Shadows of Eden *completed story*

[Rocco 567]

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/453094/1/shadows-of-eden/chapter-1-high-cost-of-living

I have been working on this story for a few months, the word count constraint was a nightmare but it's done! Cover art and all!

 

So today is finally the day! After MONTHS of hard work and editing, Shadows of Eden is finished.

To speak freely...

SoE is a story about Dingy Beige, an earth pony mare that has fallen on hard times after multiple job losses in the field of Organic Preservation. In a move of desperation to afford rent, she gives in and submits to a clinical trial for one of the companies that she fought so hard against. Spark IND Research and Development specializes in the magical extraction of plants to create new magical enhancement augmentation serums known as Equaal. With it, ponies can expect magically enhanced prowess in every aspect of their lives. The elixir can enhance cognitive function, decrease magical burn out and even provide quick learning of highly advanced, compounded spells to allow the consumer to make difficult or impossible tasks as easy as a click of the hoof.

Such a amazing discovery is not without side effects, however. The permanent build up magical bi-products, known as flux, in a ponies system and make them less susceptible to subsequent 'doses' of Equaal, requiring higher volume ingestion to produce the desired effects. This has made Spark the superpower the world has come to know and support. But the cost of Equaal is far outweighed by the cost of greed and destruction of the natural world. With few bastions of fertile land left, conservationists are being seen more and more as little more than an annoyance to the path of progress.

The skies filled with smog and toxic degradation byproducts from the complex compounding facilities. The land became infertile due to years of abuse from resulting toxic fallout from the factories. The winter's grew longer and colder, the grey snow never leaving the sidewalks of the busy towns, but rather seeming to evaporate instead. To Dingy, this is the only world she has known. To her shades of grey and brown are the norm. But she also knows just how beautiful this land once was. This knowledge is what pushed her into conservation, the driving force that has pushed her to fight against Spark alongside others in her past.

But her voice like so many others was being ignored, forcing her into a life of just getting by and fighting for money. Her refusal to use the very products that she fought to keep from coming to being as are being used against her. With ponies that have been magically altered to perform at their absolute best, her skills are quickly looked over. Because of this, in a moment of weakness, she broke. Giving in for the need of a place to live, she submitted to magical clinical testing at Spark. Filled with conflict but fueled by basic needs, she signs her life away for the program.

Dingy thinks she is just trying out the latest magical elixir, but little does she know just how far away it will take her. Or should she say, when it will take her.