The Scroll of Exalted Ponies

Approaching what they were certain was the throne room of the veiled command station of Deep Rot, Bright Machine Speaker and Heath Rose quietly discussed what and how they were going to do things if the Barbate Arbiter was there – which he quite likely would be.
Since their chief goal was rescuing Shimmer then they wouldn’t have to stay and fight the Deathlord – they both agreed that even with their power, then that wouldn’t be a fight they would likely win.

Heath Rose suggested that Speaker focus on freeing Shimmer and healing her – assuming that she was playing dead like what Speaker had told of her doing back when the circle had first met Lee. Once back amongst the living, if Shimmer could flee by her own devices she should just follow them out there. If she was in too poor a shape to run, a not entirely unlikely scenario, then she should shapeshift into a flea and just tag along on Speaker or Heath Rose.

“I’ll distract the Deathlord – I’m a much better liar than you are anyway, and we’ll be in trouble if they find out about the orb too quickly” Heath Rose added, referring to the fake Soul-Breaker Orb they had hidden in the manse, which was enchanted and fate-altered to very much look and sound like a real one, a real one that had been activated and was set to go off at some point in the near future no less.
The four super-zombie guards at a large steel-reinforced door of pale timber finally revealed one of the doors into the throne room. The four guards fell quickly and silently thanks to Heath Rose stealing the sound of their fighting back and storing it in a small glass bauble while Speaker had Homage cut them limb from limb, leaving them wiggling on the floor in many pieces.

Homage made short work of the doors hinges, making for a very loud entry as the two slammed the great steel-reinforced ghostwood door down so that it fell into the throne room – the two standing triumphantly atop the doors as the dust settled, animas ablaze in all their glory.
The throne room was in roughly the same state Speaker had left it – still a bit messy from the previous fight, though there were ghost slaves and zombies cleaning up and doing repairs to the hole in the wall, and a gaggle of ghostly Abyssal advisors and generals huddled around the long central table above which a magical image of the manse and its battlespace was projected. The Barbate Arbiter was at the far end of the table, resting on his throne, still in the form of a bloody version of Speaker in ever freshly-blood-drenched first age clothes. He didn’t look that happy to see the two: “You!”

Speaker dropped into a fighting stance, Homage ready to throw: “Me!”

Not partaking in these few seconds of banter, Heath Rose had instead scanned the room: “Speaker, to his right, go!”

Last Shimmer, wreathed in thick chains, her wings nailed to the floor and her beautiful talons torn from her body and hung above her like a grim but cluttered trophy, stirred – her hippo-sized warform looking battered and bruised to put it mildly: her bone-armorwas cracked in many places, torn off in other spots. Why hadn’t she healed those injuries? Speaker knew well enough that she had more than enough regeneration charms.

Speaker darted to the left, using his balance and jumping charms to quickly close the gap between him and Shimmer.

To avoid Speaker grabbing anyone’s attention, Heath Rose quickly twisted the gem on a previously hidden bracelet: Her more utilitarian cloak and combat garb shimmered and became an elegant and officious dark green robe, befit of an official agent of heaven – and as if she had been standing by the great table all along, which even the loom of fate would tell you that she most certainly had been all along, she struck a hoof down upon the table with great force, calling for attention to herself: “I am Heath Rose, Chosen of Secret and Agent of Yu-Shan. I am here to negotiate for the release of the Lunar”

Through her charms Heath Rose made her demand all but irresistible, forcing the Barbate Arbiter to focus more on her than Speaker. He bellowed, with a voice that now very much did not fit the form he appeared in, as it was the same beyond-the-grave croaking he had spoken in his previous form: “Fool! You have nothing to negotiate with and-“

The entire room shook as another artillery volley hit the structure, dulled noises and an unmistakable, and rather sickening, squishing sound coming from the hole in the wall where Shimmer had originally entered – the zombies on the outside had been struck in such a way that the force of the blasts were squishing them into the hole, into the throne room, like a chunky meat paste through a tube.

“I could order the bombardment to stop” Heath Rose haughtily noted, imperiously gesturing for ghostly servants to bring her something to sit on.

The offer rang hollow to the Deathlord, how snarled back at Heath Rose: “You think me a fool? The unicorns would simply begin again the moment you are gone”

“She also lies – she doesn’t have the authority to command the bombardment to stop “ a Deathknight called out from further down the table towards the Barbate Arbiter.

Having reached Shimmer, Speaker didn’t pay that much attention to what the others were shouting back and forth about. His diagnostic charm revealed a host of issues, mainly one linked to Shimmer’s essence being locked down: A collar not unlike the charm-blocking shackles he had been in had been placed around Shimmer’s neck – so that’s why she hadn’t been able to use her regeneration charms or shapeshift out of her chains: “It’s ok – I’m here now”

Shimmer strained to open her eyes and look at Speaker. Her face had multiple lacerations – it had been clawed at – maybe as part of some kind of torture? Either way the wound were easy to heal, letting her open up her third eye once again. With a weak voice she let out a thankful squawk: “…the collar”

“I know – I’m working on it”

Seeing that Speaker was likely about to use Homage, and recalling how Speaker had explained that the Barbate Arbiter had acted quite oddly around it, Heath Rose upped the ante to ensure that nobody was looking away from her: “Well if you don’t think I can do that, how about I offer you something else?”

“And what would that be?” The Barbate Arbiter spat, staining the table in his end as bile seemed to overflow the corners of his mouth – was he having trouble maintaining such a small form perhaps?

Heath Rose shot back with her most wicked grin: “Why, I could offer up the location of the Soul-Breaker Orb we snuck into this place earlier. It’s hidden in the walls here somewhere– you have no chance of finding it in time if we don’t tell you where to look”

The ghostly servants and advisors all shrieked and panicked at hearing that such a weapon of soul destruction had been planted on the premises. Even the Deathlord looked worried, albeit a tad incredulous: “You lie! You have spoken nothing but lies to us! Kill her!”

Even as nearest Abyssals began to draw their soulsteel blades, the same one who had detected Heath Rose’s lie called out once more: “No, she isn’t lying – they really did bring a Soul-Breaker here!”

And with that all of the present Abyssals who had not gotten their faces removed got up and left the room. Some quickly broke into a gallop, others dissolved into liquid shadow and flowed away into drains in the floor, a few began casting a teleportation spell.

The three remaining Abyssals, a conspicuously naked and beautiful mare with her tail tied up like a common harlot, a pony so heavily armored in spiky Soulsteel plate that it was impossible to tell if it was a mare or a stallion, and a familiar green-hooded one, all seemed unsure of how to respond to all the commotion.

The Barbate Arbiter reacted a bit quicker – flying into a rage at all the fleeing Deathknights, trying to reach out to grab and stop the teleporting ones… but in a flash of purple light they disappeared before he could get to them. The Deathlord’s furious roar as he turned to face Heath Rose was exceedingly intimidating: “How dare you?!”

“As an Agent of Yu-Shan it is well within my authority to foil plots aimed to destroy Creation. I need no other justification to act on my heavenly mandate” Heath Rose stated firmly, sipping on a cup of tea that she most certainly had not had a moment earlier.

Examining the collar around Shimmer’s neck carefully, Speaker quickly noted that the essence and charm-blocking collar wasn’t being powered as a normal attuned artifact… it was the very manse that was powering the device – which also explained why the only weakness he could find with the design was to cut its spiritual energy source… but waiting for the Soul-Breaker Orb to do that was a tad unhealthy.

“Hold on – I have an idea…” Speaker quietly said to Shimmer, recalling Homage from Elsewhere. Quite a few feathers got melted or at least singed from the heat of Homage’s energy edge, but the collar itself? Nothing.

Heath Rose quickly seemed to pick up on Speaker’s inability to free Shimmer: “Now, as I was saying earlier: Give us the Lunar, and I will tell you where to find such an orb here in your floating castle”

For once the Barbate Arbiter actually seemed to ponder the offer, but he was quickly interrupted by the Certainty: “Master, don’t be tempted by their lies – it’s just another trick to buy themselves time and confuse you!

The Deathlord was less impressed by his minion’s loyalty: “Shut up you fool – get the bloody chakram and let me think. Drips and Flails, kill the Sidereal”

The Unsullied Whore Observed By Many Who Drips Poison Into The Hearts Of Onlookers and The Stallion of Kaleidoscopic Chains turned to engage Rose, but the few precious seconds that it took them to draw their weapons from elsewhere and leap at the Sidereal was all the Chosen of Secrets needed to dissolve and refract infinitely into the ambient essence flows of the manse.

She reappeared a few seconds later behind the two, with but a gesture ripping the essence out of Flail’s Soulsteel plate armor, forcibly de-attuning it – making it impossibly heavy and cumbersome to wear, effectively trapping the Deathknight within his own armored shell. Drips, having already slit her wrists on Flails’ armor spikes, swung her blood whips at Rose, who wasn’t impressed: “Really, Laughing Wounds style? Honestly now…”

Catching the blood whips flowing from Drips’ wrists Rose heaved, pulled, twirled around and tossed Drips out of the hole in the wall through the tube of zombie-meat. Drips’ screams were quickly muffled as she disappeared into the meat-tube, though to Heath Rose’s dismay she had gotten blood spatters all over her fancy celestial robes: “Oh for… the dry-cleaning will ruin me”

While Rose’s fight was over as quickly as it had begun, then Speaker and Certainty’s struggle drew out a lot more – Speaker using his jumping and balancing charm to constantly keep on the move and try to stay out of range, while throwing Homage at Certainty with great force over and over.

Heath Rose took the opportunity to sit down at the table once more and sip her tea: “So, have you considered my proposal?”

Speaker’s strategy was at the very essence of his Thousand Wounds Disassembly style: Slow and methodical disassembly of his foe. Sure, the thick scale and plate Soulsteel armor that the Certainty wore made him pretty much impossible to harm directly, but like any good craftspony would know, then one does not simply strike a stone or a piece of timber and expect it to be cleft in twain: One had to chip away at what you were working on.

This wisdom, combined with the rather obscure and often overlooked detail about Thousand Wounds Disassembly style – that the force of its attacks, once performed correctly, were as inviolate as the laws of heaven and could thus bypass the usual magical protection afforded by armor made of the magical materials – which again was combined with the armor-melting features of Homage – meant that Speaker was able to slowly strip away the Certainty’s armor, or disarm him, provided that the Certainty kept trying to parry Homage with the long handle of his polearm which was getting awfully hot from repeat exposure to Homage’s energy blade.

All in all it was a seemingly perfect combination of martial arts and weapon to defeat a magically armored opponent. Too bad that the Certainty had orders to catch Homage – this made things a good deal more dicey.

Balancing his attacks while making sure that the Certainty wasn’t able to catch Homage by having the chakram come in from odd angles, Speaker slowly worked away much of the Certainty’s plate and scale – not that the Certainty didn’t get a few good blows in with that nasty Soulsteel Guan Do of his: Like before, whenever it would even scrape by Speaker’s essence shield Speaker would hear this most horrible screetching sound, as if all the souls forged into the Soulsteel screamed at him. It was quite distracting, and on more than one occasion did it manage to make him drop his guard – opening Speaker up to potentially fatal blows of such might that they even pierced his essence shield. Only by Speaker’s anesthetic charm was he able to ignore his injuries.

It was when Speaker managed to leap around the Certainty, then do a quick hop, skip and jump forward – pressing the Certainty back – that Shimmer was able to trip the Certainty by swiping his legs with her beak, that Speaker was finally able to properly and critically injure the Certainty: Throwing Homage with steely precision, while at the same time supercharging the essence blade and the guidance magic within the device, Speaker managed to hit the now largely unarmored Deathknight full on, by swerving under his attempt to parry the attack and hitting him under the chest:

In the split second that Homage made contact, Speaker’s anima erupted as two copies of the weapon shot out of it, following the golden vapor trail of the chakram to also strike the Certainty – machines working best with repetition after all.

The Deathknight’s unearthly scream wasn’t made any better by the fact that his voice was produced from behind the cracked mask covering his missing face, but the end result was undeniable: one front leg and two hind legs with neatly singed cuts falling to the wayside.

“Master!” The Certainty feebly cried out as his voice somehow choked on blood, reaching for the Barbate Arbiter pitifully – but Hearth Rose had the Deathlord locked in deadly negotiations – and maybe a charm or spell or three – for he did not pay any attention to what was going on around him.

Disarming the Certainty at this point was easy – the grip of his essence was only as strong as that of his body, and with only one limb left that was nothing compared to Speaker. Flicking the Guan Do over to Shimmer, Speaker stepped over the Certainty and with a strong hoof held him down. A single swipe of Homage cut the mask in two: “Traitor…”

“Save your bile for someone who cares! I spent over a century trying to keep our neck of the woods in order – but the gods are too corrupt. The wisdom of the Neverborn is flawless: There is only tranquility in d-“ The Certainty said in spite, until Speaker ended his miserable existence.

Considering what Speaker knew of the fate of dead Abyssals, then the Certainty’s claims of tranquility in death seemed highly dubious… if nothing else, then he was misguided – or just simply lied to.

Quickly turning to Shimmer, Speaker found her hacking away at something under her wing – it turned out to be one of the dull steel hooks holding her chains. Homage made short work of it and the other hooks, freeing Shimmer up – except for her collar… which seemed to come with its own set of restraints:

“I can’t… damn thing seems locked in position over the floor here” Shimmer lamented as she furiously tried to push or pull her head away, but the collar was locked into position with a force greater than even what she could muster in her beast-pony form.
Looking at Heath Rose and the Barbate Arbiter – the two were clearly exchanging words at a frightful pace, but… he couldn’t hear anything?

“She put a spell up around them… it insulated them from us – that’s why the Arbiter couldn’t hear the Certainty’s pleading o r losing the fight” Shimmer pointed out.

Shrugging, Speaker once more had a go at Shimmer’s collar. Again, it became obvious that the only way to disable the collar was to disable the manse that was fueling the collar’s indestructibility…

Recalling his singing staff from elsewhere, Speaker tried to disrupt the nearby essence flows of the manse by messing with the floor – but the singing staff simply wasn’t powerful enough to disrupt the stone around them, for it was locked into form by the strong essence flows of the manse.

Frustrated, Speaker struck at the manse with Homage – but even that did nothing of any consequence. Sure he had healed her body, regenerated her talons, even mended the cracks in her bone-armor… but he could not do anything to that damn collar.

“Please – Speaker, you have to get out here. Your memories of the first age are the key to restoring so much of Creation” Shimmer pleaded, while Speaker furiously struck at the manse with his singing staff and Homage.

Giving Shimmer a harsh look, Speaker silenced her with but his glance: “No – you are an important of Sunhill and our greater plans. Abandoning you here just wouldn’t make sense”

Shimmer seemed to be both touched and slightly put off by Speaker’s words, but her gaze equally hardened: “I get that – but if what Rose said is true about there being a Soul-Breaker Orb here… You need to get out of here my love”

There suddenly was a… lightening – all the shards of broken or melted off scale and plate armor from the Certainty, even the Certainty’s corpse began to jiggle – then float slowly into the air. A split second later Speaker and Shimmer also felt the effect.

“The orb…” Speaker said in shock, recognizing the gravity-altering effect as the first part of a Soul-Breaker Orb’s detonation: All of the pattern spiders in charge of maintaining reality for the area had fled to other parts of the loom of fate, leaving gravity unenforced, though heavier things and sentient beings who knew that they had weight still had an effect of gravity upon them, since their mere acknowledgement of the phenomena was enough for the loom of fate.

“Take my heart, give it to my next incarnation – it will give her my memories and my love for you, if she doesn’t have it already” Shimmer said in a very hurried tone.

Speaker didn’t even have time to ask what she meant before Shimmer ripped part of her cracked bone-armor away with a rather unpleasant ‘sticky’ sound of connective tissue tearing, followed by her plunging a fist full of talons into her own chest and ripping out her own heart – presenting it to Speaker.

Speaker took the heart – it was the size of his head, and still pounding for a few precious seconds before it disappeared into elsewhere: “Shimmer…”

“Don’t go to Sunken Luthe when you come looking for my next incarnation… I love you…” were the last words of Last Shimmer, Chosen of Luna, No-Moon Caste.

A deafening silence fell upon Speaker as Shimmer’s body slumped onto the ground before him. Such a waste… no, such a loss… not just for Creation, but for him, for his love, for her love. A sea of tears welled up in his eyes as he just stood, hoofs drenched in Shimmer’s heart-blood, silently swearing that for his love to Shimmer he would survive this day and see her returned to his side.

Now, Heath Rose and the Barbate Arbiter had not failed to notice this sudden change in local reality. Indeed, Heath Rose had been about to give up anyway – even using her most potent negotiation charm to forcefully end the debate and compel the Deathlord to at least partially releasing Shimmer had failed, the smoldering remains of a prayer strip infused with the scripture of the maiden’s promise on the table a testament to that – but as the prophecy her friend May Blossom, a fellow Chosen of Secrets, had pronounced years ago suddenly became apparent in its meaning as it came true to her, Heath Rose used the vaunted Sidereal charm simply known as Avoidance Kata to jump five minutes back in time to buy her… hold on… she was not five minutes back in time.

Crap

The Barbate Arbiter had also caught on to what was happening: “What… no! Damn you all!”

Speaker turned to face the Deathlord with smoldering hate in his eyes. The feeling was quite clearly mutual.

As the Solar and the Deathlord leapt at each other, Speaker wielding Homage and The Barbate Arbiter wielding Gift – having somehow socketed it into one of the cracks of his oversized hooves, Heath Rose observed and realized that an old prophecy her friend and colleague May Blossom had made to her was coming true: “When a stolen present and an impossible honorific clash, I will see Venus in the light of underworld moon”

Through the hole in the wall, where Shimmer had originally crashed in, the underworld moon shined bright crimson. Heath Rose instantly drew an old sword from elsewhere that she had been given over eighty years ago, back when she had completed basic training as a Sidereal – it wasn’t even magical the sword, though the craftsmanship was absolutely divine…

…and not a moment too soon either, for the next instant did golden light and ghostly shadows seep up through the brickwork of the floor, and pour in through the hole in the wall.

Speaker, stuck under the bulk of a raging Deathlord who was beating the ever-loving crap out of him, barely even managed to notice the light and enact his final act of defiance – the defensive charm Heath Rose and Shimmer had taught him before they had all gone to the underworld.

The Deathlord, despite being empowered by the very Neverborn to carry out their hate and deathwish, was but a ghost – a soul made manifest – and a Soul-Breaker Orb was nothing if not aptly named. With an echoing shriek that faded far too slowly was the Barbate Arbiter torn asunder, dissolving into motes of putrid black essence which was sucked away into the soul-vortex formed by the orb. To Speaker he mainly felt as the Barbate Arbiter’s bulk lessened, ultimately fading into nothing – leaving only Gift somewhat painfully half-embedded in his left shoulder.

As the singing shadows subsided, mere moments later, Speaker got up, wincing at the pain. Extracting Gift was not pleasant, and while his anesthetic charm kept him from hurting too much then even that couldn’t cover the hurt felt from such a grievous wound. His right foreleg dangled with no sensation, only pain from the shoulder. He probably should be a lot more worried about that, but honestly… he just felt numb.

Looking over at Heath Rose, Speaker couldn’t help but feel empty inside. Not moments ago had Shimmer killed herself and given her heart to him. Her blood was still fresh on his hooves and sleeves.

Heath Rose looked ready to shit herself – or as if she just had, standing in an awkward pose with a sword that was crumbling in her hooves: It was simply too much for a mundane blade to be empowered to cut the strings of spacial fate that had ensured a minute pocket of safety from the Soul-Breaking. For Speaker his coat still glistened as if dusted with fine crystals from the use of his adamant skin technique. Shimmer was still dead, but he had committed himself to defending her memory and honoring her last request.

It was so impossibly quiet.

It took a grim minute or two, but the deep groans of the stone and brickwork around them signaled that it was time to go. A few seconds later things started to float up into the air again – but this time it was because the manse control station was beginning to fall out of the sky.

Summoning the last of his essence, Speaker ignited his ruby pinions and together with Heath Rose on her butterfly they flew out.

Outside the scene was one of… deadly silence. Down on the ground absolutely nothing moved, though many things were on fire from the bombardment. In the distance, in the sky, were skyships – at a safe distance. That was good to see.

It was then that Speaker had a grim epiphany and dove, racing with the falling manse control station – not that it was going that fast, but it was slowly accelerating downwards as the manse failed and its essence flows dried up.

The butterfly straining, Heath Rose felt the angry screams of the pattern spiders as she used charms to make the poor little creature fly a lot faster than a butterfly had any business doing, just to keep up: “What are you doing?”

Speaker, his face locked in grim determination, didn’t look back – his eyes glowing bright gold as he scanned the pit that was Deep Rot: “The Soulbreaker – we need to swoop in and fetch the remains of it before the control station crashes on it”

Heath Rose didn’t argue – she understood well how handy it would be to have that back, mainly so it wouldn’t fall into the hooves of whatever Deathlord dug it out of the ruins first.

It was then that she noticed that the giant ring that was the wall around Deep Rot had… shrunk? It certainly wasn’t two miles across anymore…. And it was cracked and broken in many places… oh no.

“The place is imploding!” Heath Rose shouted. Speaker did not reply, disappearing into the pit.

Flying down amidst the now empty holding pens and other torture-device looking things that had held the ten-thousand enslaved ghosts of scholars, poets and other innocent ponies captive – all of them now conspicuously empty – Speaker tracked the essence trails of shattered souls leading back to the remains of the real Soul-Breaker orb.

Deep down on the side of the pit,tt the bottom of a small crater on an outcropping, surrounded by the remains of five dead armored unicorns, Speaker found himself wanting to weep – but unable to. Around them were piles of rusty and ashen armor – the material remains of far too many war-ghosts to count. These unicorns had died as heroes, defending the very thing that ultimately killed them in order to save Creation. Speaker opted to honor the remains of Team Jade Mole, stuffing four of the dead bodies into elsewhere, packing the remains of the orb into a sack, then struggling mightily to carry both the last body and the sack out of the crater – to the point that he could not. It didn’t matter: The control station was coming in too fast, no time to get out.

Looking up at the mouth of the pit, as the control station overshadowed it and began to ‘plug’ the pit, Speaker dragged the body and the sack into an alcove. Retrieving his singing staff, he burrowed into the side of the pit.

The noise as everything came crashing down, the falling control station wrecking everything as it scoured the sides of the pit, was deafening – but it was quickly muffled into an omnipresent rubmle as he closed the tunnel behind him. Speaker cared nothing for the noise – for he felt dead inside.

It took a while for the rumbling and the dust to settle, far too long to be sitting in a hole in the ground with a dead unicorn and a sack full of broken bits of orichalcum, starmetal and soulsteel, but ultimately Speaker felt no more tremors – and thus brought about his singing staff once more to get him back to the surface.

To Heath Rose it had simply looked as Speaker had been crushed by the crumbling manse, as the control station fell into the pit.

After about fifteen minutes Heath Rose heard a soft tune creep through the debris, a sad little funeral dirge, and a bit after that Speaker popped out of the ground along with a dead unicorn in a fancy suit of armor and a dirty sack.

Heath Rose helped carry the load back to the artillery position, Deep Rot folding in on itself as they left it – the whole manse crumbling into its central pit, down into the hole at the bottom of the pit which linked straight to oblivion. As they touched down at the artillery position there was but a hole in the ground left where Deep Rot had been.

They found the encampment largely abandoned – though it didn’t take long for transport skyremes to arrive and spill out loads of ponies that began a frantic and hurried disassembly and loading up of the essence canons. It seemed as if every living soul had bugged out when they had gotten the message that the orb had been set and would go off shortly.

“I think the throne room was insulated from incoming spells… including messenger spells, we couldn’t have been warned even if they tried” Heath Rose commented, as hundreds of ponies rushed around her and Speaker, carrying boxes and hauling carts filled with strange looking things that had previously been part of magical weapons.

Speaker didn’t comment – though he suspected that it was right. It was a sensible thing to do; ward a war room against scrying and other external spells that might disrupt or harm those inside.

Seeing that Speaker didn’t appear that talkative – yet at the same time still quite shaken from having survived the Soulbreaking, from having heard that honeyed song of shadows calling on her souls – Heath Rose kept talking. It was the silence that bothered her: “So… The Barbate Arbiter, he fought with Gift? I didn’t see much of it, but it looked like he fought with your style”

Inhaling deeply and slowly, and exhaling likewise, Speaker replied: “I know – he was the ghost of my past incarnation”

The flight back to Creation was largely uneventful. The path was largely clear of obstacles, and the few posts along the way under siege were quickly rescued and their attackers bombarded to oblivion. Speaker didn’t even bother to listen in on the songs of victory that everyone else sang – he remained silent. Heath Rose didn’t say a word either, terrified beyond words that there now was both evidence and testimony supporting the bronze faction theory that the Deathlords were the mad ghost of First Age Solars. But how could Speaker be sane if his first age ghost had been this nuts?

Translating back into Creation, Speaker asked Sunrise to join him on a detour – promising to meet up with everyone else for the victory celebrations back in Lookshy.

Down from Sunrise’s cloud, at the shores of the inner sea, Speaker bid Sunrise pray for an audience with one of the water gods of the inner sea.

“No prayer needed – I have something better” Sunrise noted, retrieving a small rune-etched rock from her robes. Speaking into it, Sunrise somehow relayed the request magically to heaven, from where marching orders were quickly dispatched down to the nearest terrestrial god of the inner sea.

The godling was nothing special – a high-ranking water elemental really, appearing as a plume of foamy sentient water with sapphire eyes and big ol’ pointy aquamarine teeth. Speaker didn’t care: “I need you to take this blood from my hooves, keep it safe and undiluted, then bring it to the great western ocean and spread that blood there on the next sunset with no moon”

Sunrise instantly picked up on what Speaker was setting up. She found it to be a worthy gesture – Shimmer had always liked to swim.

The godling was at first about to protest – finding the task far too lowly for someone of his rank – but Speaker’s furious gaze and blazing caste mark dissuaded the elemental from saying anything, accepting the half dozen drops of blood and encasing them in magical amber with a touch.

“What will you do now?” Sunrise asked as the godling left, speeding westward with great haste and much splashing of water.

Speaker looked at his hooves. They were clean now – they also felt clean – and lighter. Stomping his hooves down onto the ground hard, he smiled for the first time since leaving Deep Rot: “I will honor her sacrifice. I will go home, clean up, heal the wounded…”

“And then what?” Sunrise quizzically asked – it was clear that she sensed that Speaker wanted more than just that.

“Then I will journey to bring Shimmer home again – once Lytek tells me where the exaltation went, no sense in searching blindy” Speaker said, looking purposefully towards the west and to the heavens.