APR 20 Monday.

I walk through the hallways of the library with Blaz as we make our way to the breakroom. My last meeting with Celestia went like normal and was as always a good way for me to relax. And the day before our meeting I did end up finding out what delayed our meeting.

Turns out a Griffin ambassador was secretly in a relationship with the wife of a noble, a noble that just so happens to do a large amount of trade with the same Griffin city-state that the Griffin ambassador was representing. So after the noble found out about the affair he did what you'd expect and cut trade.

But he was smart about it and found a very small smuggling operation to give him a legal and justified reason to do it. So Celestia has been dealing with a messy breakup and a political shit show at the same time, I do not envy her in any way. Hell if that was me I'd just tell them to knock it the fuck off and stop being foals about it, and that's why I don't do politics.

Another thing that's happened over the week is a potential new line of study. I was looking through things I could improve and decided to take a look at food preservation, in Equestria food preservation is one of the few areas where they are probably more advanced than humans and that's by in large because of their access to magic.

Food preservation is a branch of magic that is both advanced and not-so-advanced. It comes down to the commonly used enchantment found in almost every home, normally called simply the Preservation Enchantment, the spell is weak enough to be enchanted into a cabinet and can extend the shelf life of all foods by weeks. It's so common that food waste is significantly less than humans ever achieved.

After looking over the spell I realized that I couldn't improve the spell. Most spells I've improved have been unnecessarily complex or less developed, but this spell has seen continuous and extensive improvement over hundreds of years, there's simply nothing to improve about it that hasn't already been done.

I simply don't have the skill or knowledge to improve it. But the spell isn't perfect and has two main downsides that I've found.

First, the spell doesn't protect against pests at all. There are a few spells to help with that but they need to be enchanted on gems to be used and aren't as well developed, so I've made a note to look at those spells and improve them.

The second reason is a little more complex. The spell can only extend the shelf life of food for two or three weeks at best for something like bread depending on the type, and meat only lasts about a week, maybe two. And because the spell is so weak it can't stop food from spoiling, only slow it down.

So even with this spell many still use traditional preservation methods like salt or drying, and that brings me to the second problem, overreliance. This spell is so easy and effective that basically any other preservation spell is ignored in favor of this one and they are often not further developed as a result.

So while this spell works very well it's basically the only magical food preservation method used, and that limits them from storing food too much longer than this spell lets them. For instance, freezing food isn't done as far as I've found, and freezing a lot of these foods could make them last much longer at the cost of more magic and probably a gem being needed.

So there could be room for improvement in that area. My thoughts are interrupted as me and Blaz sit down without food and he asks me something. "Hey, Colt?" I turn to Blaz and nod to him with a mouth full of food. "You got anything you need to do after work today?" I raise a brow but shake my head. "Well then, do you want to head to a chess contest?"

That piqued my interest. "A chess contest?" He nods. "Wouldn't we need to sign up in advance? Or something like that."

He shakes his head. "Nope, it's a smaller contest and isn't even really advertised. I only know about it from an acquaintance who told me about it, I asked them if anypony could sign up and they said yes. So you up for it?" He smiles at me. I think about it for a bit, it could be fun and I don't have much beyond my normal day, so why not?

"I'll have to go home for a bit, but sure, where is it and what time?"

His smile grows, "It starts at six-thirty and stops at nine, we can just go together, I'll stop by your place at six if that's fine with you?" We get off at five so that should be more than enough time for me.

"Sure, also do I need to bring anything?" I've never been to a contest so I ask just to be safe.

"Nope. Anyway, did you read the newspaper?" Oh by magic not this shit again. After talking a little more and a few laughs we finish our food and get back to work. Once it hits five I walk home and go about my day as normal. I spent my time trying to improve my spatial sense while waiting.

Not long after starting I hear a knock at my door and get up, I put on my saddlebags and open the door. Like I expected I see Blaz there, "Ready to go?" I nod and we both leave my apartment building and start walking through Canterlot's streets. As we walk Blaz turns to me, "So Colt you still holding up ok?"

His question blindsided me a little and it must have shown on my face, "I don't like to pry, but you seemed to be down a few weeks back and I thought I'd ask now that you seem to be doing better." He explains while we turn a street corner.

I'm surprised he asked me this, I thought Daisy would. But I answer truthfully and try to be somewhat open about what happened. "I had a bit of a breakdown, I'm doing fine now and have changed a few things to help. And I think I'll be ok." My answer is blunt and short, and He stares me down before giving me a nod.

"Like I said I don't pry but I thought I'd at least ask, and if you need to talk I'm always willing," Blaz says with a soft tone and a firm nod. He's not one to show much emotion beyond a smile and laughing, so I just nod back and we continue to walk in silence.

The mood is thick for a while but after we arrive at a simple building it lightens up a bit. The buildings got a simple sign, Canterlot Game Club. I stare at it for a moment before we enter, the inside is lively with a few dozen ponies walking about and playing different board games, mostly chess, and others walking about and talking with others.

As I'm looking around Blaz walks over to a desk and starts talking to the pony behind it, "Hey Nox, I got the pony I told you about. Shade this is the acquaintance I told you about, Nox." Blaz says with a happy tone as I walk over to join him. The Batpony sitting there is surprisingly big for their kind as most Bat Ponies are similar in size to pegasi.

The mare is in decent shape and is showing her age a little but still looks fairly young. Blue eyes with a two-tone mane of dark gray and black, a deep blue coat, and an earring hanging from one of her more prominently pointed ears. She stares at me for a moment before nodding.

"Nice to meet you," I say with a slight smile as I nod back.

"Same. Are you joining?" Her voice is not offensive or boring, just blunt and straight to business. So I simply nodded to answer her, "Name and age." She slides a clipboard over to me along with a quill and ink, the page is just spaces to fill out what she asked for.

After filling them in I turned to her, "How does the contest work?"

I am as blunt as her deciding to not waste time beating around the proverbial bush. She doesn't bat an eye, pun intended, at me and answers immediately. "We draw names at random and have several matches at once, shrinking the contestants down until only two remain. It should start in a while, come up when your name is called."

I nod for a final time and look over to Blaz who motions to follow him. The room is a large open area with a few hallways leading to other rooms, the main area has many tables and cushions set up with a few tables full of different games to play.

Part of the large room is empty except for a line of twelve tables all with clear lines of sight to them. We find a table near the lined-up tables and sit down, "So how far do you think you can get?" Blaz asks while he sets up a game of dominos he grabbed while we walked over here.

"I guess it depends on who I'm up against, but I'd like to say I'm pretty good so I hope to make it at least into the top ten." He nods and places the first domino.

"Let's hope you can, some of the ponies here have been playing for years so you'll definitely get a challenge."

"I hope so, you aren't enough to challenge me anymore, or ever were now that I think about it." I tease while placing another piece down. He just chuckles as we wait for the contest to start, "How did you find this place?"

"They do puzzles on Sundays. I was here yesterday when I heard about the contest and thought you might like it."

I smile. "Well you thought right, this should be fun." At six we see a pony walk into the empty part of the room and whistle to get our attention.

Nox stands there and starts reading off names from a list while various ponies walk over and sit down where she tells them to. Eventually, my name is called and I walk up, she points to a table with an older mare at it and I sit across from her as the first round begins.

My opponent is not the best, making several mistakes that many make while playing chess, still, she's better than Blaz and offers a fun game if nothing else. She's also very nice and even ends up asking for some advice while the other contestants finish up their games.

She was very nice and I was happy enough to show her a few things before the round ended and we all moved back to our tables. The next three rounds are spent eliminating most contestants, and my second round isn't much better and funnily enough ends in five moves because they made a bad mistake at the beginning.

By the time my third round starts, there are only twenty-four contestants left and this round would eliminate half of them, there are more ponies competing than I thought there would be. I sit down across from a unicorn stallion who already seems to not like me, "What's a Colt like you doing here? Did you get lucky to make it this far?"

His tone is not pleasant and has an air of pretentiousness to it. So I do what I find works best with anyone like this, I ignore them until they fuck right off. But throughout our game, he kept making snide comments to me to the point that Nox decided to step in.

"Crumble, you're out of line, calm down before I disqualify you." Her tone had an edge to it and spoke of how serious she was. I turn to her and nod my thanks, he wasn't anywhere near making me mad, I can deal with Entropy and her nonsense I can deal with this fucker, but he was starting to get annoying.

He steams in clear anger as we continue to play through our game, and he's not doing amazing. He's not bad but comparing him to Phelix is not fair to him, but as the game goes on I see him get madder and madder as he realizes he's going to lose the game.

When I move my piece and checkmate him I call it out, "checkmate." The anger he was holding seems to explode at this and he slams both forelegs on the tabletop.

"Listen here you little cheater you are forfeiting, right now." He says nearly shouting at me and trying his best to look intimidating, honestly I'm not even sure what he hopes to achieve with that blatant and unreasonable demand. But I'm unfazed, I've stared down Celestia, this pony is nothing compared to her. My calm expression and me continuing to ignore his shit just makes him angrier.

"YO-" But before he can get anything else out the same nice older mare from earlier marches over and grabs him.

"Crumble! What are you doing? You do not shout at a Colt." The mare seems pretty pissed at him and it's also at this moment that I realize they look around the same age, my guess is they're married. "You will apologize, NOW." She nearly shouts at him.

The stallion for his part looks pretty nervous, not scared, more just the kind of expression I'd expect to see on a foal's face when their dam catches them doing something bad. Seeing his face I have to keep myself from bursting out laughing. After a moment the stallion turns to me, "Sorry." I can almost hear his teeth grind as he's dragged away by the mare.

After they walk out of the front doors, me and a few other ponies can't hold it in and start laughing at the whole situation. After that everything calms down and the contest continues as normal. After winning that round I'm now in the top twelve and my next match isn't as easy.

My next opponent was an old mare with a strong look in her eyes and oh boy was she a proper challenge. She had me on the ropes the whole time and I barely won the match, it was so close I could almost call it pure luck. When I checkmate her she looks up to me and gives a single nod before standing up.

She was one hell of a challenge that I got lucky with, she also didn't say a word throughout our game which is a little odd but not unheard of from what I've seen of the other games going on around me. And that brought me to the final six and also brought me to my defeat.

The last pony I face is an older stallion Bat Pony that wipes the floor with me, I make a few bad moves at the start that he punishes them hard and as the game goes I'm constantly retreating. Not long into our game I'm checkmated, I didn't even get close on this one.

But I made it onto the top ten so I'm happy, plus playing this many games was a blast, if you don't count that one dickhead. After losing I sit back down with Blaz and spend the rest of the competition playing board games and joking about different things.

By the time the contest is over the pony I faced ends up winning, so I can at least say I got beat by the winner. After a round of claps and a small trophy, he walks out of my sight, after that me and Blaz decide to call it a night there and get home.

Author's Note

I got a little carried away on this one. Also writing dialogue for a pony that doesn't talk much is hard, so sorry if the conversations is light in this chapter.

Thanks for reading and have a good night. :]