The Scroll of Exalted Ponies

Shimmer conjured a cloud, the circle affixed their diamond bracelets and Speaker instructed them how to activate them. It was noon and the sun was bright and warm as they ascended into the sky.

Up above the trees, less than a mile north later in the direction of Denansdor, the circle discussed what and where to go first as they approached the dead city.

Sunrise recalled what she knew of the dead city: “Back in Great Forks I heard the story of Denansdor many times. The great contagion had killed almost everypony, then the changelings came. Story has it that Denansdor had survived the great contagion due to their vast stockpiles of first age wonders, but against the changelings… one day all the ponies in the farming communities around the city ran away from the city, screaming. No pony from the city ever came out alive”

Speaker confirmed that Denansdor had been a paradise for ponies of any creative inclination in the first age. Artists, artisans, chefs – Sullen Hoof’s past incarnation included – any pony who created, drew, built or imagined new things into existence who were of any importance had a mansion there, even if it wasn’t their primary residence.

Cash suddenly looked oddly pensive. It wasn’t like him to appear so contemplative. Finally he started talking: “We have twenty four hours once we go in. If we’re want to recover as many valuables as possible we need to hit wherever there’s the largest concentration them”

As per Cash’s plan, Speaker recalled that the city had a grand central manse that powered most of its factory cathedrals – the hallowed omni-workshops where thousands of ponies prayed, worked and assembled the wonders of the first age: “Things is, the manse also has an extensive vault system – its where all the valuable raw materials used in the various production lines were stored. It also housed all the finished wonders before they were shipped out”
“The manse it is!” Cash declared, gesturing wildly with a hoof towards Denansdor.

Speaker noted that it was a little more complicated than that: “The manse closes its armored gates at sundown – and they would have to be manually opened, usually at dawn when work begins… began”

This raised the question of how to open the gates. Speaker couldn’t remember: it had never been anything he’d had to deal with.

Cash didn’t take this too hard: “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there – we’ll have to find the manse first”

“That won’t be hard. The city was built around the manse – it was the second tallest structure in town, and it’s in the geomantic center of the place. The city is patterned around it for perfection in craftsponyship” Speaker said.

Looking around at the circle, all the blank stares coming at him, Speaker could only wonder: “What?”

Shimmer was the first to point out the problem: “I don’t think the others know what geomancy is – I’m not even sure what you meant, although I know what it means”

“Right, we don’t – what is it and keep it short” Red asked, looking unimpressed and uninterested, but still asking just so she knew what she was getting in to.

Speaker took a deep breath: “Geomancy… ever heard of feng shui? It’s what manse-construction-ponies use to shape demesnes into useful structures. Feng Shui is the philosophy informed by geomancy. Lookshy still uses it for city planning to strengthen their defenses. If you build things in harmony with local geomancy you can turn anything into something akin to a lesser manse. Fortifications become stronger, farmlands and orchards yield more, and workshops with craftsponies produce better goods. Denansdor was built in every way to maximize quality and production”

Red, Cash and Sullen Hoof all remained confused. Sunrise Glow at least appeared to understand the basics.

“The city is built in a weird pattern, so the roads will be all screwy, and ponies who made stuff got something like a built in blessing while working there – but the manse with the vault will be in the center, can’t miss it” Shimmer explained
With that out of the way, the question was once again how to enter the manse. Cash remained certain that they would figure it out once there.

“If we can’t get into the manse, then getting into the factory cathedrals should be our second priority. The tools alone there are wonders beyond worlds – assuming that the unicorns didn’t replace or run off with it all, but I can’t imagine that they would do that, most of the cathedrals were made only to work with the plasmaforges and harmonic adamant drills we built those cathedrals around” Speaker mused.

Sullen Hoof was quick to notice that those things sounded really big. Speaker agreed, but pointed out that the cathedrals contained a lot of far more portable devices that were sure to fetch handsome prices in Nexus or Lookshy.

“I’m surprised that you’re willing to let your toys be sold like that” Shimmer noted, having imagined that Speaker would want to keep anything from the factory cathedrals for his own use.

Speaker admitted that he certainly planned to keep the most useful things for himself – but at the same time, then the most valuable items wouldn’t necessarily be the most useful, so both goals could in theory be achieved. Equally, then back in the first age most of the city had relied on thousands of automaton ponies made of brass, bronze and jade, and while eight hundred years of no maintenance probably hadn’t been to kind on them, then it shouldn’t be impossible to recover some for later repair. Cash estimated that each of such robo-pony servants would fetch a good price in Nexus: “I mean, a servant who cannot in any way betray its master? Guild merchants will pay princely sums for something like that”

After a little more discussion, including Sullen Hoof pointing out that he would love to get his hands on some first age cooking equipment, Shimmer began moving her cloud north at full speed.

The landscape quickly changed. The jungle gave way to endless grasslands with not a single tree in sight. Before arriving at Denansdor proper the circle flew over some of the southern outlying artist colonies. There wasn’t much left of them, beyond the ruins of first age buildings – some looking oddly pristine, indicating first age magic having been built into them so they never got dirty or wore down. The dead patches of grass around some of the buildings hinted of darker contents or broken essence flows, but the circle agreed to go for easy pickings: They had risked their lives more than enough in Sullen Hoof’s old manse, so they were going straight for the big load of valuables in the central city manse.

Approaching the actual outskirts of Denansdor gave the circle an amazing view of the city. Speaker hadn’t been wrong when he had said that the city had been built in a special geomantic pattern: The whole thing looked like a giant circular gear, the roads inside the city following similar strange patterns: Roads twisted to form strange gear-like patterns – and many buildings had metalic sheens, and some of those were again rusty while others had a pristine silver gleam. Speaker explained that it was geomancy patterned on the great maker, the primordial Autochton. It could allow even the most inept pony to make pretty much anything: be it a food dish, a sculpture, an artistic wood carving. It wouldn’t necessarily be good, but it wouldn’t be bad either: “Basically the geomancy of the city prevents a crafts-pony from doing a botch job – it doesn’t guarantee a masterpiece, solars have essence for that”

Sunrise suggested that Speaker sketch down the layout of the city – so they could replicate the pattern in other places. Speaker declined, explaining that it would require weeks if not months of examinations of the essence flows all over the city to map out the effects.

“Ok, we get it – it’s too fancy, even if it’d probably be worth a fortune” Cash said, hungrily ogling the exquisite skyline they were passing through.

Denansdor truly was a nearly whole relic of the first age. The city was a gleaming marvel of towers clad in sheets of colored glass, gemstones the size of adult ponies, and stone polished to a mirror shine that still held their luster almost a thousand years after they last had been cleaned or maintained. At ground level were hundreds of thousands of workshops with elaborate and twisting ceramic chimneys, glass skylights and still pristine polished cobblestone. It was an awe-inspiring experience for the whole circle to fly over these ancient marvels and past the towers.

It was less awe-inspiring to see the unicorn skeletons inside the glass towers. Untouched by the elements, the towers had become glass tombs for the unlucky dragonblooded denizens of the city. Even just flying past them, Sullen Hoof and Speaker both agreed that it looked as if the pony had died in a messy state of panic, not while packing or evacuating the city. Cash was impressed at Sully and Speaker’s deductive powers, joking that if they kept those eyes and ears peeled for portable wealth they’d be able to buy out of the Guild once they left Denansdor.

Approaching the center of the giant gear-shaped city the manse that Speaker had talked about became incredibly obvious: It sat in the center of a huge empty square, a gigantic solid white stone cube, one hundred yards in every dimension, with four giant gates on each side with a bulbous white tiled dome on top that was nearly just as big. It was clear that the doors were meant to open and allow traffic through the manse from the stone markers that outlined roads leading up to it.

“The floor in the middle of manse contains a large round platform. It’ll send us down into the vaults or up to the hearthstone chamber… and that dome used to be golden” Speaker said, looking at the top of the cube-like manse: the gigantic onion-shaped tipped bulbous dome was covered in tiny gleaming white jade tiles.

Setting down near the southern gate into the manse, the circle was almost instantly mobbed by limping, twitchy robo-ponies that came out of nearby alleys and open doors. It was a bizarre scene: Most of the robo-ponies showed clear signs of deterioration, aside from their somewhat unsettling appearance: Their body, limbs and even their head were thin rods of jade, oxidized bronze and other metals. In the case of those who’s limbs were made of metals that could rust or erode there were just rusty stumps, making over two thirds of dozens of robo-pony servants swarming the circle limp quite a lot – although some of them had figured out that by lashing their bodies together they could hobble along at normal speeds. Apparently their programing was so powerful that it forced them to continue no matter what.

As a perfect choir the whole assembly suddenly said, with jittery voices from barely functioning voice-boxes: “We require access to the city manse for our duties. Please open the gates”

Looking around at the circle, Cash couldn’t stop smiling: “Well, looks like payday”

The half-jade automatons became surprisingly cooperative after Cash flashed his caste mark and started to order them around, having them line up in order of how damaged or in need of maintenance they were. Speaker was quick to note that to fix these he’d need a lot of jade, as well as amble amounts of other metals.

“Didn’t you say the manse vault stored all the valuable raw materials used in the city?” Sullen Hoof pointed out, his face obscured by his straw hat that he had put very low. The other’s didn’t ask why he did so, but after leaving the automatons he said that he really didn’t like how they were all staring at him.

Speaker found this amusing: “Better get used to that – Denansdor had hundreds of thousands of those, all controlled by a central consciousness housed in this neat crystal brain set up in the city manse”

“So… if I tell one automa-servant, can I have all of them come here?” Cash wondered as he quickly ran back to the manse square to test the theory.

Sadly it didn’t work. Speaker noted that the Central Harmonious Equilibrating Monitor, or CHEM, only kept automated records, maintenance logs and controlled the… oh dear

Everypony else in the circle recognized the look of surprise on Speaker’s face. He quickly began looking around, trotting backwards in a circle, then Speaker suddenly froze after pointing at a giant pony statue.

It was a huge thirty-foot statue of a pony in thick armor made of bright red jadesteel and alloys with enough orichalcum to make most of it shine like warm gold.

“That’s not a statue is it?” Sunrise Glow said, spotting three other similar statues of ponies in glorious battle regalia down the road from the square, plus several other on other roads leading away from square. Somewhere of other color jadesteel, some were silvery, one had a rainbow sheen. They were all different, which seemed quite odd if they were meant to be a single unified force as Speaker explained.

Speaker said it was the guardians of Denansdor. He was surprised they were still there: “I built a few. It was considered the journeypony test of a twilight caste solar. I am going to hazard that they didn’t reprogram CHEM, because if they were told to attack anathema on sight we would dead. The guardians were made to police the city, act as its military – they were made to ‘handle’ rampaging solars after we’d go on a month-long bender, or if other grander threats attacked”

“Sounds like you tried it” Sullen Hoof joked. Speaker smiled sheepishly, but pointed out that if they tried anything – anything – those guardians would be there to stomp, roast and chop until you stopped. Speaker was quite adamant that these guardians were built to handle even solars.

Red was thrilled by all of this. Not to fight the guardians, but to use them: “We’ll need an army to hold Denansdor – it has one, this couldn’t be easier!”

“CHEM is hidden in the manse – I have no idea where it is – and we’ll need to get inside the manse first anyway” Speaker said, looking back at the giant white jade dome.

Shimmer paced about uneasily as the solars discussed where to look for a way into the manse that wouldn’t get them stomped – the lock mechanism could be picked with some effort, but Speaker insisted that the guardians were watching. Red suggested finding an armory with jade weapons, as that might allow her to fight off the guardians in case something happened. Speaker was inclined to agree, but pointed out that carrying weapons out in the open would also get the guardian’s attention.

“Come on – a stumbling giant like that? We can just tip it over, I’m sure I can give it a push” Cash suggested, casually waving a hoof about while doing some simple punching moves.

Speaker walked over to Cash and leaned in close: “They work together – most have essence-fueled flame projectors built into their mouths, or something just as deadly – and they can move just as fast as you, which is very fast for something that big”

“Guys…” Shimmer said, fidgeting with her hooves next to a dead flowerbed. The others paid her not attention, too busy arguing over what to do next.

Sunrise Glow suggested that they walk around in the city looking for open doors. That way they wouldn’t be breaking in when entering to look for valuables. Red insisted that they seek a way into the manse so they could take over the guardians – Cash supporting her, although mostly to get access to whatever riches might be stashed in the vaults.

“Moot point – we’ll be doing it all. The automatons at the manse were made to just carry freight; that was why they were there. They’re also dumb as bricks. We need to find a house-keeping automaton, they were made smart enough to work as home secretaries. One of those should know who usually opened the manse” Speaker said, nodding to himself as slowly worked through his memories.

So the hunt was on for a house with an unlocked door. These turned out to be easy to find, but those didn’t seem to be any automatons – maybe they had wandered off in search of their masters? Most of the homes all sported equipment that would be considered miraculous even in Lookshy or the realm, and Sullen Hoof wasted no time snatching up still pristine cooking utensils – he even tried to pry off the ever-hot firegem crystal plates set in a stove, but they wouldn’t budge until Cash and Red helped smash the stove completely.

Speaker was about to help Sullen Hoof when Shimmer pulled him aside: “There’s something really wrong here…”

“You mean aside from the pervasive aura of terror and insanity being emitted from somewhere here?” Speaker said, looking over at Sunrise Glow who was busy turning the skeletal pony remains over in the corner of the house into ash.

Shimmer swallowed nervously, her eyes and ears darting all over: “There’s no noise here”

Speaker didn’t see the problem.

“No, there’s no noise – no insects, no birds, no worms in the ground. I checked. That’s why there are so few trees inside the dead zone. No bees to pollinate…” Shimmer said, fidgeting nervously with her hooves.

Speaker still couldn’t see the problem. Shimmer tried to explain that being so in touch with nature and animals… and now being in a place where the truly were no other animals… it didn’t just feel wrong, it felt terrifying.

Cash was trying to judge how much worth some jewelry he’d just found in the last house they’d raided when he heard Shimmer crying. Speaker found Shimmer inconsolable, her weeping uncontrollably.

A few homes later the circle found an inactive servant automaton. It had corroded to the point that it couldn’t move anymore – and its internal essence engine had apparently burnt out trying to move, so it was no use. At Speaker’s request Shimmer spirited the pony automaton away to elsewhere, so Speaker could tinker with it later. She still wept quietly.

Two hours later Red finally found a working servant automaton, hiding in a closet in a pile of rags that had mostly degraded into dust. It had probably once been beautiful silken dresses judging from the few faded colors that were still visible. The automaton’s polished brass eyes looked terrified…

“Show it your caste mark. That should override any orders it might have been given by unicorns” Speaker said.

Red flashed her caste mark, a golden sunburst icon appearing on her brow, shining brightly in the dim closet. The automaton jostled to life, bowing deeply to Red as the smooth oval gem set in the thing’s mouth sparkled with blue and white light. It then said: “What is your command oh resplendent one” in a language that only Red understood.

As the others inquired into what the pony automaton had said, Red explained that it was speaking in High Realm – the noble language of the unicorns in the realm. Her father, the Shogun of Chung, had seen to her being taut the language as many nobles in the hundred kingdoms thought it the language of the elite – of the best ponies of good breeding. Speaker figured that the unicorns had probably just changed the automatons to speak in their language instead of reprograming them entirely.

Upon questioning the automaton revealed that the Daimyo of Denansdor would usually open the manse doors at dawn, the doors closing automatically at dusk.

“Of course… the daimyo of Denansdor would have the key – the seal” Speaker noted, his memories making a tiny bit more sense.

Cash wanted to take the automaton with him, but it humbly said that such wasn’t possible, claiming that it drew its power to function from the Denansdor manse.

The circle made their way to the Daimyo’s castle. Speaker was certain that the key to open the manse gates would be in the Daimyo’s office.
Finding the castle was easy enough. It was situated in the south end of the city and stood as a tall multi-tiered pagoda, clad in beautiful tiles that appeared to be painted with magic paint that made them look as nacre, the beautiful iridescent substance that most seashells had on the inside, more commonly known as mother of pearl. Shimmer was fascinated by the sight and started talking endlessly about all the different shiny seashells she apparently had a big collection of back west. It seemed to cheer her up again, much to Speaker’s relief.

The whole castle sparkled in the sunlight, every tile on every tier of the pagoda shimmering with a mix of white and faintly blue light. The walls around the castle had similar tiles covering its battlements, and inside the courtyard… were two gigantic guardian automatons. Speaker started willing forth Gift.

“Usually guards prevent uninvited guests from walking into a noble’s castle – I don’t think those two jolly rusty giants will let us pass” Red noted, looking in through the ornately carved gateway into the castle courtyard.

The guardians stood still as gleaming pillars of steel, jade and orichalcum, but there was no doubt that their ever-vigilant multifaceted crystal eyes were watching for intruders. There was a musty smell in the air, the courtyard having pony skeletons scattered all over. Some were unicorns, others were regular ponies. Two of the skeletons close to the gate even still had rusty bits of armor on, indicating that they had been treasure hunters or scavengers who’d somehow braved the miasma, but still been killed by the guardians. Their front ‘halves’ had been stomped into gravel-sized bits, probably with but one powerful stomp from the guardians.

“You know, this castle is bound to have a lot of valuables – I’m sure we could find something good in there, maybe a treasury?” Cash wondered out loud.

Looking at the very obviously guardian-stomped scavenger remains, Speaker sighed: “The Denansdor treasury is part of the city manse vaults”

Cash didn’t frown. He didn’t sigh. The brown-coated pony with the slick blond mane and ruined silk jacket remained stoic: “Bright Machine Speaker… you have no sense for business – this here is a first age castle; of course there will something that some rich guild factor will wa-“

The was a brief rattle as Red’s armor, showing much wear from the traps in Sullen Hoof’s old manse and the fight with the mutant tiger, along with Red, stepped into the courtyard. Cash stopped talking instantly, as he held his breath fearing that the guardians were going to come stomp them all. Speaker shook his head: He knew he was going to end up stitching some pony up when this was done… maybe even grow a leg or two back on some pony.

The guardians in the courtyard came to life as if they had but stood idle waiting for intruders, instantly jerking to life with smooth and fluid motion – unlike the jerky unnatural gait that the rusty automaton-ponies at the manse had. They were on Red in seconds, shooting unbearably hot gouts of flame from their nostrils at her, yard long blades thrusting out of their metal hooves like giant claws, claws big enough to slice and dice a pony in one blow.

Red took it all in stride, using her jumping charms to leap up onto the robots, making them strike each other as she weaved and ducked their blows and fire – although it quickly became clear that they weren’t strong enough to damage each other that much either.

This went on for another few seconds, loud clangs ringing out each time one of the two guardian automaton ponies ended up hitting the other. Red suddenly shouted: “What are you foals waiting for! Leg it!”

Speaker quickly realized what Red was doing – it was a distraction. Why hadn’t she told them first? Speaker quickly broke into a gallop, racing across the courtyard which now felt much too big. Cash was just behind him and Sullen Hoof had apparently already made it to the other side.

Reaching the large wooden door that led into the castle, a beautiful red arched wooden door, Speaker looked back to see how Red was faring. He hadn’t looked back while running, but the sounds of giant automaton killing machines striking the dirt, each other or landing glancing blows on metalic lamellar armor had been everywhere.

“Hold on, where’s Shimmer?” Speaker asked, looking at the courtyard – which now looked like a burning battlefield, full of deep gouges from guardian hoof-blades, sprayed liberally with liquid flame.

Before Cash could think up a snide remark Sullen Hoof yelled: “Sunrise!” and gestured out at the courtyard.

There was Sunrise Glow, slowly and purposefully walking through the fight. Red occasionally landed down by her when struck by the guardians, her armor soaking up most of the damage the giant hoof-blades would have done, as well as the impact of striking the ground so hard, only to get up and leap back on the face of one of the guardians, trying to get the other one to hit it in the face.

“I knew that mare was cold, but this… this is crazy” Cash said, looking as the fight continued.

One of the guardian automatons now featured a big gash in its head, exposing its internal mechanisms and other fun things that Speaker would probably have loved to examine, giving Speaker the idea to try to aim Gift to strike at that exposed area, but Cash’s comment confused Speaker: “Red or Sunrise?”

Cash gave Speaker a half-glance while rolling his eyes: “Sunrise of course – Red is just doing her dawn caste thing”

Speaker shook his head, then reared up and flung Gift as hard as he could, having taken careful aim, at the exposed spot on one of the guardians. It was by no means an easy shot, as the guardians and Red were constantly twisting, turning and jumping around as they tried to snatch Red who kept dodging and weaving to make them strike each other. Indeed, Gift missed – but as with the pirate captain Gift didn’t just stop there: it banked and came around for another strike and this time it hit, burying itself into the guardian’s forehead, emitting a shower of sparks and metal shavings as it dug in.

The giant guardian automaton didn’t flinch, didn’t reel, and it didn’t fall over. Speaker felt a pang of despair as it just kept on fighting, Gift stuck.

“Ok, so these things aren’t stupid – they’re coordinating with each other somehow because Red is getting a run for her money, but why aren’t they attacking us?” Sullen Hoof suddenly asked, having pondered this question ever since making it to the castle gate.

Speaker looked pensive for a moment, looking intensely at the guardians as they tried to catch Red in rings of fire – which she would jump out of – or catch her in the air with their mouths, which she would just buck mid-air instead, launching her in a different direction: “None of us can hurt them – she’s the only one with powerful enough combat charms to hurt them, or in this case make them hurt each other”

“They’ve obviously identified her as the most dangerous of us, choosing to focus on her first” Sunrise noted, arriving at the castle gate.

“Ya I guess these things are even tougher than the tyrant lizard – I couldn’t cut through its scales, doubt I could make a dent in their armor plating” Sullen Hoof said, nodding.

Speaker wasn’t sure: “Cash and the two of us know more hoof to hoof martial arts than Red does – and she doesn’t have a blade! The only thing she has going for her right now are dodging charms and her armor… and where is Shimmer, I haven’t seen her since I made a run for it across the courtyard”

Suddenly the other guardian automaton, the one that Speaker hadn’t thrown Gift at, cracked in half with a violent explosion of metallic shrapnel and broken pistons and gears – and a tyrant lizard appeared out of the remains, with red scales that had purple tips.

“There she is” Sullen Hoof pointed out, sounding remarkably unimpressed – although the smirk on his face was easy enough to see.

Cash, Sullen Hoof and Speaker all cheered on as the Shimmer-saurus wrestled with the remaining guardian automaton, her and Red quickly getting it over on its side and pinning it – allowing Speaker to run up and wrest out Gift from its head.

Speaker barely managed to get the gyroscopic chakram out when four more guardian automatons suddenly landed – jets of searing hot steam slowing their descent and blowing up far too much dust for anypony to see anything.

Shimmer and Red made a hasty retreat, everyone quickly getting inside of the castle and shutting the door behind them. Shimmer had several wounds that her own regeneration charms were already busy mending, while Red was limping and bleeding from several minor cuts – a miracle considering the size of the weapons the guardians had used against her.

Aside from breathing a couple of well-deserved sighs of relief, Cash apparently felt an overpowering urge to ask why Shimmer hadn’t pulled her little Shimmer-saurus trick a little earlier.

“Well, I flew into the guardian’s mouth wanting to go down its throat – but hey… it didn’t have a throat, only nasty spiny grinding things in there, so first I had to get out of its mouth, then turn into a gecko, crawl around on it until I found a hole to go in through – and Red had to lure the other guardian into making that hole first, then I had to dodge you throwing your death disc in where I was – then I had to get in and make enough room for me to start turning into a tyrant lizard… I need a bare minimum of space to do that and not just get crushed as I expand” Shimmer explained, gesturing wildly and passionately with her hooves as she told her little story.

Speaker nodded understandingly, but was in truth far more absorbed by the looks of the interior of the castle, while absentmindedly tending to Red’s injuries, Speaker hardly even bothering to try as his medical excellencies did all the work for him.

This was untouched first age architecture, still maintained by a working staff of robo-pony automatons, if the butler-automaton approaching them was any indication. The lobby they were in was decked with exquisite jade and gold ornaments, plus five large jade statues – one for each of the elemental dragons adorning a large circle at the center of the lobby – while circular doorways leading into other parts of the castle, as well as stairs that led into the upper levels, all invited one to explore.

“Do you have an appointment?” The butler said, speaking in high realm, its voice sound deceptively as that of a real pony’s, like that of an old but dignified stallion despite the automaton having no gender-specific design features.

Red once again translated, while Speaker finished up her closing Red’s wounds – and due to Red’s rhadamanthine use of dodging charms, the few injuries she had gotten being nothing more than inconsequential cuts due to her now thoroughly wrecked armor.

Red was quick to flash her caste mark, the butler automaton – in its fine black silk jacket, which looked slightly awkward due to the way that its metallic frame didn’t quite fill the jacket out right – instantly dropping to its knees: “Oh your lordship – you grace us with your presence. What can I do for you?”

“We need to get to the Daimyo’s office, the key is usually kept there in a special case – and unless the unicorn’s changed how these automatons work, which it doesn’t look like, then we should be able to just take it” Speaker said, recalling fragments of conversation with the unicorns he’d overseen constructing the castle several millennia ago.

The butler complied with Red’s commands, leading the circle up to the top floor of the castle. Along the way Cash tried to talk Red into requesting a complete inventory of everything in the castle, but Sunrise was quick note that it would probably take the automatons weeks to compile such a list. Red found it far more expedient to request that an inventory of the castle’s armory be made and delivered to her verbally post haste…

The shogun of Denansdor’s office was the kind of office a pony might imagine the Scarlet Empress herself envying. The floor was tiled with brick-sized orange gems, the walls were covered in dark fragrant woods, all carved with beautiful decorative motifs – such as images of unicorns defeating gilded demons, or unicorns with jewel-encrusted horns and draconic cutie marks magically creating wonders of jade. Speaker was reasonably sure that the jewel-horns were added later, and the wonders of jade had once been wonders of orichalcum. Still, there had probably been spent more pony-hours and wealth in decorating this office than what the realm’s tax collectors brought in over the course of a decade, including the bribes they get to not collect the taxes of various realm nobles who thought themselves too rich for taxation.

Suffice to say that Cash had a giggle-fit, followed by him just standing still and drooling for a minute or so – and he wasn’t just dripping from his mouth. Everyone walked in a wide circle around the financially aroused stallion.

Speaker quickly made his way to the large wooden desk. It was made of dark wood with clearly defined white veins, and aside from the mirror-polished top surface then every inch of the table was carved with beautiful vine and leaf patterns, with small studs of red jade as berry clusters. It had two drawers, both locked, and behind the desk there was a pile of dust from what might once had been a chair, along with a few scraps of leather from the seat cushion.

Sullen Hoof was quick to start fiddling with the locks on the desk-drawers. A bit of essence had both open in no time. Inside the first drawer was a book. It was a ledger for wages paid to castle servants, nothing of any use or interest, but that the paper hadn’t turned to dust after so many centuries or yearly rainy seasons. Speaker guessed that the book was made using solar crafting techniques, as only solar essence could make something so that it would last forever without automatically slowly deteriorating.

The other drawer had a small wooden box in it with a dragon motif etched into the lid.

“Butler, by right of my mandate of heaven I am taking this seal – don’t you go send any guardians after us for this” Red said. The butler-automaton instantly prostrated itself on the floor, apologizing profusely and saying that Red was so very much within her rights to take the seal.

The small wooden box opened when Sullen Hoof fed it a tiny mote of essence: A white jade seal with a coiling dragon motif, made as a bracelet to be worn around a hoof so one could easily touch it at surfaces or use it for making wax seals, as well as a blue jade seal. The seal of blue jade had a roaring dragon motif, and Sunrise was quick to float it over in front of herself, examining it intensely: “A solar seal… well, a unicorn knockoff, but this… this is perfect”

Sunrise explained that the blue jade seal, when used for wax seals on scrolls, would magically ward it so if anypony other than the intended recipient opened the seal the content would disappear. Shimmer nodded, noting that her elders often used artifacts, since they made it very difficult for wyld hunts to spy on messages being sent back and forth between lunars.
With the Shogun’s seal in their possession Speaker wanted go get back to the manse as quickly as possible. Red wanted to check out the castle’s armory first, and Sullen Hoof wanted to check the kitchen. Sunrise Glow supported Speaker,
reminding everypony that they didn’t have forever before their mind-protection bracelets would run out of power. Shimmer meekly said that she would follow Speaker wherever he was going.

Speaker sighed. He knew that the circle needed Red armed and ready in case the guardians would come after them again – and so he reasoned that Sullen Hoof should be able to ransack the kitchen while Red found some weapons.

The butler automaton led Sullen Hoof off to the kitchen, while another servant automaton that appeared to have lost its outer plating, looking like a stick-pony made of brass and green jade tubes, with a head that looked like a small box with two red orbs of blue and red jade, led the rest of the circle to the armory.

The armory turned out to have very little in useful weaponry and armor. There were some rusty scraps and bits of what might once have been weapons, but any weapons made of magical materials – like jadesteel or moonsilver – had been taken a long time ago, probably in preparation for defending the city, or by unicorn nobles looting the place before running away. Red was deeply disappointed, but Speaker and Shimmer made the best of it, using the scraps of steel there to fix the damaged parts of Red’s armor. It wasn’t a perfect fix, and there wasn’t anything to paint the new lamellar bits so they weren’t red like the rest of the armor, but now the armor was whole again – and it had only taken a few minutes, thanks to Shimmer and Speaker’s crafting charms having sped everything up to.

This led the circle to seek out Sullen Hoof, who they found in the castle kitchens stacking large pots of blue jade on top of each other. Turned out the blue jade pots had a very unique and reasonably useful feature: anything put in them would either be frozen or just stay at some other cool temperature, depending on how much essence you fueled the pots with. Shimmer appeared especially impressed by such a large number of these: “Oh, winterbreath jars! These things will get you your own weight in silver back west – especially the big ones”

Cash was, once again, very pleased – especially as Shimmer began folding the pots away into elsewhere, something that Speaker found quite odd: “I thought I could only banish stuff to elsewhere that I could lift with one hoof?”

“Never doubt the size of the implausible lunar panoply dear – I’ve had a lot of fun in the past pulling siege artillery out of my saddlebags to surprise pirates and slavers. It’s a lunar trick though, not something solar’s can do” Shimmer said, as she packed the last winterbreath jar into elsewhere.

Red seemed less impressed: “And you couldn’t have done this with the medicine that’s being prepared to be shipped to the Chung lands?”

Shimmer gave Red an unimpressed glare and shook her head saying: “When we left a week ago they were still making the medicine needed – and honestly, I don’t want the guild chasing me around for quick and easy freight services, I got better things to do than that” while clinging to Speaker’s thick muscular legs.

Sullen Hoof, satisfied with the things he’d recovered from the kitchen – which beyond the winterbreath jars and pots included some nice enchanted cooking utensils, including a shiny ‘new’ cleaver that Speaker was sure had some oricalchum and jade mixed into it, since it – unlike nearly every other metalic object or fixture in the kitchen – hadn’t crumbled into rusty dust.