Chapters
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“I didn’t get most of that…” Liz muttered, as soon as the portal had closed behind them and they were standing in the Dreamlands. This was the enchanted wood, one of the safest parts of the Dreamlands—but this was a part that no human (or pony) dreamer would’ve seen. “But from their tone of voice, it sounded like we just got thrown out. With… a hostage?” She glanced over her shoulder towards the deer.Jackie kept her eyes alert to the forest all around them. This enchanted wood existed as…-
99.8 K •
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Jackie was conscious with every step just how much danger she was in. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d formed diplomatic contact based on a lie—that was practically the reason Alex had kept her around—but this time she was the one doing it. What was the alternative, send the mayor, or one of the ponies on her city council instead? Except that none of them were really suited to this. Any bats with diplomatic skill had already risen in Mundi. They weren’t her exiles. Along the walls were……-
99.8 K •
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Deer were not native to Australia, Jackie knew that. And in seeing the way they lived now, she could still see little echoes of that transplantation. In their way they were like the western country that had brought them here, strangers in a land not really made for them.But Voeskender had done his best to change that over the years, replacing grasslands too hot and sparse to support them with jungles that hogged moisture and forests that spanned thousands of miles. The plants relied on magic to survive…-
99.8 K •
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Getting re-integrated into life in Meliora wasn’t as simple as she would’ve thought. Only a day had gone by—but it had been a day where a massive carrier had been spotted moving towards them over the continent, surrounded by a magic field powerful enough to give unicorns headaches from miles away.But she dealt with those concerns, explaining exactly where she’d been and what she had accomplished. “We need them on our side,” she said. “The breezies have magic so alien to everything in Mundi…-
99.8 K •
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The jungle seemed to go on forever. It looked darker than anything she’d ever seen in South America, with impossibly tall trees covered with a perfect canopy of vines. Perfect to block out all light from below. But it was night up there anyway, with only feeble stars and a new moon to light her way.Jackie was not discouraged. The night was the domain of her kind, as surely as the Dreamlands. She could almost feel that they were getting close. Dreams could be infinite—but more often than not, space…-
99.8 K •
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Jackie knew she’d screwed up at about the moment she turned to see her friend and realized she wasn’t there. Shit shit shit.There was good reason why you never left someone asleep in the Dreamlands without someone else around. The danger only existed for those who were traveling there physically, since dreamers could not sleep while within.“She’s gone,” Avery said, staring at the empty spot. “Was the surgery really that terrifying for her? I’m not offended—many of my own kind cannot remain…-
99.8 K •
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Jackie had been to many strange places in her years. She’d seen the end of life, and beyond it. Felt the corrupting touch of necromancy, and even plunged headfirst into the gnawing void and returned with her soul intact.But in spite of all that, she still caught her breath as she passed into the center of the Breezie capital, and saw it for the first time.A shell of something like glass floated in the center of an incredible space—probably only a dozen meters or so, but unthinkably vast at her current…-
99.8 K •
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Jackie had traveled beyond physical space—up above the Dreamlands into the astral, and across distant shores to the supernal. The trip had not made her into one of the semi-divine Alicorns as it transformed so many others who took it, but that didn’t mean she had been unaffected.As she had done during her trip out to the seapony colony, Jackie could change her form. It was simple enough magic—making herself into different characters was one of the most basic lessons of dreamcrafting. All she really…-
99.8 K •
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Jackie had preserved Meliora from being completely overwhelmed with refugees… at least until somepony found out they were living in a dream. But she could do nothing to prevent that, nothing besides making sure that the vast population of Meliora received good instruction into the mechanics of their bat pony powers. They would learn the truth, eventually. The circumstances of that revelation would decide whether her attempt to give them somewhere safe to live ended in terrible failure or audacious…-
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Things didn’t go nearly so smoothly with all the other dreamcrafters. They had far less experience—in some cases no more than a single night’s accelerated time. But Jackie didn’t have much of a choice, they needed everyone’s work to build before the whole city collapsed.That left a great deal for her and Hat Trick to do, moving between identical sections of city and fixing similar problems. It was the same stuff she was used to with novice dreamcrafters—doors that were just walls, machines that…-
99.8 K •
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