The Scroll of Exalted Ponies

“I would very much prefer if you kept that away from the moon” a regal voice stated in a decidedly ancient dialect of old-realm.

The being that had spoken was strange, to say the least: Its head was that of a bird of prey but with large feathered ears, its main body was that of a scorpion thrice the size of a pony with six legs, and its forelimbs were that of a scaly reptile. It wielded a bow of strange bone and polished ivory, all of it covered in runes that gave the illusion of the bow being wrapped in bands of hide and silk...

Throwing Gift to snag the amulet away from Rice Blossom, Speaker hurled his chakram hard – but to no avail: The deathknight guarded the amulet fiercely and was about to swallow it, when the strange creature shot an arrow into the heavens with such force that the vibrations from its bow shook everyone.

“You two” the being said, gesturing towards Rice Blossom and the mare: “…are trespassing – and bringing an invasion force here. Close the portal and I can see you on your way back to creation peacefully, or I will dispose of you – your choice”

Rice Blossom snarled at the being, then charged at Shimmer. It was obvious that he was going for the Mare’s grand daiklaive. It was then that the arrow that the being had fired fell down and struck the ground right in front of Rice Blossom.

“You do not want me to dispose of you – it is not a kind fate” the thing stated calmly, albeit with a notably stern tone.

Looking at Shimmer, Speaker gave his Lunar mate a curious look. She shrugged, and once more held on tight to the grand daiklaive – her claws and her hands a bloody mess at this point, though her regeneration charms made sure that her wounds didn’t get any worse than necesary.

Before Rice Blossom could do much else, the strange being had put an arrow through each of Rice Blossom’s ghostflesh hooves, anchoring him quite firmly to the ground with arrows that might as well have been rods of steel. Walking up to Rice Blossom, its six scorpion legs barely even leaving pin-pricks in the fine dust on the lunar surface, the thing snatched the amulet and crushed it with its claws, just as the legion of undead on the other side of the portal was about to cross through. The portal collapsed like a bubble of dark smoke bursting, leaving but a few bits of bone that had managed to reach across to fall to the ground.

Roaring in impotent fury, Rice Blossom strained mightily against the strange arrows that had pierced his flesh and anchored him to the ground – the beast did not care, and with a dismissive gesture from it the ground opened up under the deathknight, the abyssal falling screaming into the black chasm until his voice faded.

“You may put the other one down there too – they will be dealt with down there in a timely manner” the beast bid.

Nodding, then throwing Gift, Speaker had his magical chakram strike the Mare so that she coursed into the chasm… she smiled – but this was a decidedly sad smile, as if she wanted to frown but her face was unable to do anything but smile. It was a rather pitiful sight – and begged the question of whether the Mare with the Mirthless Smile had gained that appearance voluntarily or if had been forced and locked upon her.
Turning to the circle, the beast nodded to Shimmer: “So, what brings a Lunar to the moon? …or Solars and… one of those things… for that matter?”

“Hold on – who and what are you? You seem familiar somehow?” Speaker asked. He had wracked his mind, but he just couldn’t place the thing anywhere.

“I am Granalkin, the archer of the silver pass, former third soul of Mardukt” Granalkin introduced itself, bowing its head gracefully.

Cash and Sullen Hoof both seemed rather confused on how a ‘former’ sub-soul of a primordial could simply have left such a position, but Granalkin didn’t seem in the mood to explain this in detail. Shimmer followed up by noting that Granalkin was in charge of security on the moon: “I had sort of hoped that you’d come sooner, but hey”

“Indeed – now, please state your purpose here”

Explaining that they were on the moon seeking Gaia, or some part of Gaia – to help the Bodhisattva get a new body, Granalkin seemed sympathetic: “Very well – but be warned: If Luna should come while you’re in her palace, then you’re on your own, for she tends to get upset if you get her hopes up and then disappoint her”

Shooting an arrow into the sky and bouncing it off a star, Granalkin somehow made the arrow come down to the moon like a shooting star, trailing blue light across the sky in the direction the circle was to trave: “Follow the light and you will find what you seek”

Thanking Granalkin, the circle mounted up on Nah once more and flew off.

“THERE!” Shimmer burst out excitedly after a while.

Everyone turned to look in the direction Shimmer was pointing. On the horizon was a… pale blue light.

Flying closer revealed it to be a truly magnificent palace of midnight blue ice, polished silver and luminescent crystals. It was beautiful, like a dream – indeed it was very much like the kind of palace that architects across creation might well dream of.

“This is the Silver Chair of Night… oh wow, I’ve always wanted to visit this place” Shimmer said.

Sullen Hoof was less impressed, having seen plenty of the impossible magnificence of Yu-Shan. He was still more curious about this Granalkin thing: “So what exactly does he do around here? Security? What’s to guard against here?”

“Nightmares. The moon draws in wyld energy and turns it into moonlight. Ponies get dreams from that, but also nightmares – Granalkin stalks the caverns down underground, killing the worst nightmares before they leave for creation” Shimmer noted. Speaker nodded, his recollections of the diplomatic effort involved in getting Granalkin to defect from his primordial a vague memory – but it sounded about right: Granalkin had always been about the hunt, having always admired how Luna had brought the night with her for him to stalk in, which was the angle that the Solar and Lunar diplomancers which convinced him to defect and remain neutral in the primordial war had used.

Approaching the palace, Cash suddenly stopped. There were things approaching them, coming from the palace – many things.

As the strange flying creatures neared, Speaker thought for a brief moment that it might be pegasus ponies, for at a distance they seemed to fit the description – but as they got near enough to come into the light that the moon was reflecting off Nah, it became clear that they were something else: Bat-ponies.

Clad in dark purple and blue armor, and displaying features not entirely pony-like, these beings were… well, not really ponies at all. They were too large, their limbs a bit too long, their ears too pointy and what have you. As if made out of dreams of ponies, as dreamt by someone who had only been given a rough description of what a pony was, the bat-ponies spoke in a strange dialect of old-realm, but not the same as Granalkin – no… this was akin to how some changelings spoke.

“Identify yourselves and state your business” the lead bat-pony barked.

Cash flared his caste-mark and replied: “The purification of a tained solar exaltation. We seek the Creation-mother Gaia. This is official Solar business”

The bat-ponies withdrew momentarily and seemed to argue amongst themselves on what to do. Sullen Hoof noted that he could hear through his hearing-augment charms that they seemed unsure of what protocol was for official Solar business: “…they just can’t remember – it’s been so long since any Solars have come here”

Shimmer sighed, stepping forth and calling for the attention of the bat-ponies: “Hey – just treat them as if they’re visiting Lunars, at least for now”

The bat-ponies appeared to accept this and guided the circle down to the beautiful palace. Landing in a large circular courtyard lined with towering obelisks of mirror-polished obsidian, the circle and the Bodhisatva was led into a large hall decked out of the murals of all twenty-five constellations, as well as murals depicting… other things places – there was a mural that showed the twisted visage of the demon realm Malfeas, another that somehow showed the constantly twisting madness of the wyld complete with constantly changing figures and shapes. A dark one showed a red moon over the underworld, and then there were some displaying places which none in the circle could recognize and much less describe with mortal words.

At the end of the room was a grand throne of silver, blue jade, black jade, and strange materials that had likely been plucked straight from the dreams of ponies and beasts alike. Next to it stood a particularly grand bat-pony, its gaze cold and its grimace stern. It stood a good head higher than the other bat ponies, towering above the circle – even the Bodhisattva.

“Master of ceremonies, they seek Gaia” the circle’s escort’s declared.

The master of ceremonies exhaled slowly through its nose, though even for Cash it was difficult to tell if it was meant as a sigh or some kind of expression of annoyance: “The earth mother is not present. It is six hundred and seventy two years since her grace deigned to visit these halls”

“When was the last time before that?” The Bodhisattva inquired.

The master of ceremonies briefly flashed a look of disgust that the ‘thing’ that was the Bodhisattva could even speak, let alone that it just spoke directly to it: “That would be a bit under two thousand years ago”

Tiny ripples in the Bodhisattva’s ghostflesh signaled his dismay, for his eyes could not weep and his face only inspire dread. Shimmer put a hoof on his shoulder to comfort him.

“Is there a way to summon Gaia?” Cash inquired, expertly veiling his fears that this trip was for naught.

The master of ceremonies calmly explained that if such existed, then the great mistress Luna would be using it every time she came by.
“She’s looking for the golden answer, right? Can’t we just shine some golden light into the wyld from here to lure her in?” Cash suggested, recalling some of what Speaker had said of Gaia at some earlier point, not that he ever really understood what this question was about… though Speaker had seemed unsure of that as well at the time.

The master noted that such séances had been held many times, to no success, in the first age following Gaia’s original departure from Creation.

“Well of course that didn’t work… you can’t just shine a light randomly into the wyld, that’ll go nowhere” the Bodhisattva noted, explaining that he had spoken at length to souls that had died in the wyld, only for their souls to flee to the underworld in an attempt to escape the changelings that didn’t care if their quarry were living or dead.

This seemed to pique the interest of the master of ceremonies, as the Bodhisatva regaled of the time he had spent exploring the wyld. To find his way back to Creation he had used a trail of necrotic essence motes puddled around glowing wads of gossamer: “All light is brighter when cloaked in darkness – a light out in the open in the wyld just bleeds into the surroundings…”

Even Shimmer found this revelation interesting: “Wouldn’t the changelings object to you leaving behind unchanging things?”
“They did – that’s how I got the gossamer to mark my trail, by taking it from their remains” the Bodhisattva noted.

The master of ceremonies, satisfied with the Bodhisattva’s explanation, seemed to have gotten the idea: “Can this feat be applied at the grand lunarian lighthouse?”

The Bodhisattva remained silent, thinking for a moment: “Is that what makes the moon glow?”

“After a fashion: It is the apparatus that all absorbed wyld energy is channeled through and shined down on Creation as moonlight via – it can be configured to shine its light into the wyld as well, as was done during the previous gold-light séances” the master of ceremonies noted.
Reaching forward and recalling a mighty staff from elsewhere, the master of ceremonies struck the ground with his moonsilver staff. The ground shook, and the crystal lights that hung throughout the hall, giving it a muted but pleasant ambient light, all rattled: “We go to the lighthouse”

Instantly things began to blur for the circle. Apparently the master of ceremony’s statement was less a declaration of intent, and more a command for some unseen force to move them all.

As things came into focus the circle found itself atop an impossibly high tower that somehow looked over all of the moon, at once, in defiance of all common sense regarding line of sight and spatial geometry.

The grey moonstone structure had a flat top, above which an enormous crystal of adamant, moonsilver, flecks of lapis lazuli and other strange things didn’t just glow… it gave off moonlight so intense that one could feel it physically like a cold wind.

Once more the master of ceremonies struck the ground with his staff, causing the crystal to wobble and flow apart into an apparatus wrought of many lenses and platforms. In the middle was a platform obviously meant for a source of light, big enough for five or so ponies to stand on.
“This is the configuration used for the original séance. How would it need to be changed?” the batpony inquired.

Looking intently at the array of crystals and lenses, the Bodhisattva ho’d and humm’d for a good while, looking at the setup as both a mortal and with essence sight. He then began to give the batpony further instructions on how to realign some of the smaller lenses, where to position mirrors for it all. The alterations weren’t grand, but Speaker could barely keep up with how the essence flows of the array changed with every minute alteration the master of ceremonies effected – this was a device meant to send out dreams, to project hope… fitting that it should be used to send a message of gold and mystery into the wyld.

Suddenly leaping up onto a new platform behind the central platform, the Bodhisattva sat down and bid Cash, Sullen Hoof and Speaker to ascend as well.

Once everyone were in position the master of ceremonies struck his staff once more, causing the entire array to rise high up. The strange geomancy of the moon meant that from their vantage point Speaker and the others could see all across Creation, though from their point of view it looked upside down… and the peak of Mount Meru looked tantalizingly close, almost close enough that one might shout and be heard there.

It was then that the master of ceremonies did something else, which caused the array to aim elsewhere, to point away from Creation, pointing to the wyld.

“Now, flare your animas – in the sequence I instructed!” The Bodhisattva called out, as he flared his own grim anima, staining his platform with bloodspatter and tiny chunks of quickly evaporating gore.

As darkness crept up behind him from the Bodhisattva’s soul made bare, Cash first ignited his anima – its golden fire condensing into a gushing fountain of golden coins, his diplomatic nature giving off a kind and welcome glow. Sullen Hoof followed suit, adding a veritable light of mystery to the mix. Finally Speaker lent his anima like a searchlight, unifying the polite but mysterious light – communicating a riddle of light simply by its glow, a glow made all the brighter by the dark sheath that both followed and surrounded it, keeping the light focused and impossible to miss as it seemed etched in front of a perfectly dark background no matter what angle you looked at it from.

After a moment the lens array had absorbed enough of it all to begin emitting, but just as it was about to begin a terrible shout shot through everyone’s mind: “Who dares interfere with my moon?”

The voice, regal and fierce, was that of none other than Luna herself… and she didn’t look happy.

The master of ceremonies was about to try to explain himself, but Luna ignored him, raising a hoof to strike down this paltry minion who had disappointed her so.

“Hold it – he was acting on your orders” Cash shouted from up in the lens array.

Luna, in all her shades of blue, indigo, purple and starlight, shot Cash a look that would likely have stripped the soul of a mortal bare – yet she did not speak, and stayed her mighty hoof.

“Your MC told us that you’ve instructed your staff to be open to any attempt to call Gaia to creation - that’s exactly what we’re doing” Cash explained.

With the smallest of gesture from Luna, Cash found himself flung through the air and thrown on the ground before the goddess by an unseen force.

Up on the platform, Speaker and Sully could do little but watch as Luna in all her resplendent glory, with her moonsilver regalia and her mane of night sky and starlight, stood ready to smite the uppity pony who had dared to interrupt her.

Floating Cash up with the glow her horn, Luna beheld Speaker intently: “You are the one who spoke to my sister outside the Primal Forge, are you not?”

Cash nodded, struggling to maintain his composure – then Luna suddenly released him: “Good, that will be why I won’t kill you just now for interrupting me. Now explain yourselves”

One brief explanation later, Luna expressed that she found the cause of the circle and the Bodhisattva just – though having the moon suddenly wink out, from the perspective of Creation, had apparently caused a torrent of desperate prayers to be thrown at Luna – which is why she was now at the lighthouse.

“Thank you – but we still need the aid of Gaia. If I complete my quest to purify my essence before I have a body that can live on its own, then I will die as I am cleansed” The Bodhisattva noted.

Nodding, Luna gazed towards the ‘sky’ that was the wyld: “And I hope you succeed – I love little else than to be with Gaia once more, but I fear that this is futile. A call with solar light has been tried before”

Shimmer, having remained silent until now – mainly out of awe of finally meeting the incarnae of her exaltation, cleared her throat and attempted to answer: “Oh Argent Madonna, we know that a golden call has been made before… but this is different”

Luna turned to give Shimmer a predatory smile – like a cat trying to decide whether to play with a wounded mouse some more, or just eat it.

Gesturing for Shimmer to approach and continue, Luna’s appearance subtly shifted into her full moon aspect – that of the bloody huntress, the goddess of the hunt, though many in Creation knew this form mainly as Nightmare Moon – for it was in this form that she Luna would occasionally be sighted shepherding or hunting (depending who you asked) nightmares around in the sky at night, always during full moons.

Shimmer found this terrifying yet effortless display of power surprisingly… terrifying – yet for those she working to protect; for them she mustered up the courage to speak on: “The Bodhisattva, he has traveled the wyld in ways none of us can – using beacons of light insulated by necrotic essence to mark a path. We’re trying to mimic that here, for he found that a light is all the brighter when it shines in darkness”

As her gaze quickly shifting from that of a bemused predator to one of genuine curiosity, Luna stood upright and respectfully nodded, suddenly wearing a captain’s hat: “A light framed by darkness is indeed all the brighter – my silver chariot uses this very same principle to light up the night and guide ships across Creation. Do continue”

At that moment the lighthouse tower trembled, shaking the lens array apart. Moonsilver lenses of all shapes and sizes came crashing down, shattering on impact or splattering into great piles of liquid moonsilver. A split second later, just as everyone was about to react to the shattering of the lenses, something miraculous happened – something that had not happened since about six hundred years ago: The moon bloomed.

All around them the grey ash-like terrain of the moon, so torn and degenerate from having been exposed to wyld energies over and over until it had lost all form but the simplest of dust, erupted in violent geysers of water and fire. Plants that had not graced Creations since before the primordial war blossomed in colors for which mortal words did not exist. Mountains rose and chasms yawned open, revealing the labyrinth of tunnels in the lunar underground. Life had come to the silver chariot as the herald of something far greater.

“I can’t believe this… is it truly that simple to call her?” Luna idly mused as she gazed longingly at the tidal-wave of elemental fury and majesty before her.

Cash couldn’t stop smiling – he could barely count the number of things he see the circle blessed with as thanks for delivering Luna’s long lost lover to her… hell, being part of the circle that found a ritual that could successfully summon Gaia back to Creation? Now that was a feat that would be remembered.

“We will receive her in the gardens!” Luna commanded, the master of ceremonies quickly banging his staff against the stone floor. Things once more shifted, the circle reappearing in a vast garden complex that reached from horizon to horizon.

A flurry of batponies rushed around the circle, brushing off dust, quickly brushing everyone’s hair – looking at each other confused when it came to preparing the Bodhisattva – all in preparation for the mother of life’s arrival.

The gardens were more like an impossibly vast nature preserve, populated with strange not-quite-ghosts of animals that didn’t exist anymore in Creation, as if they had been remade out of the longing and dreams of hunters, riders, breeders and ranchers that had missed them so. If not for the oncoming presence of a Primordial, then Shimmer would likely have relished in the chance to perform a sacred hunt on some of these.

“Uhm… Cash, do you remember any protocol for how you’re supposed to behave when a primordial is around?” Speaker hesitantly asked Cash, feeling decidedly unsure of the situation.

Cash frowned with furious thought as five ear-splitting dragon-roars sounded, as five truly gigantic elemental dragons flew in from beyond the horizon. Each was the size of a mountain, and together they blocked out the sky completely. One had bright red jade scales, with a maw of obsidian fangs each likely the size of a great north-eastern redwood, with a mane of fire and eyes that glowed like the sun. Another had elegantly etched blue scales like enormous feathers and a white beak, and horns unlike anything anyone had ever seen. Another was black, another white and the fifth green – all imposing as only the greatest of elemental dragons could be, and then some… for these were not mere greater elementals: They were the five prime devas of Gaia, the original and very first elemental dragons, worshiped by the unicorns as the immaculate dragons.

Just as quickly as they had appeared they each faded into brightly colored dust, flittering down to the garden and reappearing as half-draconic pony-form beings. There was no doubt about their supernatural and primordial nature, for like the bat-ponies then their features were just a little too perfect… and each radiated an effortless primal intensity with their mere presence of the sort that ten thousands warrior poets would gladly drain their inkwells dry to describe, only to weep them full them again with their tears that they might write of it once more.

It occurred to Speaker that if but the mere component souls of Gaia continually exuded such a presence, a presence of such grandeur that his only recent experience to match was the glorious swansong and death of his former circle-mate Red through the re-shaping of an entire pocket-reality into the grandest and most epic battle that a young and hopeful Dawn Caste Solar could imagine for but a single moment… then meeting Gaia might well be far more intimidating than he had hoped. What in Creation had he gotten himself into?

Luna nodded respectfully to the five devas, who returned the gesture as if it was the meeting of old friends.

As for the circle, then only the Bodhisattva did not tremble, and Cash benefited greatly from his collar of dawn’s cleansing as it instantly undid the ‘damage’ of him having pissed himself.

Amid the five devas strode a sixth. A mare, beautiful and terrible at once, causing the grass her hooves touched to twist and turn into strands of emerald that then somehow bloomed into beautiful gemstone orchids. Her mane was ginger and glowed like a late setting sun, her coat a shade of cream. Across her form she was draped in a dress that appeared woven on long strands of grass or some other form of coarsely spun plant, but it looked quite alive for it continually blossomed with multicolored petals, only for the blossoms to burst into small colorful puffs of elemental essence.

“Is that… Gaia?” Shimmer poked Speaker and asked.

Shaking his head ever so slightly, unable to take his eyes off the strange mare before them: “No, that’s Gaia’s jouten… her avatar. The five dragons and the rest of her subsouls are as much Gaia as the avatar, multiple souls remember?”

To behold a whole primordial – not one half-destroyed, mangled and imprisoned one, or one dead yet undying – it had an air of sadness to it. To witness something so pure in its primordial expression of the concepts it revolved around. A mortal pony would need words, deeds and attire to display who she was – but a primordial simply… was. This was not a being akin to a force of nature. This was a conglomerate of beings working as one, which had invented the concept of a force of nature. Speaker felt tears in his eyes, yet could not move himself to wipe them away.

“Gaia!” Luna shouted gleefully, leaping forth to embrace the mare.

Even in the first age many exalted scholars debated and pondered the exact nature of the love affair between the primordial who contributed the concepts of the five terrestrial elements and, arguably, the concept of mortal life, to Creation. How it had started was unknown, and how the two truly saw each other… this was not entirely understood either, at least not in any specific form. Still, as Luna embraced Gaia’s jouten it was clear that the two cared for each other.

After a polite if somewhat awkward round of introductions, Gaia contemplated the Bodhisattva’s request: “You would have me make you a new pony form to live in… are you certain that this is what you want?”

“My body was stolen from me, through lies and deceit, as a way to control me and force me to give up my dream of ending the misery of the neverborn. In my current form I cannot harm the neverborn, for a body made by them cannot harm them” The Bodhisattva explained.
The emerald mother nodded: “I can make you a body… but to transfer your soul and black exaltation to it… I don’t think that’s been done before, at least not with an exaltation such as yours”

This didn’t phase the deathknight – and so Gaia asked for flesh, blood and bone be brought before her. How or why Luna had such things stocked was not inquired into, and so each of the five elemental dragons breathed their fire into the rough pile of viscera and blood that Gaia had assembled.

Pasiap breathed his fire first, the essence of earth giving the pile a more solid form. The flesh and blood began to rearrange itself into a more pony-like form. Next Daana’d breathed water essence onto the form, making the blood and other fluids within the form flow into place. Next up Heshies inhaled sharply and bathed the form in elemental fire, lighting up the eyes of the pony and giving its organs and muscles energy to function and heat from within.

Witnessing this incredible act of creation – truly, life being made before their very eyes… it was fascinating to watch. The new pony had a nice normal brown coat, even if it was a tad shaggy, with slightly darker brown mane that looked very unkempt, just like the very long unshorn fetlocks. A generic pony one could well be tempted to describe it as.

Finally Sextes Jylis did a little dance around the now seemingly whole pony. Sure it looked a tad pale and was just slumped on the ground like a sack of rice, but beyond that it seemed to be breathing on its own already – but then Sextes Jylis motioned for the Bodhisattva to approach – and then the elemental dragon in pony form breathed green fire into the Bodhisattva’s mouth. This did not look pleasant.

The deathknight looked dazed, for the lack of any better word. The pony before him blinked and looked up – and the two locked eyes, both raising their right forehoof and touching each other… themselves… himself… then suddenly from between two armor plates on the Bodhisattva a rusty chain with a spiked hook shot out and slammed into the new pony’s chest, plunging in deep. Obscene amounts of blood gushed from the wound, but then stopped as the brown pony’s pale features took on a slightly darker grey shade. The transfer was now complete.

“Oh right, you have to be on the verge of death when you get the black exaltation…” Speaker noted, feeling decidedly uncomfortable with what he had just seen.

The Bodhisattva would much later go on to pen many interesting works and theses on the topic of ‘live exalted soul transfer’, a feat that not even the Solars of the high first age were able to accomplish – but for now the new newly created pony form merely rose and drew breath calmy… then began to hack and cough quickly violently, liquid water essence pouring out of his mouth and nose.

Speaker was about to rush to the Bodhisattva’s aid, but the Bodhisattva raised a hoof to hold Speaker off as he finished cough: “No please, I am fine… haven’t felt this alive in ages”

The Bodhisattva’s old form quickly began to fade, leaving only its armor and a withered heart behind. The Bodhisattva stashed the armor elsewhere for later use, but the heart? He wasn’t quite sure of what to do with it.

Much celebration ensued. The Bodhisattva celebrated that he was now on his final leg of atonement and spiritual purification. The circle celebrated that with this no abyssal exalt was beyond salvation. Luna and Gaia ‘celebrated’ in their private chambers – and if judging by how continually flustered the elemental dragons were, then Luna was doing that thing with her tongue again.

The next day, as the moon traveled through the wyld beyond Creation, attracting the madness of the total chaos so that it might become dreams and nightmares, Luna finally got around to congratulating the Bodhisattva: “Your accomplishment will be remembered here… and I thank you for letting us keep your old husk here. It now wanders the gardens as the unique creature that it is”

The ‘husk’ of the Bodhisattva’s old form looked like most of the other creatures in the gardens – formed of a dream, or a recently awoken-from nightmare. Its ghost-flesh limbs were a tad more transclucent, now wrought of starlight and the hazy fog that clouds and obscures dreams long forgotten, and its armor was but a replicate of etched dark wood and leather painted over to look like soulsteel.

“I could not have done it without your gracious permission. I… last night I slept so… I think I had forgotten how to truly sleep” The Bodhisattva noted, tears swelling in his strangely multicolored eyes: His irises were like five rings of jade, starting with green, then red, then black, then blue and finally white. The mark of Gaia perhaps?

Luna frowned a bit at the Bodhisattva’s humility: “You should stand tall at your achievement. Your hunt is nearly at an end – but you know… you really should have left your black exaltation behind, and reincarnated as a true mortal”

“I… why?” the deathknight asked, the faint wound on his chest barely even there anymore after Speaker and Shimmer had had their way with the Bodhisattva before the celebrations had begun.

Luna snaked around the Bodhisattva, her body flowing like dark mercury: “Survival, perseverance, a complete dedication to your hunt. These are admirable traits for a Lunar – were you not already chosen, then I would likely have offered you exaltation myself”

The Bodhisattva didn’t really seem to know what to say that, standing somewhat stupefied and very surprised as Luna left to do whatever – probably return to Yu-Shan and rejoin the games of divinity. Gaia had already left, indeed Luna hadn’t come out of her chambers until Gaia departed Creation once, seeking her illusive golden answer, the answer which could not be denied.

In the meantime, the circle had prepared for their return to Creation. Not satisfied with waiting until nightfall when the moon would pop out of the eastern wyld, Shimmer was certain that she would be able to get them out through a wyld zone not that far from Lookshy.

As the Bodhisattva joined them, looking extraordinarily happy, he requested that he be dropped off before they reach Lookshy.

“We’ll try – we have to get to Creation first” Cash noted, launching Nah into the… moon sky? Heaven? Someone really needed to come up with some proper names for these things.

Flying away from the moon sideways – that is, at a right angle to the moons trajectory, Cash aimed to avoid the wake of wyld chaos trailing the moon, as well as the compressed chaos in front of the moon. It looked really weird to see from a distance: Multiple wyld pocket realities mushed together before the moon, and thousands more trailing behind the moon like cats running down a wounded capybara. As their distance to the moon increased the wyld distorted the scene, until nothing logical could be seen at all – only Speaker’s mechanical hoof artifact and his chaos repelling pattern maintained a bubble of normalcy around Nah that left them unmolested by the insanity around them.

Using unseen trails of scattered moonlight and other ‘marks’ supposedly left by other Lunars, Shimmer helped Cash navigate through wet deserts, dry oceans and sweltering beehives made of boiling lard. Their speed was little use against the changelings as they simply had to alter their nature ‘to be faster than our prey’ – though such narrative oneiromancy would fail spectacularly the moment the changelings passed through the normalcy bubble made by Speaker’s charm, where their bodies of strange things and impossible ideas was forced to function purely as their mundane Creation-wrought counterparts… and thus a gleaming warrior made of spinning gems would simply become a pile of gems falling by the wayside, or a cruel minstrel playing a gossamer instrument strung with stolen strands of fate would find her strings intangible yet destined to return once out, while inside the bubble.

“That looks like a tree! Finally, something that just looks normal!” Sullen Hoof shouted.

The tree was made of weeping kittens. Still, it was the closest semblance to anything that actually even faintly appeared as if from Creation. A short while later the trees thickened and became much more regular – even though many of them still had leaves of cloth, or strange green metals, or solid liquids.

Once they were a bit closer to Creation, Shimmer began to guide the circle through a special path through the madness: At the end of the trail they exited into Creation through what turned out to be a wyld pocket in the western end of the hundred kingdoms, not that far from where Speaker had once lived prior to exalting.

Arriving at Lookshy, the circle found that the Seventh Legion was ready to head out: Now was the time to bring the war-machines of the living to the underworld. Well, it might be… for Heath Rose was waiting for the circle at their town house in the upper harbor district – and she didn’t look happy.