Twilight and her friends departed, with the assurance they would be back for another visit. Twilight mentioned that she, and Starlight, needed to converse with the other princesses on getting some of the rarer materials for making the spell nodes. Getting something like that in sufficient quantities for the project, discreetly, was far from an easy task.

On the ride back Rainbow couldn’t stop laughing at Twilight’s ditz moment, but she deserved a little chagrin from her friends. They all had obligations, and hers had just gotten more expansive over the years. That said, her senior princesses still insisted she wasn’t quite ready for the more extensive delegations and responsibilities her position required. And this little near fiasco helped prove just how right they were; if she were more accustomed to her position, she would have at least thought ahead to send a liaison to mediate things and assist in assessing what might be required of her obligations she had locked herself into.

Instead, she had completely forgotten about her the obligation of magical security that she herself had suggested because she had decided, quite unilaterally, other aspects of the project demanded far more of her attention up to, and possibly even a bit past, the point she was notified she had completely omitted the very act of magical protection from her actions regarding the project.

There was no way, under any circumstances, she was going to call the town by the name Daring had decided on and the other princesses had okayed out of their own sense of amusement. She had only said the town’s name once on the way there, and only to Cadance due to the elder alicorn being the principle princess in charge of overseeing the project. And had gotten predictable results from all her friends; Rainbow broke into laughter all the way down to the station area and for the first half our of the train ride down, Rarity and Fluttershy both showed signs of embarrassment from just hearing the town’s name, Pinkie just giggled and started babbling incoherently about it all (which Twilight took as the pink mare going into note taking mode), Applejack just huffed and facepalmed at the bizarreness and perceived stupidity of the name, and Starlight made a comment about it at sounding better than some of the sillier names she had encountered on the map.

Of course, it didn’t help things when they actually got there all pretense of modesty left Pinkie in less than a heartbeat, much to the embarrassment of the rest of them, the act of getting to know the place turned into an exercise in embarrassment for most of them. The only ones not embarrassed, aside from Pinkie, were Applejack and Rainbow Dash. Rainbow had even made a comment about following Pinkie’s lead on their next visit.

Also, the discussion about the attraction between the two over lunch was as funny as it was concerning for Twilight. Pinkie was a married mare, to Cheese Sandwich, and the very idea of two of her friends sharing the same spouse, as well as being spouses to each other, was causing a variety of mixed thoughts to course through her mind at a pace that was almost too fast to focus on for more than a few seconds. That said, she and Cheese were still trying to have a baby; for close to five years now, the doctors said neither of them had any conditions that stated that conception of a foal wasn’t possible.

With Rainbow in the mix, something Twilight didn’t want to think about but found herself doing anyway; things probably wouldn’t get any easier. “Please tell me the whole banter with Rainbow about her being attracted to you was a joke,” said Twilight as she trained her attention Pinkie.

“Nope,” said Pinkie in her usual chipper manner, “we even have a herd application form back at my place, Cheese got it for our first anniversary as a semi-gag gift. He’s totally okay with us having more members in the family that are adult.”

“But, does Rainbow even have feelings for him?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Rainbow, “the guy knows how to throw awesome parties and is pretty good at pranks, I’m not opposed to being part of that herd. Besides, Pinkie’s stories of what they do behind closed doors has me totally wan…”

“Not going to listen to the rest of that,” said Twilight, cutting her friend off.

“It’s better that way,” said Pinkie, “and there’s so much more fun things we can do as a trio that we couldn’t as a pair.”

“I think that’s enough of that sort of talk,” said Rarity, “it’s starting to venture into the sort of thing you don’t discuss in the presence of polite company.”

“So,” Twilight inquired, “what did you think of what you saw?” She was desperate to get away from such an uncomfortable subject; she got enough of that sort of thing just talking about the project.

“Ah lahked the communal bath idea,” said Applejack, “o’ course befer we try et back home some o’ mah family ‘re gonna need to come down and see how et all works. Et wud save time wid cleaning up et least.”

“I’ll admit their fashion expert is a bit...eccentric,” said Rarity, “but her fashion sense, even if a bit peculiar, is quite interesting. And her ability had so many practical uses, even if she does limit it to locating items that are a bit too adept at hiding.”

Twilight facepalmed, “That’s right, Shining asked me to take a look at her ability to see if we could replicate some of its features in a teachable spell.”

“Well, it just means you’ll be back a bit sooner than you thought,” said Starlight, “and to be honest, the aesthetics of the place are way more interesting, and more inviting in some places, than where I came from.”

“But that’s just it,” said Twilight, “it’s not like any place we’ve seen before.”

“Yup, it’s got a really open atmosphere,” said Pinkie, “one free from societal concepts of modesty we all have to live with. If it had been around when we were little, I would totally have chosen that as my place of residence. But I’m too attached to Ponyville now; maybe we’ll branch out to there once they open up to the public.”

“It’s a bit too embarrassing there,” said Fluttershy, “I can’t see myself ever living there, even though it has some interesting creatures nearby.”

“Eh, it’s pretty boring out there,” said Rainbow, “nice place to visit but not enough excitement to keep my attention.”

“As opposed to Ponyville, which was pretty slow and sleep before Twilight came to stay,” said Rarity with a critical tone.

“That’s different,” said Rainbow with a wave of her hand and nonchalant tone, “I moved on down there to act as moral support for Shy, besides the housing prices back then were pretty cheap.”

**********************************************

After they got back to the Crystal Empire Twilight checked the train schedule. “Okay,” said Twilight, “the next train home is at nine in the morning, looks like we’re spending the night with Shining and Cadance.”

“Can’t you just teleport us back the rest of the way?” Said Rainbow, “it would be faster.”

“Maybe,” said Twilight, “but it would also be considerably draining, even if Starlight and Rarity were lending me some raw magical energy, and if we did that then instead of one mildly drained alicorn we’d end up with a semi-drained alicorn and two magically fatigued unicorns. No, we’re taking the train, seeing as it would take weeks or months for us to recover our magic if we were to do it the fast way.”

“But it’s just us,” said Rainbow with confusion.

“And our attire, and our bags,” said Pinkie, “mass plays a big part in spells that affect other objects, especially transportation type spells like teleportation. If you really wanted to rush it, I suppose Twilight could leave our clothes and bags behind but then we would all end up at whatever she set as the destination point completely in the nude.”

“Something I would never allow,” said Rarity, “although, given her actions at the place we’re now coming from, I don’t think Pinkie would mind all that much. Even so, if we did go without everything and arrived at our destination naked as a wild animal, Twilight would still feel pretty drained and require a few days worth of rest.”

“Mostly on the account, I’m not used to teleporting an extended mass,” said Twilight, “I can teleport myself effortlessly almost anywhere in Equestria or the Crystal Empire, with one or two smaller passengers. But six other physically matured ponies, that’s going to take some getting used to. I suppose I could try teleporting short distances with the equivalent of that much mass on my off time, which I have very little of at the moment, but the practice itself will mostly be over short distances, likely just around town, and will probably still require me resting for a bit after on fact I’m so unused teleports of that size. I’m not just teleporting that much mass when it comes to ponies; I also have to take the space between them and also include the air between ponies in the total mass to make sure everypony is included in the teleport.”

“Okay, okay,” said Rainbow, “I get it, unpracticed larger scale teleports that are unpracticed are not very good in terms of ideas. I just want to get home so I can enjoy my free time the way I want.”

“Not to mention we need to get the herd formation form signed by all parties,” said Pinkie in her usual chipper tone, “then it has to be confirmed by a pony with the proper power to do so, Twilight could probably do that for us. After we get everything else out of the way.”

“You’re assuming your husband is onboard with this idea,” said Rarity, “you said so yourself, he got you the form as a sort of gag gift.”

“Oh, Cheesy’s more than okay with this sort of thing, we’ve discussed all of you joining our family at one point or another. And he was totally onboard with Rainbow joining, even going into why she would be a good fit for an addition to our family.”

“Let’s save the rest of that for when we get home,” said Twilight with some slight embarrassment.

**************************************************

“This is quite the list,” said Cadance as she looked over the list of materials needed for making spell nodes, “and you’re sure these are required?”

“If we just go with the standard approach then we’re required to cast the spell from a central focal point, preferably the highest point in the town,” said Starlight, “and doing it that way, while proven to be effective is also mildly easy to circumvent.”

“Doing it that way only creates a semi-sphere,” said Twilight, “one that peaks at the point at which the spell was cast, but it stops at the ground level.”

“We already know there are entities that can circumvent magical means, even that of alicorns,” said Shining.

“Yes, gremlins being able to go through detection spells, even high-grade ones, was a bit of a surprise,” said Twilight, “thankfully we’re on amicable terms with them, and the research the volunteers we gathered is helping to further our understanding innate magics. That said, Daring suggested the spell nodes and we agree that approach would be better for security reasons. The only reason it’s not a more common practice is the logistics of creating them.”

“That’s an understatement,” said Cadance, “a full third of the components are rarer resources from outside Equestria’s typical imports. Also, the spell receptive materials you listed are in such low supply, according to our last inventory check of such materials, that we’ll be lucky to not run out by the time you make six.”

“I think three should just about do it,” said Starlight, “or we could make for just to be safe. Ideally, we would want a minimum of five, but we don’t want to deplete the resources too low so that if they’re needed for other demanding projects they should be available.”

“Yes, that is all quite well and good,” said Shining, “but Magi-tin and Magi-copper are very difficult to even locate, even more so when mining. And they exist in such low natural levels it’s a miracle we managed to accumulate as much as we did in the past century or so. I’m sure Rarity can help you find crystals that are more magically receptive, it should be within the bounds of what her ability is capable of. That said, the amplifying materials that also would increase the corrosion resistance of the metals can only be found in Zebra territory, and if we were to request even a twelfth as much as Twilight says the nodes could need it’ll raise eyebrows. Either we read our suppliers in on the project, so they can know exactly why we require such an intense quantity, or we work on ordering small trickles of the materials in a cycle that makes it so no suspicions are made.”

“Either way,” said Twilight such shipments will catch the interest of pirates along the trade routes, they especially like super rare merchandise. We’d have to give the shipments a security escort, which would just attract unwanted attention. We suspect pirates abducted Daring's sister, it might be a good way to lure them out. But I don’t want to waste such important materials on a ploy to catch pirates mooring around Equestrian waters.”

“I see what you’re saying,” said Shining, “no matter what our decision, there will be some serious dangers. If we come clean with our providers, they might be willing to give us a bulk discount but it will also act as an early alert to anypony spying on such proceedings. We don’t do that then the risk of somepony being tipped off is substantially less but chances are we won’t get enough for the project on the deadline you’ve been tinkering with over the course of the project.”

“Quite the pickle,” said Cadance, “but a project like this is worth some risks. I’ll discuss all this with Auntie Celestia and Auntie Luna the next time I see them; this is too important to leave to just two princesses and their close circle of confidants.”

Author's Notes:

So yeah, a little bit of a discussion the materials needed.

Next chapter, we’re back to seeing what’s going on with Spike.