want to eat.

I order some food for us and we eat breakfast before making our way out of the inn and moving towards the edge of town, as I walk I get my first good look at the town, it's a small town with mostly earth ponies around a hundred buildings with few of them reaching above two stories high.

The town seems quiet and peaceful, as I reach a dirt road leading out of the town leading into a grass plan extending into some mountains nearby, I pass a sign as I leave the town, welcome to Ilinalta, an odd name for a pony town if you ask me.

Entropy takes off from my back and flies around in the open sky, I don't blame her she doesn't get to fly freely much in the city she flies around even doing a few tricks, as we continue down the road reaching several splits in the road, I have to go through the map I have several times before finding the right way to go at each turn.

Over the next hour of walking I came across two different encounters, the first was a courier traveling with several packages who didn't stop to talk for long before continuing on their way, the second was a group of traveling merchants that I saw camped on the roadside.

I spent some time talking to the caravan leader, after some talking I found out that they came from the direction I'm heading in, they informed me that the road crosses a stream but the stream was overflowing and while I should be able to cross it I should be careful.

I thanked them and spent a little while trading with them, I bought some spices I wasn't familiar with along with a small shovel it's made from Iron and while it's a little heavy but works well, after that I continued down the road and a while later I found the stream they told me about.

It doesn't seem to be as overflowed as they said, I guess it receded some the stream still seems higher than normal, I shouldn't have a problem crossing the stream as long as I'm not weighed down too much, I spend a few minutes securing my bags before holding them above me in my field as I cross the stream.

The water is cold and moving fairly fast but not strong enough to stop me and after several minutes of careful walking I'm at the other side, and after drying off and putting my bags back on I keep moving down the road, it takes another hour and three more splits before finding a sign, White Tree Valley.

This valley is interesting for its location, it's in between two mountain ridges, the road I'm following will lead along the side of the valley, the valley extends into the mountains before narrowing out and ascending, this means that I can find the road even without my map or compass as all I need to do is head downhill and I'll find the road.

I find the trail leading into the valley and start following it, the terrain around me changes as I walk as the grass plains turn into forest and eventually I start seeing a few birch trees, as I continue I see more and more birch trees before all other types of trees vanish from sight.

The brush also thins out some as the ground levels some, I enter the White Tree Valley proper the birch trees are dense here while the underbrush is fairly light, I follow a trail for a while heading deeper into the valley, as I walk Entropy flies from tree to tree following me.

After a while of walking this trail we find a decently clear and flat dirt patch, which seems like an old camping spot but it will do just fine for me, I start setting up camp assembling my tent and using my new shovel to dig out a fire pit that's been filled in over time.

I also spend a while clearing out a few shrubs growing in the camp, after I'm done I place my large ruby in my tent and tap it twice activating the shield, I walk out and see the magic shield seeing a thin barrier around the camp, after making sure everything was working correctly and that it's keeping out the rain I move back to my tent.

I'm going to be spending a little under two weeks here so it's time to get to work, I came to this valley for a few reasons, first I came to relax and spend some time away from the city, second I came to train my life magic, and finally I came to let Entropy experience the forest.

Speaking of Entropy she seems to be having a blast, she keeps moving around flying from tree to tree and picking up anything of interest to examine so she seems to be having fun, right now she seems to be inspecting a berry bush nearby, I recognize this bush it's often called thimbleberry.

I see several red berries sitting on its branches, Entropy picks one off the bush before bringing it to me and holding it and staring at me, I think she's asking if it can be eaten, "smart girl aren't you?" I walk over to the bush and eat a few of the berries, I turn to see her eating the berry she picked and considering she starts hopping around and eating more she seems to like them.

I grab a berry and spend some time removing seeds from it before storing them in a bag, I didn't come here for plants but I'll take anything that could be of use, but like I said a moment ago I'm mostly here to relax and train my life magic not look for plants.

Ever since I unlocked my life magic I've mostly trained my control and the efficiency of my magic conversion, but I've gotten to the point where it's time to move onto the next step, all this time I've been growing plants by simply pushing life magic into plants and forcing them to grow.

While this method is easy as you can imagine this is far from efficient, I waste a lot of the magic used doing this which is one of the reasons I'm in this valley, the first step to learning life magic is to improve your control and conversion the second is to use your improved control to mimic the natural process of plant growth.

I need to observe how life magic flows through plants as they grow and copy it letting me grow plants without wasting so much magic, when a plant absorbs life magic it grows faster and healthier this is also part of the reason I'm doing this here instead of the city's park as the denser the life magic the easier it is to observe the flow of life magic.

I walk around the forest near my camp and find a plant, some type of mushroom I'm not sure what type so I won't touch them, I haven't grown any mushrooms yet so this will be some extra training, I dig up the mushroom along with a good amount of the soil under it and move it back to my camp, I place my pile of dirt at the edge of my barrier.

I place it down and lay in front of it before concentrating, I need to move my magic into the plant and instead of forcing growth I let the plant do what it wants with the magic and just watch, I watch as the different flows of life magic move and twist through the mushrooms mycelium and cap, the thick life magic of the forest helping the plant making it easier to see the flows of life magic.

I sit there for almost an hour before getting up, the soil that I bought is now completely filled with the mushrooms mycelium and the top has many mushroom caps coming out of the top, I take a smaller amount of this soil and move it to a different area.

I gather some soil and mound it around the chunk of mycelium filled soil, I spend the next two hours slowly copying the process I watched earlier, moving my magic it the same flows trying to copy what the plant does and how it grows, when I'm done I have another pile of mushroom filled soil, that I decompose.

I then repeat this process without copying the plants magic flow, after writing down the results I find that when I'm copying the plant I save around twenty percent of the magic I would normally use, this matches what I've read so I spend the next few hours repeating this with a few different plants.

This is how I'll be practicing my life magic from now on, the reason that this is the next step for learning plant magic, is that when using this method you need to learn the unique flow of each plant and that can take a long time, but the up side of this is when you memorize the flows enough you can grow that plant even faster then before along with it costing less magic to do so.

So while I'm in this forest I will be getting as much practice as I can, I check the time and see I still have roughly two hours of daylight left before it gets dark, before doing anything else I gather some dead wood for a fire tonight most of what I find is wet but I fix that with a water manipulation spell removing the water and stacking the wood near my tent.

After I'm done I decide to explore the area around my camp some more I also grab my sketchbook incase I find anything interesting to draw, I put on my cloak before stepping out of the barrier that stops the light rain from falling on my camp I hear the small taps of rain on my cloak as I walk into the forest.

Entropy decided to come with me walking and hopping under my cloak as we walk, I stop in several places to draw different plants or gather seeds, after a while it starts to really get dark so we move back to camp, we enter our camp and I take off my cloak and start piling some wood in the firepit.

While I'm doing this I see Entropy holding a stick she seems to have found and adds it to the firepit, I give a slight chuckle before scratching the back of her neck as she bows her head and lets out short chirps, after rewarding Entropy I cast the candle flame spell and light the wood with the apple sized ball of fire.

I turn to a new page and look around myself for something to draw before looking up, in the city light pollution isn't strong but it still blocks many stars from being seen at night, above me I see a break in the clouds showing the night sky, I spend the next few hours drawing constellations of stars before cooking some food for us and laying in my tent next to Entropy and drifting off to sleep.