It had been about a week since Aurora's 'growth spurt' and Twilight, along with Sunset and Starlight, were still making out what they could from the damaged record. Twilight sighed, "It's a miracle this record survived, but most of it is too damaged to make out."

Sunset stepped into the room with a notepad and told Twilight, "I think I've found something useful from what I could piece together. Here's what I've got so far, 'The Stones of the Orichalcum come in three colors. Green is the most common, but the least powerful, they have very limited magical powers. Red stones appear to have the ability to warp reality and turn dreams into reality. Of the rarest Orichalcum, black seems to have the strongest powers. It is for this reason, that I, the glorious King Sombra, have had both my eyes removed and replaced with black Orichalcum eyes. The power is hard to control, but nothing is impossible when you are a master of magic such as I.' That's the best I could get, the damage is too severe to make out anything else on the subject of black Orichalcum Stones. I can say this though, if Sombra was willing to risk complete blindness in exchange for the power they grant, it makes sense that the records were destroyed."

Starlight opened a text about the Soul of Sombra and questioned, "Maybe the black Orichalcum is what allowed him to return in his spiritual form before he was defeated permanently by Spike's father? There's nothing in the records about such a thing though. The records show that in his final moments, King Sombra sold his soul to an evil being from the Before Time in order to live on as The Soul of Sombra. It was only when the Queen's husband used blessed silver in the form of a silver sword that the Soul of Sombra was defeated once and for all. But the Crystal Uprising took place over 100 years ago, so maybe he didn't have enough energy to enact his vengeance right away?"

Twilight thought for a moment and nodded, "That would make sense, his powers were crippled before his execution, so perhaps that would explain why it took him another 100 years to come back in his spiritual form. But that's beside the point. Sunset, you said that red Orichalcum have the ability to warp reality and turn fantasies into reality... perhaps that explains what happened. If the red Orichalcum can turn dreams into reality, perhaps Spike was having a dream of Aurora as a bit older, and the stone in his Orichalcum Eye reacted to his dreams and warped reality in order to turn Aurora into a ten-year-old..."

Sunset nodded, but expressed a bit of concern, "You do realize all of this evidence is highly circumstantial, right? If Sombra knew of the existence of red and black Orichalcum Stones, all that knowledge, including the locations of any Orichalcum mines that produced the stones, should have been completely destroyed. You said it yourself Twilight, it's a miracle these records survived. It would be an even greater miracle for us to find a location of an Orichalcum mine where we could find them."

As Spike entered the room, he heard part of what the three were talking about and said, "You are aware making miracles is something I specialize in, right? I did trick Twilight and her crew out of 50K in exchange for false information about my own whereabouts."

Twilight rolled her eyes, "I'd hardly call that a miracle Spike."

Starlight cleared her throat and said, "You do have to admit that it sounds extremely uncharacteristically gullible of you to not even know the prince was standing right in front of you and lying about where he was, and that you paid him for the lies he told."

Sunset nodded, "I'm with Starlight on this one, especially with Applejack there at the time, you'd think she'd be able to tell that Spike was lying through his teeth."

Twilight's eye twitched in anger from being reminded of her spectacular embarrassment at the prince's hands and cleared her throat, "Perhaps we should stop revisiting past events and focus on the matter at hand?" before looking to Spike and telling him, "We were able to find a few records that mentioned a red Orichalcum stone, and it seems they have the ability to warp reality and turn dreams into reality."

Spike nodded, "That would make sense, on the night before Aurora's growth spurt, I was dreaming of training her in swordplay, so perhaps my Orichalcum Eye turned my dreams into reality in the form of Aurora's physical and mental age being altered."

"As I said before, this evidence is highly circumstantial, we have nothing concrete other than a few badly damaged records that proves the existence of red Orichalcum Stones."

Spike pointed to his right eye where the Orichalcum Eye was placed after his injury, "I think that between those records and the fact that my eye is obviously made from a red Orichalcum stone, that's more than enough proof that red Orichalcum stones exist. Now we just need to put our heads together and try to work another miracle and find more information about a mine where we can find such stones."

Twilight nodded, "The prince is right, between the records and his Orichalcum Eye, I believe it's safe to say that we are 99% certain that red Orichalcum stones exist. Now we need to focus on finding a mine where we can find a red Orichalcum stone in order to analyze it."

And so, through damaged records dating back to the Crystal Uprising from over 100 years ago, Spike and his crewmates have found evidence of the existence of red Orichalcum stones and are now focused on finding a mine where they can collect and analyze one. Is Spike's Orichalcum Eye truly the cause of Aurora's sudden change in age? And if so, are there more powers that his eye has yet to reveal? And what of the power of black Orichalcum, which the tyrant King Sombra risked going blind in exchange for the power they grant? It seems there are many more mysteries to be uncovered. But where will these mysteries lead the young prince and his crew?

Find out next time!

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