May 21, 4:08 PM

Say that they should stay in Star Hall, if they can make it work 80%

“I’d be leaving people behind if I stayed,” Wayfinder began. “My sister is out there. I’d have to go back and get her. But before I did that, I’d want to know how this place works. How you’re able to survive the dangers.”

“What even is the Overgrowth?” Ruby interrupted. “This awful forest is getting bigger all the time, forcing the isolation zone to burn it back. We’ve already seen at least one danger, presumably there are a bunch more. But you people are living in my old school like it’s a summer camp.”

“Many questions.” Sunburst looked between them. His expression lingered on Ruby’s flank for a second, long enough to see she was missing the symbol there, just like everyone else. Or maybe not everyone, he said he’d seen it three times. “Are you… colleagues in magic, then? Fellow-scholars?”

Ruby laughed nervously. “Can’t say I ever learned it like she did. My friend here really… focused on it, ever since she got that book on magic. Guess she finally found something that could keep her attention like her computer degree couldn’t.”

Wayfinder wouldn’t call herself thin-skinned. But there were soft spots, places she felt particularly vulnerable. Like dropping out, wasting her family’s money, and ending up working in food service. Thanks to the pandemic, Ruby might be one of a small number of people in the entire world who even knew anything had happened.

She was already tired from fleeing across the grounds, but—she wouldn’t have to move Ruby across the Overgrowth this time. The ground a few feet away was already empty, so…

She aimed her horn, and Ruby vanished from the ground next to her, reappearing a few inches above it about a dozen steps away. That left Wayfinder suddenly gasping, and a thin steam rising from her horn. “When we last talked, you were leading a large group of infected towards the Isolation Zone. But when I went looking for you, I found out you’d sprinted into the forest. Was… kinda hoping you… would be able to teach me more than that book.”

Ruby dropped a short distance to her hooves, landing with a grunt. Not high enough to fall over, though of course it was dramatic enough that several nearby creatures pointed and stared. Her friend swore, holding up one hoof in her direction. Without fingers, the meaning of that gesture would have to be left to her imagination.

“Extraordinary!” Sunburst looked between them. His horn glowed for a second, though the meaning of it was lost on her. “Sensory translocation with less than a year of instruction! I believe this performance would place you within the upper quartile of unicorns generally, Miss Wayfinder! How long have you been able to do that?”

“A few weeks,” she began. “But you didn’t answer any of our questions. I’d like to stay here. It seems… like you people have more of a handle on things than the rest of the Isolation Zone. I need to know some things first, though.”

“Of course, of course.” He paced slowly between them. “Miss… Ruby, your name was? If Wayfinder is the one with the magical background, perhaps you would be better suited to speaking with Vienna about accommodations. Should you decide to stay, we’ll want to get the two of you set up right away. That includes how to put your skills to use. I already know where your friend would end up. But you may want to investigate the different options. We all help out around here. Not in a… we don’t have work crews or mandatory service details or whatever they’re calling it in the zone. It’s more like… friends helping each other out with the things they’re good at.”

“What I’m good at was investigating the disease,” Ruby said, still glaring at Wayfinder. “Though—I guess the university supercomputer is here now. I wonder if we could scrounge enough power to get it working again.”

Sunburst was right about one thing: Wayfinder did follow him on a tour through the new settlement. Not that she couldn’t get a good look at all the ways they’d converted the university to house a more diverse population than students while still providing for all their needs, though this was fascinating.

They were using the covered stadium as farmland, and even started stacking planting boxes on the bleachers. Somehow, this small area provided enough to sustain a population of over a thousand. The how was no mystery to her, because Sunburst explained it.

“Our Earth Ponies have a modest farming team,” he said, gesturing to a group moving between the produce pots, gathering strawberries out of a plastic-covered planter and into a wheelbarrow. “Thanks to the glass roof, we expect to be able to continue growing even in winter.”

He didn’t seem to mind when she asked questions, like the glaringly obvious flaw in that explanation. “A sports stadium doesn’t have enough room to feed thousands of people, even if you were just growing nothing but the calorically optimal foods like potatoes. Or… maybe barley for horses,” she said. “How much can magic do?”

He continued walking through the stadium towards an exit stairwell on the far side, where more lights suggested a large gathering of creatures. “There is a limit to the productivity of intense magical cultivation, one we’re… rapidly approaching. At first there were fewer of us, and our earth ponies were always getting better. But sooner or later, you’re right. We’ll have to find more ways to grow. Indoors will work as a stopgap, and there are a number of rooftops that could work well. But we will need more land eventually, which will be… difficult to borrow from the forest without upsetting our delicate understanding with it. I admit the issue remains unsolved in the long-term.”

She trailed behind him. Wayfinder shook her head once to banish a slight fuzziness once he got going. She’d known this same feeling when she started dating Ruby—the satisfaction of listening to someone who was both attractive and obviously smarter than she was.

Only this time it wasn’t some esoteric topic in biology that Ruby was passionate about. Sunburst’s explanation implicated the viability of the colony. Without a way to get food, water, and safety, nothing else the little colony wanted to achieve was possible.

“That’s probably the… more important question anyway,” she said, her hooves finally returning to earth. “Food has a lot of potential answers. But how do you stop this place from killing you?”

Sunburst grinned wider. “Yes, that. One of the lessons I took from my time in Ponyville. A… place you know nothing about. Instead, follow me.” It is easier to see it than to explain.”

They emerged from the stadium and into the university’s walkways. As with the rest of the Overgrowth, trees and bushes and shrubs had grown over the grounds, spilling out from planter boxes and ripping right through the concrete in a growing forest. Strangely, a bed of short grass remained, leaving a clear walkway between the stadium and the student hall with its restaurants.

A number of similar paths extended elsewhere in the university, connecting several buildings that were obviously still in use. A few of the dorms, one of the lecture halls. Others remained dark, though they’d been surrounded with the same short, comfortable grass. It felt quite nice on her hooves.

“The disease spreading through this continent is not a victimless scourge. For every ten who transform as you did into perfectly healthy creatures, there is one who does not survive. The result is wild magic, roughly equivalent to the sum of their life energy before infection. The translation is… somewhat complex. More so than the text of introductory spellcraft I gave you.”

She shrugged. “I would love to learn more.” Such as how you can talk so confidently about the infection, even though you’re bad at hiding that you’re from another world. “But that doesn’t answer my question.” She flicked her tail around them, off either side of the grassy path. “There’s wild magic, but how does it connect to you people living safely here?”

He continued past her at the same steady pace. “It’s more than academic. To be safe within the Overgrowth, a pony must first understand it. There’s something similar in the place I came from, though the source of the wild magic fueling it isn’t known as it is here. The point is: the magic is not hostile. It takes dangerous forms because of what produces it.”

He lowered his voice, glancing up and down the path. The little roads were fairly busy: earth ponies pushed carts, a group of unicorns emerged from the trees with baskets of tools, led by a zebra wearing a large straw hat.

He nodded to Sunburst, then waved his team towards the agriculture sciences building. When they were gone, he continued.

“The plague’s victims spend their last moments in unbearable pain. More than any creature should endure. This is what drives the magical energy their death leaves behind. Memories of suffering that no doctor or loved one could rescue them from. But magic does not hate. Somewhere in that power is something of the dead, I believe. They don’t want to hurt their friends, children, and special someponies. If we—”

He stopped abruptly, because Wayfinder was chuckling. From his tone, Sunburst was obviously serious. But the words. Put that right up there with ‘cutie mark’ with all the other strange terms of his world.

“What?”

She swallowed, then focused until she could meet his eyes without smiling. “Apologies. I think I understand what you’re saying. NEM10 produces magic when it transforms people. Even the CDC figured that part out. When we live, it goes into us, creating whatever we end up as. Unicorn for me, different creatures for others here. But when they die, it just sorta gets vented into the atmosphere, filled with the last memories of all the suffering the dying went through.

“The CDC figured that part out too. It makes monsters. The monsters people say are drawn to the forest we’re living in. I saw some of them when the outbreak first started, then again when I came here. Why aren’t they a threat to Starhall?”

He smiled sheepishly. “Because of the Overgrowth.” He said, as though it were the answer to a test question he’d spent ten minutes working out for her on the keyboard. “It’s not my creation, though I wish I could take credit for the incredible genius of it. Given your world’s lack of magical education, I imagine it must be an… evolutionary response, perhaps even hinting at the ancient history of my own. Either way…”

They passed the hall, continued through the university along the grass. Sunburst became louder as he spoke, faster. More excited, just as when Ruby got onto a topic she was passionate about.

“The Overgrowth is a thaumic meta-organism. It didn’t begin here—its source appears to be out in the wilderness a short distance from the city. Whatever happened there catalyzed the conversion of wild magic into earth magic. That’s what draws the ‘monsters’ here, as you call them. From what we’ve seen, the conversion takes effect rapidly when an entity enters. Their power is drained, or converted to serve the meta-organism. That’s likely what you encountered on your way in. Timberwolves also manifest in my… home. Their predatory function is important to regulating the health of the organism. And they can be dissuaded from attacking ponies with a few minor steps.”

He stopped at the doors to the physical sciences building, holding them open with magic. The lights were already on inside, though it wasn’t even full dark yet. Impressive enough that the electricity was still working!

“With a few basic precautions, any pony can remain safe inside the Overgrowth. Unfortunately I can’t… explain them with great specificity as yet. Protection from the Overgrowth is what allows us to remain independent from forces outside. I don’t know yet whether you’ll remain. For now, know that there are ways. Simple steps we take to make the grounds safe, and others that we can use to venture further.”

She followed him inside, answering only with a dismissive flick of her tail. From most anyone else, she would probably suspect some elaborate deception: any secret safety must be fraud.

Yet she’d seen Starhall. The town could keep children safe, and tiny fairy creatures that sheltered behind plastic shields. Besides, this was Sunburst. He wrote the book she’d used to learn the basics of magic. Or at least, he helped decide what would be in it.

“If I decide to stay,” she said. “I know there’s enough room, the school used to have tens of thousands. But what would I do?”

He explained a few basic options. One definitely leapt out to her.

1. Protecting the borders, using their magic to keep the Overgrowth on good terms with the town, and locating new arrivals.

2. As a spy or negotiator with the pony population of the Isolation Zone. Her connections placed her perfectly to build a bridge into a better way of life post-transformation.

3. Studying advanced magic with Sunburst, to see if he could train someone else for more advanced spellcraft around the town.