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... but there will always be a special place in my heart for that emperor of all vegetables, the turnip.

24 Seeds 2070

• My instruments detected a major thaumatonical event today at 18:56:13. I’ve never seen anything like this. I can only imagine it was related to the war. I’ve wired the Crooked Tower and EPU for confirmation, and hopefully it didn’t saturate their detectors too... I’ve also wired and sent d-mail to the mother sconce, but as I haven’t heard from my superior all month, I doubt it will be of any use. Precision dowsing indicates a huge Harmonic depression in the magical field, located south-by-southwest of the tower at between 221.05 and 221.62 degrees from true north. I suspect the appearance of this depression is related to the event. The resulting inward flux is detectable even to the unaided horn; I’m told the sconce’s hotline has been getting calls all night from panicked unicorns.

25 Seeds 2070

• My graduate students have finished scraping the magical residua out of the tower’s detectors. I am pleased to report that all of them survived. I’ve managed to place a lower bound of +7.3 megastarswirls peak flux. It was almost entirely in uncommitted harmonic thaumatons; I’m increasingly convinced that yesterday’s event was an application of the Elements of Harmony, but distinct from the others I’ve seen or read of, which are typically highly committed. No replies to my wires sent yesterday. Whitescales received mail from Bent Scepter, though, asking if I’d detected yesterday’s event. The dear archmage reports 6.6838 +/- 0.0002 MSS (0.0002... showoff) uc/H-thau peak. Bearing roughly southwest but he gives no proper azimuth pleading the destruction of his dowsing array in a Discordian bombing. I’ve replied by d-mail to him with my own data, for all the good it will do, seeing as our detectors saturated.

26 Seeds 2070

• Apparently the telecommunications cables across the mountains were hit on the morning of the 24th. I should pay more attention to the news. Sent d-mail to EPU but no reply yet.

The Harmonic depression is resolving. I think by next week the flux will be undetectable in the vicinity of the Lake Tower. Good.

• A zebra alchemist from Hayminnow who had business with my sconce was discovered to be carrying a substantial quantity of pure zap-apple essential oil. Using the well-characterized proclivity of this substance to be activated by H-thaumatons and measurements of its magical emanations, and the time data from our detector, I’ve been able to set a new value for the peak flux at 11 gSS +/- 0.3. Not the best but at least it’s better than “more than 7.3.” Some refugees arrived from the mainland today. They say that more of the unusual crystal formations have erupted in the Nameless Desert and that civil order is breaking down amid rumors that the great abomination was seen in Dream Valley. They also claim to have seen strange lights in the sky on the night of the 24th, about 19:00, when they were crossing the Ocean.

27 Seeds 2070

• No word yet from EPU. Bent Scepter sent saying that he had tried to get their observations, also unsuccessfully. He’s taking his family away from the Crooked Tower, though, as apparently they were attacked again by the Discordians. Says he’ll be out of touch since he has to leave the tower’s dragon with the deputy archmage and the wires are still out. Quitter. More refugees, this party led by an Equestrian friend of mine, Clear Waters. She served as a court naturalist to the Grand Oriental Duchy at the same time my parents were there. Running out of space in the Lake Tower for all of them, but they’ve expressed their willingness to help construct temporary shelters on the sconce’s demesne. I’m considering the question.

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4 Rain 2073

• A delegation of sea ponies, having swam upstream from the delta, arrived at the Lake Tower today. This confirms some of my grimmest speculations, I’m afraid. They found an intensely magical artifact, and one of them had heard of my work, so she convinced the others to bring it here. It is nothing other than the Element of Honesty. I hadn’t seen it in decades, but I recognized it instantly. However, there is something not quite right about it. I must investigate it further. It is a pity that I will be distracted from my work on the Cloister spell, but if the Elements can be found, such things won’t be needed. Indeed, I truly wish that the island government would get its act together; as archmage my duties are not supposed to extend to the enforcement of mundane law, and yet I increasingly find myself obliged by present realities to adjudicate such matters. Especially so among the refugees.

5 Rain 2073

• Handling the Element in my laboratory, I had a dark and terrible vision. I saw the seas dried up and the land parched and covered with glassy shards of crystal. I recognized the Elder Mountain; I have no doubt that I have seen a vision of the Isle of Yore. I have ceased studying the Element and locked it in the Tower’s Null-magic Vault for safety for the time being.

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• .. though of course, this is purely empirical. Though I might speculate that this shroud is related to the inability to use high-dimensional teleportation techniques that has been noted since the 80s.

29 Crafting 2091

• The pilot cloister project so far seems successful. I’ve been able to draw power from the shroud limited only by the transduction crystal array capacity, despite expanding the array again to eight kilobaubles. There was no depression in the shroud’s potential measured at this draw. It occurs to me that the droughts might also be resolved with a source of magical power like this available. Yet it might not be truly infinite, indeed, I should be very surprised if it is, and I still have no solid leads on the origin of this shroud. I think it proper at this point that I should ...

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.... them a lesson, and I do not think they shall try themselves on the cloister again. Fools.

5 Rye-planting 2110

• With some effort, I have removed the Twisted Element safely to the Lacustrine keep, where it can be studied in relative safety. And where I can get some peace. If I am to be Prince of this place then I should at least be able to enjoy occasional solitude. My new life-extension spell worked swimmingly. My desire to yell at the foals running on the tower lawns is notably diminished and I’m sure my mane is darker than last week. At any rate, since none of my students shows the slightest aptitude for maintaining the cloister, it will be the death of all of us if it ever doesn’t go well. Conditions outside seem to get worse every year, and ponies grow more desperate. And envious. I can’t imagine why the builders of the dam ....

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