A Quiet Rune Scribe

APR 10 Thursday. I sit at my desk tinkering with the water bolt spell, even if I decided to focus on the fire bolt spell I thought I'd tinker around with the water bolt spell, I don't really have a reason, but having a well made version might be useful later.

I've been able to increases the speed at which the spell gathers water, but that increased the matrixes complexity making it harder to cast, If I want to progress in my casting speed I'll need more practice, so right now I'm practicing drawing two matrixes at once.

I attempted this several months ago but I didn't have enough control at the time so I stopped, and I've improved my control, I haven't been practicing like this so I'm drawing a matrix and holding it there before attempting to draw a second matrix.

When I cast a spell I need to draw the matrix with my magic and then push enough magic into it, the difference comes in when I want to hold a matrix without using it as soon as it's done being drawn, when I place my magic into the air it will dissipate after around a minute.

As a pony grows more powerful there magic is more stable letting them hold a matrix without effort longer, but when you want to keep a matrix around after that you need to concentrate and keep the magic stable, when I first tried doing this type of training I didn't have the control to keep the matrix stable.

And I also didn't have enough practice to draw the matrix fast enough to cast both, what changed is that I now am much better at drawing matrixes making them more stable, as a matrixes stability is affected by a few things, first how well its drawn, second how stable the magic used to draw it is, and finally how well the spell is constructed.

When I first did this training my matrixes had imperfections in them, and they still do just to a lesser extent, this is why I failed and why I can do it now, I spend the next hour drawing the firebolt matrix and holding it as long as I can keeping it stable, but the longer I try the more it seems to slip away before it fails entirely.

Right now my magic can hold a spell in the air for just under a minute, and I can hold it there for about three minutes before it collapses and the magic dissipates, I'm not sure why but as a ponies magic grows it becomes more stable, I tried to find out why but most don't even use runic magic let alone study it's mysteries.

After practicing some I stop to work on something else, my new plant has been doing ok, I have it in a pot on the kitchen counter as it doesn't like direct light, I've done some research about it over the past few days and have found a few things of note.

First its glow isn't just light, it's moonlight, the plant seems to convert ambient magic into lunar affinity magic, I'm not sure if it has any real use right now as lunar magic seems like another variation of light, but it's something of note, the plant also seems to prefer forest soil.

I've been feeding it life magic to keep it healthy but it doesn't seem to like this environment as I can feel my magic healing it whenever I give it some, I'm not sure what the problem is but that's fine as it is the only plant I need to keep healthy right now.

I've learned some things about the Moon Glow, first how long does it's light last?, well that depends on how large the plant is and how much magic it is the environment around it, second are there any uses for the plant beyond light?, yes but not much, the leaves can be used as a mild healing agent.

It helps with small cuts and scrapes, but beyond that the plant is mostly just a natural light, I've collected some seeds from the Moon Glow to store and am going to leave the plant alone until I start trying to selectively breeding it or find a use for it, It's ten in the morning and I don't have much else to do today so I look through my things to get some ideas.

And I land on my new bracelet, I'm not exactly sure how I want to enchant it but I have a few ideas, first this bracelet is made from silver which can handle much more magic going through it than the copper one Daisy gave me, that combined with the better gems gives me more magic to work with.

I move to my bedroom and take off the copper and topaz bracelet Daisy gave me, Daisy is the first real friend I made in this life and I don't want to damage the first gift she gave me, so I place a cloth under it and leave it on my bedside, I've keep using it as a clock for checking the time when I wake up.

I don't want to just stop wearing it, but I can't keep it on me always, I'll still wear it sometimes but I think I'll keep it at home for now, I head to the work room and get started, I grab the new bracelet and sit at a desk.

I start by enchanting all four sapphires to hold magic and linking them together, I want this to still be a watch but I can add more now, I spend time going over the spell matrix for my watch, the last bracelet didn't have much magic so I had to make the spell as simple as I could.

But this time I can add a few more things, first it will tell me the time and date now, second it will let me set a timer that will make the bracelet activate when the timer finishes, and it even has enough magic to add two very small illusions, when it's day there will be a small sun and a small moon at night.

I spend some time working on the matrix and refining it, I then enchant the silver of the bracelet with the new time spell, it takes a while to get the Illusions right but I'm able to get them looking right, when I turn it on, it shows a small clock in the middle, on the left is a small sub number for the timer, with the date and year on the right side .

Just like the last bracelet it can't be active all the time , but it can be active for longer, the last one could last two to three minutes before using all it's magic, this one can last ten minutes and is much more useful, I go through the rest of my things before leaving the workroom.

I don't have anything left I want to do so I grab my things and bring Entropy with me to the park, I walk through the streets and after a while we reach the parks edge, we come here often mostly on my morning runs but also whenever I need to relax or Entropy needs to stretch her wings.

I walk over to an empty bench and sit down, I don't have anything to do here either but it's nice to simply do nothing sometimes, as I watch the scene in front of me I see several ponies, some younger ones playing and older ponies talking or playing with them.

Most seem to be having a good day, but there is something odd, I'm just sitting there when a pony enters a restroom nearby, at first they look uninteresting a brown unicorn stallion, I barely notice him when he enters and I wouldn't find it odd except he doesn't use his magic to open the door but his hoof instead even though I can see the dirty handle form here.

It's a little odd but I don't really care about what others are doing, but then things get weird, another pony comes out they are a gray unicorn stallion that walks off and out of sight, I wait because I'm now curios about when they will leave, I realize that what I'm doing is stupid but my curiosity is nagging at me but I let my curiosity win, so I decide to just go inside check on them.

I turn the dirty handle with my field and open the door, inside is a few stalls and a urinal, but as I look around I notice something all the stalls are empty, I check the room but there's nopony here it's completely empty which makes no sense, I kept my eyes on the door the whole time and there's only one entrance nopony could leave without me seeing them.

Something doesn't feel right so I spend a moment thinking before I realize what might be happening, I try and act calm as I leave the restrooms and walk out of the park, I walk slowly down the streets as I keep an eye out for anything following me and I don't stop checking behind me until I enter my apartment,

When I enter I put Entropy down but she keeps following me chirping softly at me, "I'm fine girl, just something unexpected" I make myself some tea to calm down before getting my thoughts in order.

This has raised several questions for me but before I go down that rabbit hole I need to make sure I'm correct in my guess, what do I know for sure?, first a pony entered that restroom and a different pony came out, there is only one entrance and exit so there's nowhere else they could have gone.

Which leads to my best guess and the reason I left the park so fast, that pony may have been a changeling, I don't have concrete proof but I can't see many other possibilities and all of those are even less likely to be true, I spend a moment writing down all I remember about how they looked.

Both were male unicorns around the same height, the first one had a light brown coat and red mane, the second a deep gray coat and blue mane, I don't remember much else about either of them but I think they looked parity similar besides the colors of the coat and mane.

I don't know why they were in the city, but if I had to guess a park filled with ponies enjoying a nice day and having fun is a decent place to gather love, although would they really be so desperate for love to risk being active right next to the princess?, then again hiding right under her nose isn't the worst strategy.

This still doesn't solve what I'm going to do about this, I can't tell anypony as nopony should know about them for years, I think for a while before deciding on my next course of action, I won't do anything as I can do little that would help, I won't be able to stop them myself nor do I want to as that endangers the future.

So for now I'll think of ways to protect myself, and fight them when the time comes but that also won't happen for years, the good news is I don't think they will be a danger to anypony as they are probably just here to gather the love magic released into the environment.

With my mind made up I stand and make some lunch for the both of us and we eat in silence, Entropy seems to know I'm still a little on edge as she seems determined to distract me, she keeps throwing her ball at me until I throw it out and then returning it back to me.

I smile a bit as she bows her head and ruffles her feathers, I scratch her neck moving the feathers around, "thanks girl, what would I do without you?" I get a caw and some small chirps in response, I try to stop worrying over this unexpected encounter and do some training to distract myself.

I move to my workroom and start messing with the pen I made not long ago, I still cant use it for much but it can help me train something, if I draw a matrix fast enough I can try and hold the unstable matrix, this lets me train my control over magic not my own.

I don't know if this will be useful but I thought the same thing about my Tk field when I first started, it's much harder to hold these matrixes in place as the magic fights me the whole time trying to break free and unwind, I can only hold it for several seconds before it dissipates but that can be improved, I think.

I spend the rest of the day inside training and thinking of things I could do and playing with Entropy.