Rarity pushed open the door to the basement and looked down the steps. Twilight was down there, painting some kind of geometric picture on a canvas. She headed down the stairs, not sure what to make of this. “It’s lovely, dear,” She said, “But abstract art is going out of style in Canterlot.”

Twilight smiled. “Hi Rarity. I’m making a spell circle for a spell I want to try.”

Rarity blinked at that. “I hate to break it to you, dear, but that’s more of a rhombus.”

“‘Spell circle’ is just a term,” Twilight explained, “It’s just called that because most of the time they are circles. I once cast an animation spell with a two-dimensional projection of a dodecahedron.”

Rarity blinked again. “Am I going to have to go get Sweetie Belle as a translator? I can be right back…”
Twilight snickered. “No, no, I’m done. Anyway, this spell should permit me to measure the unique resonance of our world, permitting me to notice the difference in resonance to other worlds, eventually facilitating travel between them.”

“Really, school just got out, it would take about five minutes,” Rarity replied. “I’ll be back in plenty of time for you to explain it.”

“I’m going to cast a spell to take measurements so we can get a portal to Canterlot High that works more often than once every two and a half years.” Twilight said simply.

Rarity went “Ohhhh,” and nodded. “A fine endeavor. Say, why does that portal only work once every two and a half years?”

“No idea,” Twilight said with a shrug. “Starswirl the Bearded was an amazing spell designer, but he often forgot to detail his process in his notes.” She put down the brush. “There. All I need to do now is cast the spell.”

“Can I help?” Rarity asked. “I know I’m not much of a magic user, but if I can help, I want to.”

“I don’t think so. I’ll let you know if something comes up, but I don’t think there’s really any way for you to help. Unless you took a class in metamagic while I wasn’t looking.” Twilight said with a hopeful look at her friend.

Rarity shook her head. “Alas, the choice came down to metamagic or thaumaturgy, and I went with the more elegant sounding one.”

Twilight blinked. “You took a lesson in thaumaturgy? I haven’t even taken a lesson in thaumaturgy! How did you pull that off?”

Rarity giggled a bit. “Funny story. Involves a wombat. Remind me sometime and I’ll tell it to you.”

Twilight turned back to the spell ‘circle.’ “All right, then. Here we go.” Rarity watched as Twilight’s horn glowed, and then was covered by a second layer of magic, and then a third, and finally that final spark. That was an awful lot of magic… Rarity supposed that the measurements of the universe were not easy to take, though, so she simply stepped back and watched.

A beam of sorts from Twilight’s horn hit the parchment, and the spell began in earnest. It looked to be going well (or at least not poorly) but Rarity’s attention to detail and aesthetic sense led her to notice something peculiar. Now, she didn’t want to distract Twilight in the middle of the spell, but…

“Twilight, dear… is the spell circle supposed to be shifting?”

Twilight blinked, and noticed it. “No… no it’s not! Rarity! Get over here and stop it. I can adjust the spell to compensate, if you can keep it from changing any more.”

Rarity stepped up and directed her own magic against the circle. It was weird; grabbing some art that someone else was directing magic through. It was like trying to arrange a vase of flowers while they were all spewing water everywhere and trying to squirm out of the vase. Possible, but difficult, and disturbing if you stopped to ponder why the flowers are spewing water and trying to squirm out of the vase.

“Rarity, it’s deviated too far. Can you revert it?”

“I can try.”

“Gah, the straight lines need to stay straight!”

“It’s not my fault it’s so wiggly!”

“Ack, no, stop the spinning!”

“It’s not spinning, the canvas is!”

“Oh snap! I lost control!”

“What is that ripping sound?”

“ABORT ABORT ABORT-”

“Well,” Celestia started carefully, “I’ll say first off that you did a good job. You went about it in an unusual way, but… you did a good job.”

Discord smiled. He gave a somewhat exaggerated, deep bow. “Thank you, princess. Always a pleasure.”

Celestia knew that he was being patronizing, but she honestly preferred it to when he was being snippy, sarcastic, or troublesome. Fluttershy had convinced Discord to be good… most of the time. The rest of the time he was borderline insufferable.

“I have to admit, your ad hoc puppet show was quite entertaining, and the way you saved the partygoers with the statues was inspired. Similarly, your speech did a fine job of breaking the vandals’ morale-“

Discord suddenly pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand, and then signaled for Celestia to stop with the other. “Sorry! Sorry. My sinuses just closed up. Ow. Ow. Ow… there. Better now.” He straightened up, ready for Celestia to continue.

She did not. “Discord, was that something important?”

“No!” He said, “Well, not in and of itself. I mean, why would something important clog up my sinuses? It’s probably just some pony messing with portal magic, or maybe some natural magical anomaly. Thunderstorms in the Everfree Forest can be interesting, you know.” He shrugs. “Whatever it was, it has gone now, so the most we can do is pay attention to the news and hope nothing horribly bad happens.”

Pinkie Pie cheered as she looked at the results on the dice. “That’s a crit! Even better than what I need.”

Bonbon, at the head of the table, made a face, while Lyra, Lotus, and Aloe all gave small cheers. “Once again your bizarre pendulum luck saves your hide, Pinkie.” Bonbon said. “Roll damage. For every six, roll another dice, because that means that some of the gunpowder in the area has gone off.” Pinkie picked up the dice, and rolled them. A lot of sixes. Bonbon sighed. “I can’t wait for your pendulum luck to swing back. It always does.”

Pinkie reached for more dice, and then suddenly stopped. She then began to vibrate and flail in almost literally every direction, and fell off of her chair onto the floor. Once down there, she vibrated for a minute before finally settling down.
Every pony at the table blinked at this. Lyra was the first to speak. “Pinkie, are you allright?”

“Meble yinel bordum moog.”

Rarity shook her head. She had no idea what just happened, but as far as she could tell she was still intact. Yes, upon standing up she quickly confirmed that she was not only intact but her hair had avoided mussing. There was a discombobulating magical shockwave, it seems, but not a real forceful explosion.

Twilight similarly got up, and she looked mostly normal. “Oof… that went wrong. I’m not sure what went on there.”

“Twilight, do you feel alright?” Rarity asked. “Any kind of headache, or maybe that annoying feeling you get when you’re casting something, hiccup, and your magic gets gunked up?

“There’s a bit of a tingle,” Twilight admitted, “But that’s probably just residual effects from the haywire spell.” She then looked up at her horn. It was glowing a deep blue-purple, not her normal color by any stretch. “Huh…that’s bad. Rarity, run upstairs and stall Spike until I find the Geiger counter.”