SEP 12 Friday.

I move a plant pot with a piece of Steel wood that's not ready yet. I spent most of yesterday working on the new cleansing spell and observing the magical flows of the Companion Vine.

The cleansing spell is more complex than I originally thought, and will probably take some of my free time over the next month or two to complete it. But what I have worked on already shows great promise. When it's done it should cost around half the magic and be much easier to learn.

And it will have another unintended effect. Turns out that one of the main things you should know when you become a nurse is any cleansing spell. You can still be a nurse without learning it, but those who can use this kind of spell are more valued as they can cast the spell while a doctor uses their magic to heal somepony.

That's because any cleansing spell that is used for healing is so complex most hospitals don't have enough ponies that know it. So there can be competition for those that do know it. So I may accidentally cause a small mess for the medical industry. And that's part of why I pass all these spells and inventions to Celestia. She's much better equipped to deal with any problems that will inevitably pop up.

Moving onto the Companion Vine. After I had my first success with copying its magical flows I've been observing it more to improve my technique, and how efficient it is. And I've had some success, but not much as copying the plants flows in great detail is much harder than a basic copy.

But progress is progress. :God is that my saying now? I mean it's not the worst, but still: Anyway back to my point. I'm not sure if this technique will ever give me more magic than it takes but it can let me stretch my magic out. I'm not sure if that will help my magic capacity grow, but it's definitely improving my control.

Now that we got what I was doing out of the way, I can get to what I want to work on today. A spell I've had for a long time now, and I want to have some fun with it. The Floating Spell. And boy is it an odd spell, well odd to me. The reason I say that is the single rune it uses.

This rune is something I haven't come across before. And the curious thing about it is the meaning behind the single rune. The rune is for float, not that odd by itself as I've come across a few runes for float before. But this one's oddness comes from the runic context.

Its context holds a word in it that I can't really explain concisely. That's because the word is very old and doesn't have a translation for either the Pony or English languages. So while I can find a definition I can't ever find a translation for the word.

The word itself has a few definitions. And the best I've found are two different definitions. To float and see. And to separate from the ground and touch the sky. But I can never fully express this word in any language I know. And as a result I can never fully understand the rune and its meaning, as I simply don't have that words original meaning.

This is mostly just something I found curious. Moving onto the spell itself, it's very simple. Really just some basic math telling the spell the few things it needs to know and the rune to make it all work together. I want to mess around with this spell but not as it is.

So with this in mind I'm currently sitting at my desk improving the spell. First I take out the rune, as while it is a curious rune not being able to fully know it weakens the spell. I changed it for another rune of float I've found in the past. After that it just takes some math, and a little time to double-check everything, before it's ready.

When I'm done I draw out the matrix and cast the spell. I modified this spell to float things up a predetermined and preset distance before keeping it there. I can also control the area of the spell effects. And can even control what it will lift by specifying a weight limit.

Adding all this did increase the spell's magic cost by almost double. But even then my magic regeneration, without drinking tea, is more than enough to hold the spell for basically forever. I do some testing as always. Checking how much the magic costs increase with the weight it's holding.

With the spell I can lift almost three hundred pounds without losing any magic. But if I hold something that heavy with this spell I won't lose magic. But I also won't gain any as I'd be using it as fast as it comes back to me. Once I'm done with my tests and taking notes I get to the fun part.

I go to a shelf and pick up a small one-inch Steel wood cube from a small stack of several other cubes. I spend a lot of my time at home. And when I have excess magic I make sure to use it. But sometimes I'm not training and instead learning or tinkering with spells.

So when I'm doing this and my magic is full I normally take a moment to drain all my excess magic into something before going back to what I was working on. So over time I've collected a small stockpile of Steel wood blocks. I take this small block of wood and place it on the desk.

I can't enchant the Steel wood to hold a powerful magic. But I can have it hold a weak spell, and the spell I just made should be weak enough to work. I start out by getting my carving knife and whittling down the cube. This will lower the magic capacity more but I don't need much for what I have planned.

When I'm done shaping the cube I'm left with a small one-inch triangle pyramid. I then carefully enchant the Steel wood to hold and gather magic, before adding the new float spell. While I'm adding the floating spell I configure it to only float a small amount of weight right above it.

And when I'm done I take a moment to test it. I grab the medium ruby that has the small planet illusion in it. I turn the ruby on its side so that the cubes corners are pointing up, down, and to the sides. Then I activate the float spell in the piece of Steel wood and place the ruby above it.

And the spells work, as the medium ruby floats above the Steel wood piece. I spend a moment simply staring at the gem floating there before moving on to the next step. Normally when I activate the planet illusion it appears above the gem. But it's not hard to move it.

So I move the planet to cover the ruby. The planet is bigger than the ruby, so when I'm done you can't see the gem, just a small planet floating an inch above the wooden triangle pyramid. I spend a while watching the planet slowly move and spin atop the wood piece. I think this has gone rather well.

Sadly the ruby doesn't gain enough magic to have the illusion always active. But it can last a few hours and that's good enough for me. The float spell keeps things from the ground but also keeps anything it's floating very stable. This means that when I pick up the Steel wood piece the gem will stay with it.

Honestly this whole project was just for fun. Some days it's nice to just make something cool. But now that that's done and my magic has regenerated fully I'm going to get some more training in. I leave my workroom and make my way to the Companion Vine.

As I sit in front of the Iron Oak I start feeling the life magic around me. Learning a plant's magical flows isn't hard if you're just looking to copy it. But those flows aren't as simple as they look. When you start trying to copy a plant's flows in greater detail you realize that those flows are made up of smaller flows.

They weave and twist into each other to make the larger flows. But if I want to improve this ability I need to copy the plant in greater detail. But copying the smaller flows is much, MUCH harder to achieve. But like all things it can be done with enough practice.

But It will take me a while to fully learn and memorize the flows. As I sit around the Iron Oak, I meditate and feel the flows shift in the Companion Vine. This process is always slow and tedious, but it also helps me improve my control. After a while I stopped studying the Companion Vine.

And start copying the magical flows onto my skin, and trying to improve my skill at it. I've learned a few small tricks while practicing, but for the most part improving at this will just take time. So I spend an hour slowly draining my magic and practicing.

After that I don't really have much to do for the rest of the day. I check the time and I still have about two hours before sundown. So I decided to do something I haven't done in a while. I grab my sketchbook and my drawing supplies, before calling over Entropy.

She flies over to me, "Think you can do our trip early?"

She caws at me and after a moment she closes her eyes and stays still. I know this well so I wait for her to do everything correctly. And after a moment we spend a moment in the void before reappearing in the forest. "Thanks girl, you're the best." And like always she demands food.

So after feeding her I started drawing the Oak tree here. I came out here to draw the stars, but the sun won't set for a while. So for now I'll spend my time drawing different things as I wander the forest. It's not a thick forest but it's one of the largest near Canterlot.

I finish my rough sketch and spend a moment casting the illusion spell on Entropy. Then we both set off into the forest. It's a quiet day, and the only sound in the autumn forest is the quiet wind. The trees have lost most of their leaves. And any leaves left are a brilliant orange color.

As I walk I hear the leaves crunch under me in the wind. But after a moment I hear something. Not far away from me I hear loud voices shouting not far away. I haven't seen anypony else in this forest before. That and it's suspicious for an argument to be happening out here.

Not far away from me is a dirt overhang that has elevated ground on top of it. I'm on the lower side some distance away. While the argument seems to be happening on top. I'm not one to involve myself in others' business. But this whole situation seems off.

So after a little thought I move over to the overhang and sit under it. "Hey girl, can you get us ready to leave at any moment?" I ask as quietly as I can. She closes her eyes but after a minute we stay in the same location, so I assume she's waiting for me to tell her when we need to leave.

With that done I start listening in on the conversation above me. "And I keep telling you that it can't be done safely."

"And I keep telling you I don't care, we have our orders and we need to finish them." :Oh what the fuck did I just stumble into?:

"To gather that much we'd need to move through several heavily populated areas for a few hours, we don't have the magic for that. We need to rest and recover, because if we don't I can't guarantee that nothing will go wrong." Both voices are male but I can't tell much about them beyond that.

Then there is a small stretch of silence at that. "Fine, I'll see what I can do. But this is up to the queen, and with how much love we need I don't think we'll be getting a break anytime soon."

:FUCK: I start feeling panic rise in me, but crush it down as hard as I can. And after a moment I get my mind under control and continue listening.

"That's all I ask. And ya I know what you mean it's been getting pretty," but the voice abruptly stops. "Do you feel that?"

I don't listen to their words anymore I just tap Entropy and in an instant, we are gone. I only start calming a little once we are back inside my apartment. "FUCK" I say in a quiet shout. My mind is moving a mile a minute and I don't like it, so after taking a moment to calm down I start thinking through this.

Those were changelings that much is obvious. As for what they were talking about that is also obvious. What's less obvious is what happened next. I found the book I've been writing about changeling in, and started adding more. First, what did I learn?

Well I can definitely say that a decent amount of changelings are inside Canterlot gathering love. I can also say they have plans and orders to follow. The argument itself seemed to be in between someone giving orders from the queen, and someone in charge of the operations in Canterlot.

And there was that part about them being overworked. I'm not sure if they just don't have the numbers or if they can't bring more changelings into the city without getting noticed. But that does raise a question, why do they need so much love. I know they eat it but the way they talked about it, it sounds like this is more than normal.

This does give credence to my theory. But they could also just need more for something else. I just don't know enough about them right now. But out of all of this the thing that worries me most is what happened at the end.

They felt my presence. I don't know how I didn't realize it before but they might be able to sense emotions. I'm not sure if that's what they felt but I can't think of anything else it could be. And if that's correct that's a big problem. That changeling probably felt that spike of panic I had.

And if they can all sense emotions I basically can't talk to any of them. If I find another changeling in disguise, and if I have to talk to them. They would feel my panic about having to interact with them, and that could end very badly. Well if nothing else I have something new I need to work on.

I'll have to look into shielding my emotions or even just hiding them entirely. But for now I better keep my distance from them and get some research done.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading.