The Scroll of Exalted Ponies

Cash Charmer, Chosen of the Solar Eclipse caste, Bright Machine Speaker, Chosen of the Solar Twilight Caste, and Last Shimmer, Chosen of the Lunar No Moon caste, stood before the ghost of the unicorn they had all known as Ruby, in the command tent of the ghostly legion which was evidently protecting and working together with the ranger scouts that the Seventh Legion had sent ahead to scout out the territory around Deep Rot for suitable locations to set up a fortified artillery position.

“Uhm… hi, didn’t expect you here” Ruby meekly said, but she was quickly pushed aside by the older ghost next to her – the commander of the ghost legion from the looks of his many spectral medals and other bits of faded decorations on his exorbitantly battle-worn armor: “What is this? Do you know who they are?”

Ruby nodded: “Yes sir, that’s Cash Charmer, Last Shimmer and Bright Machine Speaker – my former charge when I was alive”

Upon hearing Speaker’s name the old ghostly commander flickered for a moment, then howled a joyous howl that somehow blew the tent around them away. Around them ghostly legionnaires gathered, many of them looking as if they had hacked to pieces and then glued back together again multiple times.

“Could it really be… is it you milord?” the old ghost inquired, stepping forth.

As the old ghost moved, new parts of the ghost’s form became obvious – namely that it was the ghost of a unicorn, as the silhouette of a horn became apparent as the ghost moved his head about, it trailing ethereal vapors. Another similar vapor-trailing object was that of a sizable blade lodged in the back of the ghost’s head – but that didn’t really seem to bother him… it was probably what had killed him originally.
Speaker looked at the old ghost, but couldn’t really tell what all the hubbub was about.

“I am Taimyo Sunscale, lord of the Lost Legion of Deheleshen , reporting for duty your imminence” the old ghost said in a rusty voice, saluting Speaker imperiously. Around them almost four thousand ghosts saluted Speaker as well.

Cash shot a brief look at Speaker: “So… reinforcements?”

It turned out that ever since the usurpation there had appeared a large number of ghosts from dead soldiers and officers loyal to Speaker in the underworld: Those who had been killed as they had refused to cooperate in the grand coup or the purges that followed the usurpation.

Taimyo Sunscale had been one of the commanders of Deheleshen’s home legion, the force dedicated to defending the city – and even in death he had continued this task, zealously keeping out looters and agents of the Deathlords from his sacred home. Of course, during that time not that much of Deheleshen had appeared in the underworld, as the city itself still stood – but quite a few temples to Celestia had appeared, as they had been demolished. This of course changed with the Great Contagion, as nearly all but the old city fell to disease and the Baloran crusade: Now nearly all of old Deheleshen was to be found in the underworld, except a large barren patch where the old city stood untouched in Creation.

The Lost Legion’s numbers had also swelled with the fall of the city, and while the newer unicorn-loyal troops might have been surprised to know that the city they had defended had been founded and ruled by a Solar, then most of them readily accepted Sunscale’s command –
having little else to do in the underworld aside from getting enslaved by the Deathlords.

Speaker was moved to tears many times by this display of loyalty, as Sunscale and other legion ghosts from the first age told of how they had defended the city.

After a while another patrol came in with more ‘intruders’ – Taimyo Karal Linseed and a small guard of unicorn legionaries. After brief introductions and Linseed utterly losing her shit at the realization that nearly one in ten dead Lookshyan legionnaire over the last three thousand years was present around her, the battle plan was revised – though it didn’t change much: The Lost Legion would help fortify the artillery positions, then move back and assist the second field force to keep clear the ground around the flight route back to the mourning fields, to ensure a clean exit once operations were done.

That the Lost Legion wouldn’t help with the assault on Deep Rot was mainly due to security issues: They all knew that the abyssal nearly all practiced some level of necromancy – and as ghosts the Lost Legion could have parts of it subverted that way. That they hadn’t already, something Cash claimed to be sure of after using a few charms on Sunscale to verify it, had mainly been because old Deheleshen simply had never been a target for the Deathlords – all the magical weaponry and whatnot was still on the Creation-side in the city – plus Taimyo Sunscale clearly was a seasoned user of first age battle tactics, putting him mostly on par with the Deathlords when it came to battlefield maneuvers and use of all kinds of creative strategems. The Lost Legion had also never strayed far from the territory it held, unlike the roving bands of ghostly warlords and raiders that dotted the rest of the underworld.

This was still quite a lot to take in for Taimyo Linseed – though she clearly dreaded having to pass this information on to the rest of the general staff – some of the staff had ‘family’ in the Lost legion! Oh the chaos this would cause, the scandals!. Still, she signaled for the skyfleet to begin deploying – Operation: Pit Fill had begun.

Essence artillery by the dozen were unloaded: Lightning ballistas, implosion bows, concussive essence canon with barrels so big a pony could jump around inside them and not hit their heads – this and much more was unloaded from their skyship transports and dug in, a thousand ghosts digging trenches and chopping down local pale-wood trees to fashion into stakes that were put into the ground around the fortifications: Against mindless zombies, simply putting pointy things out in front was one of the best defenses you could mount – at least until enough zombies had impaled themselves that they rest could just climb over them.

Once the fortifications were done, which happened in no time at all thanks to the extra labor and Speaker using his singing staff – much to the joy of the first age ghosts in the Lost Legion, who had all longed to Speaker’s staff sing once more – the Lost Legion withdrew to unite with the units from the second field force that were covering the exit route, with Speaker promising to meet with them once everything was over.
Once the ghosts were gone salt was distributed around the fortifications to keep ghosts out - not even friendly ghosts could cross these lines, though zombies and skeletons – both basically animated flesh or bone automatons, could be made to scatter the salt lines. Thus defences against both ghosts, skeletons and zombies had to be layered and made to overlap.

The bombardment began before the last of the artillery pieces were in places – and oh how they thundered: Fueled by hearthstones originating from the many manses under Lookshy’s control, the lightning-throwers and essence-chuckers drew near-limitless amounts of energy from Creation, raining it down over Deep Rot.

This revealed its outer defenses very quickly: A black fog rose as a dome around the manse, upon which all the lightning and other projectiles exploded harmlessly in puffs of smoke. The whole place looked quite daunting: The large thirty foot wall that ringed the two mile across manse looked very much designed to be as uninviting as possible – and its seemingly invulnerable shield just sealed the deal.
This shield had already been reported by the scouts earlier, but this made for a delightfully colorful and exceedingly noisy distraction as Speaker and his team delved underground.

“Ok you lot – form up, and remember that the deeper we go the more we’re likely to run into… things… down here – and do say if the walls start bleeding, we don’t want to drown while down here” Speaker called out.

The unicorn rangers, clad in their magical armor, completely covered from hoof to tail, with only their crystal visors to look out from – but their senses none the less enhanced from the magic and many enchantments that made up their armor – did not openly express worry upon hearing this warning. Indeed, they had all been briefed back in Creation weeks ago when the final plans had been made. This still didn’t mean that any of them had ever partaken in operations in the underworld – indeed, until recently no Lookshyan field force had deployed active units in the underworld.

Closing up the tunnel behind them, the air aspected unicorn in the team lit up her horn to prove air and light for the squad while underground. The two earth aspected unicorns in the team joined up with Speaker up in front, using their powers to shift the bone-strewn ashen dirt around them, allowing them to move forward.

The singing staff soon proved useless – the ground was too much ash caked in dry blood and bone chips, hardly any actual dirt for the staff to affect. Still, Speaker’s crafting charms did wonders in shifting dirt ever without a shovel or other tools – and thus team Jade Mole progressed as planned, going up and down as the walls bleed with blood or the floor began to have faces push themselves out of the ground, the madness of the outer labyrinth nipping at their heels.

Up on the surface the response from Deep Rot had manifested: A ghostly emissary with an honor guard of heavily armored zombies had galloped forth from the manse, the emissary being the gaunt ghost of a pony stallion with sharp features and a jet black mane that looked like a big wad of carefully sculpted tar that had been stuck to the top of the ghost’s head. Cash turned the poor fool’s mind inside out in just under seven words – this was not an operation that involved diplomacy what so ever, for any attempt to stall or halt the attack on Deep Rot would clearly be a ploy to buy the Barbate Arbiter time to destroy Creation, but the ghost apparently knew nothing to the point that it was obvious that its mind had been wiped prior to having been sent out. This had been a test, not a serious attempt at parlay.

Shortly thereafter several steel gates in the great wall surrounding Deep Rot swung open, and dragon after dragon of shambling zombies clad in crude armor and vicious war-ghost with a faintly red iridescent glow about their semi-transparent forms spilled out. The counter-attack would soon begin.

Catapults with special salt-delivery canisters were loaded and made ready to be drawn taught – and archers had extra arrows distributed among them. Among the officers special prayer-strips blessed by the Raven King were handed out, each with a powerful invocation to mulch all dead things around whoever read the prayer out loud – they should do wonders against massed zombies once they started clogging the spikes on the defenses.

Underground, team Jade Mole made swift progress through the ‘dirt’ of the underworld. Digging under Deep Rot’s wall turned out to be easy enough: The earth aspected unicorns in the team were specialists in subterranean operations, and knew charms that let them ‘see’ through the underground, letting them guide Speaker in what direction to lead the tunnel. What they hadn’t quite expected was the ghost of Rose appearing among them, acting as if everything was normal.

“What?”

“You heard Taimyo Linseed’s orders – any ghost inside the battlezone is to be considered under enemy control” one of the unicorn rangers noted, the voice-talisman in the unicorn mare’s armor making her voice sound metallic and artificial, as her horn flared red with fire essence building up…

Rose didn’t take the implied threat as much, instead swiftly walking up to the unicorn ranger who had spoken up and fiddling with the voice talisman.

“Hey – what are you, restrain her!” the unicorn ranger shouted as she tried to fend off Ruby to no avail.

…restraining a ghost is not an easy feat, even in the underworld – unless you know special spirit-wrangling charms, like the one Speaker knew.
“Ruby – what are you doing?” Speaker asked, tapping Ruby on the shoulder. Her spectral armor rattled in a strange way that gave off a fading echo.

Giving the speech-talisman one final jiggle, Ruby slapped it in place and stepped back: “I’m fixing it – trained as an artificer before switching to sorcery, remember?”

“Damnit, what th- my voice? Hey I didn’t even know this was broken – I thought I sounded cool” the ranger mare noted, sounding more surprised than angry.

The lone wood aspected unicorn in the team groaned and blasted Ruby with a charm, causing vines to sprout up around the ghost, immobilize her: “We have our orders” – he aimed his horn at Ruby to deliver a final blow.

“Hold up” Speaker said, jumping in front of Ruby: “We have salt – we can just leave her here and block her from following us.
Ruby began to tear up: “But… then I’ll be trapped down here?”

Speaker took a firm hold on the ghostly mare’s shoulder pauldrons and looked Ruby straight in the eyes: “Your service to Lookshy ended the moment you died. Morning Dew has been dealt with and is gone – you have nothing to prove here and only endanger us by following alone. If you’re doing this out of some sense of loyalty or duty to Lookshy, or me, or the Lost Legion… don’t”

“But… you… I was just trying to protect you, to help you, to finish my work” Ruby said, her voice breaking into a full on bawl.

Sullen Hoof had warned that ghosts tended to be extremely emotional, one way or the other – it was in their nature since all that kept them alive was their memories and desire to live, having no mortal urges or drives to guide them anymore.

A swift smack over the nose snapped Ruby back into reality, as much as one could call the underworld reality: “If you care for me – then pass on. Trust me, reincarnating isn’t that bad. I’ve tried it myself – and I promise: I will smack around every god in heaven if that’s what it takes to find out where and who you’ve reincarnated as, and bring you back to Lookshy, ok?”

Ruby wiped the tears from her eyes and looked around at the rangers and Speaker: “You’d really do that for me?”
Speaker flared his caste mark and smirked: “By Celestia’s hairy third testicle”
Laughing, Ruby faded from reality… her soul passing onto Lethe.

The rangers were all silent, until the mare with the newly fixed voice-talisman spoke up – her real voice, a firm but smooth voice, coming through clearly: “Wow… are you really going to do all that for her?”

Speaker turned around and began to dig once more, his charms and essence scooping away twelve times as much dirt as a normal mortal would be able to shift using even the best of digging tools: “Of course not – but a good doctor should do anything to comfort a dying patient – I figure the same applies to patients who are dead and need to convinced to become even deader”

The rangers nodded – and it wasn’t really possible to see if their expressions were worried or of respect for Speaker’s ability to remain focused on the mission despite the obvious personal connection. In truth Speaker was simply happy to see Ruby passing on, having absolutely dreaded having to deal with her after Deep Rot had been dealt with. It was with a sigh of relief that he focused on moving blood-caked ash aside, thankful that of himself and Ruby, at least Ruby knew peace.

Back on the surface the counter-attack from Deep Rot had begun as expected: Waves upon waves of zombies had skewered themselves on the stakes around the battlements – but other necromantic creations had also been used: Creepy centipede-like creations of hundreds of pony skeletons with the hips and hindlegs removed, where head of the one was stuffed into the ribcage of the next one in front. They scuttled over the battlefield mindlessly, getting blown apart quite readily – but then there would just be two shorter skelepedes – and once they reached the battlements they would crawl up and function like ladders and bridges for the zombies to rush over.

Shimmer flew around above, spreading her silvery essence webbing across the battlefield to stick entire talons of zombies together into big wiggling piles of undead – the things were simply too stupid to free themselves or move as one. Similarly she spread salt around liberally from big sacks hung over her back, hindering the slower but far more menacing war ghosts that were slowly approaching under command of heavily armored martial abyssals who were expertly swatting anything thrown at them aside, or kicking holes in the salt lines impeding their troops – though salt dropped in the middle of formations made for wondrous disruptions.

It was shortly thereafter that team Jade Mole broke through on the inside of Deep Rot’s walls. Their priorities were simple and straightforward: Get the shield down, neutralize or disrupt any local anti-air weapons, sabotage the manse – in that order.

Of course, such a simple list of priorities didn’t matter much when they could see bonestriders stomping out through the gates not far from them. The one ranger in the team who was designated as the communications specialist quickly crept back into the tunnel and discreetly cast a spell to massage high command at the fortification of incoming warstriders. Hopefully they would be able to blast them before they reached the fortifications.

Getting a read on the surface layout of the manse was breathtaking and nauseating at the same time: Beyond the massive pit in the middle of the place then there were dozens upon dozens of smaller structures around the rim of the pit, some channeling dark lightning, some routing crystal-pipelines with blood – and then there were legions of undead just standing around, waiting for orders, just fields of ghosts and zombies, intermittently displaced by some large cobbled-together monstrosity. Of particular note were four large obelisks that drew darkness from the dome into them – this made the obelisks a priority target.

Sneaking around was difficult due to the massive garrison force, but the sentries spread around Deep Rot seemed a lot more focused on just swarming and attacking the intruders as opposed to sounding any kind of alarm. With all the noise that stomping bonestriders, the manse itself and other undead monstrocities made nobody seemed to pay much attention to the sound Gift made as it destroyed ghost after ghost, clearing the way to a small obelisk shrouded in black smoke.

From what Speaker could tell via essence sight, the obelisk was one of many, channeling necrotic essence down from the dome of dark mist that was somehow making both lightning and implosion rounds go off on its surface harmlessly. It wasn’t powering the mist, but it was drawing from it? Strange…

“Hmm, this obelisk – the stone is strained and far too hot for just standing here. Maybe it’s somehow absorbing the impacts on the dome?” Speaker theorized. One of the earth aspected unicorns on the team, a specialist on sorcerous artifice and demolition, agreed, but noted that it should be pockmarked from the impacts if that was the case.

Looking around at the surface of the obelisk, while the rest of the rangers stood careful watch, Speaker suggested that if the impacts were being spread perfectly evenly across the whole thing, both inside and outside - even the mightiest blow would be like a mild breeze on the seemingly ceramic material: “It looks like there are flecks of soulsteel in the mix as well – hell, it’s a wonder that this whole place isn’t built of the stuff”

“Can you take it down? The firedust charges we’ve brought work best against non-magical materials” the demolition pony noted, standard Lookshyan manse-demolition protocol being to go for the frailer elements of a manse to quickly destabilize its essence flows.

Speaker nodded and applied his deconstruction charm: Holding his hooves up hard against the base of the obelisk, golden essence seeped into microfractures within the material and disrupting the essence flows within – suddenly great geysers of blood erupted from the opposite side of the tall construction, Speaker pulling away quickly: “Move! This thing was a lot frailer than I thought!”

The demolitions expert and Speaker got some good distance from the obelisk as more ruptures, crushed organs and gore spilling from them – it was as if the obelisk had housed a highly pressurized undead monster, now flopping out on the ground, flailing about and gurgling grotesquely as the expanding organs and tissue burst and exploded with loud pops and sprays of blood. As its bits flailed about it suddenly caught one of the rangers, who despite blasting the bloody tentacle with both fire and ice was crushed as the tentacle coiled around the poor mare. When Gift managed to chew through the tentacle and release the body there was nothing left to save, except the magical armor with its newly repaired voice talisman which the rangers quickly and expertly disassembled and was about to distributed amongst their saddlebags when Speaker suggested he just stash it all elsewhere – that way it wouldn’t bog the rest of them down.

On the plus side the miasma dome was… crystallizing? The black mist was turning into solid flakes on the side of the dome facing the artillery barrage, like dark obsidian snow, which was quickly being blasted into powder by the artillery.

With the dome opened up Speaker knew that it wouldn’t be long for the skyships to come in and begin their bombardment. Ok, next up was check for anti-air weapons and take those out:

Looking around the walls Speaker only saw weapon emplacements aiming outward, not upwards – but then it didn’t have to ballistas and obviously conventional weapons: “Look for large crystals or other possible emitters that can project beams or bolts of essence”

“We should seek higher ground, get a better view o-” the wood aspected ranger began to suggest, but was permanently interrupted when a long sleek javelin of ivory with bands of soulsteel shot through his helmet, killing him instantly.

From the shadows stepped three abyssal, their caste marks bleeding down on their foreheads like open wounds into their souls – the one front did a flick of the hoof, making the javelin reappear in her grasp. The two others had soulsteel daiklaives at the ready, them glistening just like their soulsteel armor.

No words were exchanged at this point– the fighting commenced immediately, both inside Deep Rot and outside as the Bone Walkers made it up to the outer fortifications of the artillery fire base, only to be met by Lookshy’s own jade warstriders and Shimmer in a warform beefed up to warstrider-size.