To Chase The Shadows of Redemption

As the days turned into weeks, and then over months rolled on by, Twilight's mind had been left to its own devices for far longer than normal. Finally meeting ponies in towns was a welcome and cherished thing, and she even spent an extra day in Hoovesberg, her third stop, because she needed that comfort more than she cared to admit. She was almost at her fourth stop, and the temperature was a lot colder then she was expecting.

Her trip had taken her quickly to a slightly west from Ponyville to Rydenbrook, and then far longer trip north west, mostly still west but with about a ten degree change toward north to her second stop. Then, it was almost completely north, and now she was heading east and slightly south to her final destination.

It was getting into the end of fall now, and nights would be getting real cold from here on out. It had even snowed to her surprise at her third stop, Lydel. Her inner nerd had really revived almost immediately seeing the town. The gothic architecture had been something she had seen many years ago in image for while reading. Stained glass windows, cobblestone galore, the whole shebang. There was even a gargoyle that was authentic! She remembered the sound she had made when she saw it and blushed, although no one else was around to see it. It had been with a heavy heart she had even moved on.

This little expedition hadn't been without its hickups either. On the way to Lydel, she had senses wolves nearby, and an entire night had been spent avoiding them, eventually ended up shivering and hiding within the rotten gap of a tree. She would never forget the nonstop intensity of the encounter. Initially, they had been chasing her, with very little light out to even see. She had teleported to break line of sight, but their superior sense of smell had kept them in the hunt. It had taken over an hour to arrive in that tree and finally have some semblance of safety. Wolves couldn't climb trees right...? Hehe.

Looking down, she looked at her little souvenir from Hoovesberg. A cute little necklace. that had been gifted to her from a passing cute filly. She had helped fix up the filly's little toy, and she hadn't been able to give the necklace back before the pony ran away.

She still had around four hours today of travelling time. It was a shame she had to conserve her magical energy so much. Emergencies, while rare, did happen. You had to be at your best for them, or you might not make it. Twilight had been very aware of this from the beginning, and Celestia had pounded it into her that safety was priority. They had even slightly altered the roads taken to avoid areas considered more dangerous by modern information.

Twilight was humming to herself again. She had considered reading while on the move countless times, but she only really did it during the specific spots on the trip that she knew were clear. She had found the road was improving, so she was actually closer to the final destination than she had expected to be by this point. Perhaps she had gotten faster over time? At first it had been exhausting, walking all day every day, but the brief stops at town had left her refreshed and completely reinvigorated. She was getting fitter, probably because her starting point had been so low. She was smiling at the thought of it.

Twilight sat in a private room in the town of Riftly. She had arrived at the end of day, making good time. Night had already fallen. She had planted the pillar just on the outskirts of town. She was currently studying a large map that she had brought with her that laid out the land in between the four towns he had visited, that they had suspected Luna to be in. She cross examined and compared to a local map - one which she was borrowing, that was supposedly more accurate and up to date. It drove her insane how they had used different scales of distance in such an awkward way. Would it kill the ponies of Equestria to standardize more?

Still though, this was where she would be attempting to interpret the information gathered by the large scale casting she would be using soon. She needed to get up and to the highest point in town to cast it. Reviewing the map a final time, she drew out how she thought the spells three by three square areas would work out to be approximately in reality, and placed it accordingly on the map. She had been drawing carefully, marking spots that could cause potential confusion on casting, there was certain mountains and uninhabitable locations as well that were far more unlikely. They would only be considered if the results ended up being too ambiguous.

She finally lay back, and realized this was truly it. While the trek back to far more familiar lands would be much faster and comfortable. She would give Celestia the blueprint to finding her sister without fail. It suddenly dawned on her that she had never considered what Celestia would do the information. Why had that never come up? Celestia had mentioned wanting to met her sister again, but all the details were missing in her mind. Did Celestia even have a plan?

Of course she did... this was Celestia she was talking about. She just wasn't privy to the exact details, that was all.

The more she thought about it the more outrageous it became though. Was Celestia just going to up and leave her post and come out here into the wilderness, leaving Equestria exposed and vulnerable for how long? A few more thoughts later and she discarded the topic. It didn't matter, she just had to do her part. Celestia would figure things out in a way that worked in the end. She always did.

After getting permission from the ponies running the Cathedral, which was a tough task at this time of Night, Twilight ascended to the top of the tower that peaked above all others. After arriving at the top, she gazed out at the slight angle she'd have to fire into the sky to avoid hitting the ceiling. She went over the spell in her head over and over. If she wasn't exactly precise with her casting, the magical decay of the spell could cause it to thin out and not make the distance to every pillar. The spell was extremely efficient when done correctly, it had to be. In order to cross great distances, the magic became extremely thinned out and packed into bunches that would cross the skies and travel thousands of kilometres in five minutes. She also had to get the directions of four bunches correct as well. There was a pretty solid margin for error, but a large angular failure would mean that the homing ability of the spell to detect a pillar and be received by it would be out of range.

After minutes of going over the details in her head over and over again, she lit her horn, ready to finally get this over with. Gathering a large portion of her magic, she weaved it into the specific dimensions that were required for the spell. It was an awkward balancing act, because the spell had such a high density on casting, but you had to know what you were doing in order for it to quickly separate and disperse properly so that the decay of being too dense wouldn't screw with the long term ability to make the trip back. The spell was practically invisible past the initial casting, but Twilight knew that it was one of the more brilliant spells she had ever had the pleasure of learning. Confidence born of experience practising with Celestia gave her the ability to focus all the way until the end.

At last, she spent a few precious final few seconds holding the spell back, and then fired it off into the sky like and for a moment filled the black canvas with an array of what looked like fireworks to the average pony. The color lasted only a moment however, the spell not being built to entertain.

Twilight could no longer feel any connection with the spell, and would only receive a magical impulse from the shock of the return when it arrived if it did at all. If nothing happened by fifteen minutes from now... she would have to try again. If she failed three times in a row it would truly make for a disaster, because the pillar she had placed in town, just like the others, was specially crafted to ensure the success of the spell. This also meant that it broke down easily, as each subsequent casting worsened the inner matrix of magic built into the pillar. This was by design as it improved odds of success for the spell, but it came at the cost of durability. If she failed that many times it was extremely unlikely to make it to a forth cast and function properly. Because of it being here in town, the chance of this pillar here in particular being affected and hit by the spell may as well have been one hundred percent.

She had estimated that for every hundred kilometres past around two hundred away from her, her chance of missing the acceptable range increased by about five percent. The total area covered by the spell was approximately forty thousand kilometres squared, and while the math was simple, it still blew Twilight's mind that she could search such a large area with magic.

Leaning on the railing, Twilight's eyes were half closed. She was on the verge of falling asleep, her fatigue from the long travel catching up to her. A sudden magical pulse slammed into her, and her semi conscious brain scrambled into interpretation mode. She had asked them to bring up a small mini table for her to work on, and she scrambled to the map that lay there.

The information gathered by the spell was almost absolute, as every living being had even some small amount of magic emanating from them. Alicorns, like Celestia and Luna, had a very dense and slow release of magic constantly, that was reflective of the even deeper pool that lay within. Twilight had practiced on Celestia, so she had a good idea how dense Luna's magic should have been detected as. She started scribbling the locations that were popping up into her mind that stood out as abnormal fluctuations of magic above the norm, and just as she had gotten a few down she processed a large spike in an area far south west from here, in the lower left square per say of the spell.

Just as she was biting her lip in consideration of how close it felt to being a positive for Luna, a far stronger and more powerful point of observation appeared in her mind. This was it! It had to be Luna! It just felt like the right amount!

Twilight rushed to mark the approximation, and has her hoof flew across the map she stopped for a moment. It... wasn't all that far from here at all. She slowly circled the area and wrote down the words "positive" besides the point. Twilight had crossed distances twice as much as that much in a day.

Tempting thoughts started wedging their way into her mind as she packed up everything for the night, and paid for lodging.