The Scroll of Exalted Ponies

“So, a final treasure hunt before we hightail it out of here?” Red said, nodding slightly. It was clear from the apprehensive look on the warrior pony’s face that she wasn’t that much for it…

Speaker tried once again to explain his plight: The healing house that they were in was really old, first age old. This meant that he remembered the layout of the place – that was how he had recalled the ‘blank room’ in the first place – and during the night he had recalled another feature of the healing house that, if still present, would be immensely useful. However, this usefulness was not entirely apparent to the rest of the circle.

The device that Speaker wanted to find was a ‘Pattern Reassertion Rectifier’. Back when Speaker had been a solar in the first age, he had overseen the use of the device on multiple occasions, as it would – literally – restore the ‘pattern’ of what its emitted beam struck. Shimmer had a slight idea of what Speaker meant, but the rest had no clue. It didn’t help that the blank room they were in had no illumination outside of the faintly glowing runes that lined the walls, floor and ceiling, or the glow from the caste marks of the exalted ponies present, neither of which gave off enough light for the ponies present to see the complicated gestures that Speaker had made as he explained the purpose of the device.

“Ok, again – a pony’s pattern is like the schematics for them. You know, four legs, hooves, a single head, with two eyes and ears, only one mouth and a nice soul made of a Po and Hun soul. Wyld mutations change that pattern, as can demonic essence, and any number of other nasty things. I can find this thing while you lot get up on the roof of the building and conjure up a cloud, then I’ll be right there” Speaker said, the faint glow from his caste mark only showing the top half of his face in the darkness.

Cash was quick to point out that spending any more time than necessary in Denansdor really wasn’t healthy for anypony – well, aside from Sunrise.

Shimmer threw Cash a mocking look: “Your sudden interest in the wellbeing of us all really does warm my heart – but come on everyone, remember: We left a heavily mutated mare in the hooves of a deranged changeling a couple of weeks ago. We promised to fix her. This device should do that”

Red and Sullen both nodded in agreement that this was a worthy cause for a little detour.

Shimmer, having had one too many encounters with changelings and their victims back west, found this last bit very interesting: “By the way Speaker. How much of a pony’s pattern is… rectified… by this thing?”

“All of it. In the first age a lot of solars dabbled with wyld energies in their experiments here, so accidents happened every now and then – especially for mortal assistants or young exalts. It didn’t matter if you had suddenly developed a taste for rusty nails, or sprouted three eyes on your flank. This thing would identify the target’s original pattern, and then restore it to that pattern” Speaker explained. Again, it was too complicated for everypony else, but Shimmer did nod slowly, having understood that it the device could fix mental derangements caused by wyld exposure.

Sullen Hoof shook his head: “Look, I get that you want to help this mare – but honestly, we’re risking our own sanity here. You might have that stubborn Lookshyan streak going for you to shrug off the effects of this, but the rest of us don’t.”

Getting up, the light from his caste mark revealing his golden orichalcum mask, Sullen Hoof paced around the small room: “I don’t want to see what happens when you succumb to the miasma while running around alone – and I’m even less excited to see if I’ll go mad, so I’m not exactly that hyped about seeing the only pony I know who could probably cure whatever crazy we might pick up getting out of here wandering off alone…”

“Look, the horrorfex doesn’t make you into a crazy pony just like that – its takes time – and for us, even more so. Trust me, even if your mind takes damage from the ‘fex, its nothing I can’t fix. As for me, then I’m a twilight caste in a house of healing from the first age; it would take quite a lot to bring me under in this place” Speaker said, drawing on his knowledge of the first age and the horrorfex to soothe the circle.

It didn’t really work, but it was equally clear to the others that Speaker seemed to think that he knew what he was doing.

The main problem was that opening the door to the chamber would let in the horrorfex miasma – so Speaker’s plan was that he’d go off looking for the rectifier while the others would head to the roof. The main issue there was ensuring that Shimmer could time her beast-mind mental defence charm so she wouldn’t have to do it once she’d conjured her cloud.

“Moot point really – I’m still tired from yesterday. Once I shape the cloud I won’t have the will left in me to resist the miasma… but we’ll all be heading out the city very fast that point, so it wouldn’t hurt to give in to it then” Shimmer said, trying to sound as if she at least thought it was possible to pull off.

“…you can tell when you’ll run out of will to live?” Cash wondered.

The lunar let out a forced laugh: “No, but after a century of fighting changelings I know the limits of my mind – and I’m on thin ice here, so is the rest of you”

There was a moment of silence. Everypony’s caste marks faded, leaving the blank room only faintly lit by the dim glow of the runes that covered its interior. One could only see the silhouettes of the others.

Speaker gave the rest of the circle directions that would lead them to the roof of the healing house. If the elevator platforms worked that would be the fastest route, but baring that it was a long run up around thirty flights of stairs.

“Thirty levels up? We’ll never make that – we’ll go mad before we get to the top” Cash whined.

Thrusting a hoof into Cash’s chest, Red leaned in close to him: “Then you better hope that the platform is working”
On a page torn from his notebook, Speaker sketched directions. These were entrusted to Sunrise, as she was the only among the circle who could be trusted not to go nuts from the miasma and drop the map. She would lead the rest of the circle to the roof.

“I’ve been in some hairy situations before, back with the seventh legion – but I have to admit, this takes the cake” Speaker said, resting a hesitant hoof on the door.

Putting her hoof on his, as they prepared to pull the door open, Red gave Speaker that special kind of trusting, hopeful and equally sorrowful look – like a soldier about to walk into battle looking at a commanding officer: “If we get through this, you’re going to tell us all about that when we’re done”

Speaker nodded and looked at the door with renewed determination.

Just before they opened the door Sunrise spoke somberly and quietly, advocating for valor and conviction in this time of trials. Calling on the light of her anima, Sunrise shone a beautiful glow as she used charms to brighten everyone’s mood. It made it a little easier when Red and Speaker pulled the stone door open and the invisible miasma of maddening terror rushed into the room like a cold and acidic spike to one’s mind.

Speaker looked on as the rest of the circle vanished down the hallways of the healing house. Turning and looking for the rectifier, Speaker found himself drawing on analytical methods to find his prize he had never really thought of before. He wasn’t sure if it was first age memories of highly efficient search patterns, or whether it was purely from his exaltation. Either way Speaker found that he could channel essence to speed his vision and thoughts as he scanned eerily familiar direction tags. Most were in high realm, a language he recognized from Lookshy’s unicorns but not one he spoke, and yet he knew what they said for he could remember what they had read back in the first age – and it was very clear that none of the function or the layout of the healing house had been changed, only signs and nametags had been swapped.

This reminded Speaker all too much of missions when he had been younger. Being the bright pony he was, he’d often been the loremaster as well as medic for missions where seventh legion gunzosha had been sent to retrieve ancient relics, or accomplish other important objectives – like sabotaging enemy supply trains, or covert attacks behind enemy lines. For a moment Speaker found himself caught up in old memories, most of which were tainted with the pain of knowing that all but a few of the ponies he’d served with were dead by now – if not from battle, then from the rapid unnatural aging that their special equipment cursed them with, in exchange for near invulnerability on the battlefield. Speaker had lost so many friends that way – their bodies and often their minds wasting away before his very eyes – but not today, no, today no pony in his care would die!

Jumping over dusty pony skeletons, peering into rooms lit by glowing crystals that illuminated depressing tableaus of pony skeletal remains that sang of the horrible and sudden end of Denansdor, Speaker slowly made his way to the Hall of Heavenly Form. This was where the Pattern Reassertion Rectifier had been used, stored and charged back in the first age.

The HFR department was a mess. Scattered pony remains everywhere. Splayed across the platform in front of the mount where the rectifier would usually be affixed were the skeletal remains of what was clearly a heavily mutated pony. Its bones were all wrong. Some were longer, some shorter, some twisted back on themselves. It must have hurt so very much to have lived like that.

The rectifier was on the floor next to the mount, dusty, with a few bits loose. It had apparently been knocked over during the brief chaos that had ended Denansdor. Still, it could be fixed, it had to. Speaker knew that he could: He had made it thousands of years ago, so he could make it again if need be.

The device itself looked like a large polished slightly ovoid bronze tube with bands of blue and white crystal set around it, as well as orichalcum gem settings, with some of the gems cracked from when the rectifier had hit the floor. Speaker was so wrapped up in examining the device and its beautiful internal starmental circuitry, the ornate moonsilver essence capacitors or the sublimely perfect adamant lenses that he for a perfect moment forgot the miasma was there.

The moment didn’t last. Carefully floating the device up and willing it into elsewhere, Speaker ran to the elevator platforms.
To Speaker’s surprise the door to the elevator still functioned, but the control panel also said that the elevator was out of order. The brief moment of despair shattered the rush of having recovered the rectifier. The miasma encroached on Speaker’s mind. The urge to flee, to cower, to curl up on the floor and cry, it was so powerful. It was if it was crushing his skull… and Speaker was finally getting near his wits end. Still, he wasn’t there just yet.

With his thoughts on the mare trapped in a mutated body of ever-growing flesh, Gift flew from one of Speaker’s saddlebags and with a quick rev of its internal essence engines and a puff of steam the gyroscopic chakram had cut open the elevator door’s control panel. The crystal circuitry on the inside was quickly dealt with, indeed puzzling that kind of first age magitech felt… refreshing. Speaker prayed to whoever would hear that he would live with his mind intact to engage in similar intellectually stimulating puzzles later.

With the control crystals properly fiddled with, the door opened up, revealing a circular and empty shaft with but a hoof-full of cables running down the center. First Speaker identified what cable was attached to the counterweights at the top and which cable held the platform dome that would normally go up and down in the shaft. Speaker leapt out and bit on to the one holding the platform dome of the particular shaft he was in now. He then sent Gift flying to cut the jade-steel cable under him.

The first hit on the cable only sent out a hot shower of sparks under Speaker, as he repositioned himself so he didn’t have to hold on with his mouth. Clinging on to the cable with three legs, while wielding Gift with his right foreleg, Speaker flung Gift out again to strike at the same spot. The problem was that he couldn’t really see what he was aiming at… and the miasma wasn’t making it easy to hold on to the cable; oh how he wanted to just leg go and flail his legs in terror… but didn’t, even though part of him wanted to…

In a brief moment of terror Speaker remembered dangling over mountainous cliffs down south, near the borders to the zebra lands in the south, near Harborhead. There the fang of gunsozha he’d been attached to hauled him up, for such was their duty to never to leave a fellow pony behind. Here Speaker had no such luck, but instead he knew that he had a greater purpose, to heal creation from sickness of the body and mind, a purpose he had a duty to see done. He flung Gift again.

It took four nerve wracking tries to get the jade-steel cable cut. The moment Gift severed it Speaker felt the sudden jerk and fast vertical acceleration as the counterweight designed to pull against up to twenty ponies now pulled a single one – and it did so very quickly.

Rushing up the twenty eight floors Speaker needed to cover, he prayed that he would meet the others on the roof. He could see the fast approaching light from the stained glass window of the maintenance doors at the very top of the shaft. It suddenly struck Speaker that he had to slow down at some point… and he really didn’t want to slow down by hitting the ceiling, or get a hoof jammed into the pulley system that the cable he was holding on to was threaded through… ok, this might have been a good idea to get to the top floor with, but it could also have benefited from a little more planning, or better gear to hold on to the cables with.

With a few deep breaths as Speaker saw the end of his ride nearing at terminal velocity, the pony leapt to the side, landing on a surprisingly sturdy rivet on the side of the wall. Now, this rivet was maybe the size of half a pea sticking out of the wall… and yet Speaker had, mostly by luck, ‘landed’ with the edge of his left rear hoof on it.

Oh right, that perfect balance charm ‘Graceful Crane Stance’ that Sullen Hoof had taught him, what was it Sully had said? “With this you can stand firm on but a blade of grass, or a single strand of hair from a pony’s mane, and it will be as if you have firmly planted your hoof on a slab of stone the size of the imperial mountain”

With his somewhat odd but none the less handy place to stand, Speaker was able to spot the door and ledge he needed to get to. Carefully ‘trotting’ along the wall, standing uncomfortably firm on the rivets that the held the jade-steel plates to the healing house super-structure, Speaker reasoned that he definitely needed to familiarize himself more with what this particular charm could do.

As Speaker got the door the miasma crept up on his mind again. It hurt to think. It hurt to want to resist it… but he had to! He had to focus on the task at hoof! Speaker remembered drill sergeants shouting back at basic training, calling on him to tough it out and keep going. He remembered fellow legionnaires cheering and urging him on at chili pepper eating contests. He remembered that he was a proud stallion of Lookshy, one who never gave up in a fight.

Having done so, it suddenly didn’t hurt so much again.

He couldn’t feel that tiny part of his mind breaking, giving the rest of his mind pause to recover.

Stepping out on the roof of the building, smelling the fresh air again, it was so refreshing. Speaker felt whole again – and his circle was there to greet him!

Shimmer ran towards Speaker with tears in her eyes. It was reasonably clear that the circle had thought Speaker dead or worse. With her hopes restored Shimmer was quick to shape a cloud of her silvery essence. In no time at the entire circle was heading due north toward Great Forks, to rest their weary heads.

It seemed as if the cloud couldn’t go fast enough, and Shimmer equally made it rise to great heights to get out of range of the horrorfex.

After a few minutes of the cloud going at top speed, the circle almost out of the miasma, Shimmer began to twitch… first the eyes, then the mouth, then a leg…

“Oh no, come on – you can resist the miasma, you just have to want to! Don’t give in to the fear!” Speaker desperately said, but even with her solar mate there to comfort her, then Shimmer’s mind was tired from resisting the miasma and conjuring clouds… and so it dispersed into wisps of silvery essence around the circle’s hooves.

Falling from the sky, both at great downwards speed but also great horizontal speed, with Shimmer twisting and bucking in the rushing air as she snarled and frothed at the mouth, Speaker looked on in despair as the ground started getting closer.

The rest of the circle didn’t fare much better. Not even her armor could save Red if she hit the ground at this spped, and Cash and Sully had equally joined the chorus of panicked screams as they all plummeted to the ground.

In stark contrast to everypony else, Sunrise Glow appeared to give absolutely no damn, remaining silent and calm, but then again – she had that damn invulnerability charm, so she didn’t have to worry.

After falling for a minute or so the circle cleared the miasma. This was nice, at least to Speaker, as Red, Cash and Sullen Hoof stopped screaming nearly as loud. Still, they were screaming, and for good reason. They were all maybe a mile from the ground by now, and it was only getting closer.

This did not make it easy to come up with good ideas. Then suddenly a shadow eclipsed the sun, making Speaker look – but he saw nothing.

“Hey, you need a ride?” a familiar voice suddenly said from bellow Speaker.

Speaker looked down: “Shimmer!”

In her beast-pony form, looking more bird than pony, with her third eye glowing with silvery light, Shimmer slowly came up under Speaker, allowing him to balance on her back – and with the graceful crane stance he didn’t weigh her down or impede the lunar’s ability to fly.

The two quickly caught up to the others. Red and Sullen Hoof both did as Speaker and balanced on her wings using the same charm, bobbing up and down with her wing beats.

It must have looked very silly, as Cash was mainly laughing when he saw them come up to him – or maybe the pony had just lost his mind from being in mid-fall to his death? Of course, there wasn’t that much room left on Shimmer, so Cash had to settle with being carried down in Shimmer’s talons.

This left Sunrise Glow who didn’t seem to care much for the aid of the others: “I’ll see you when you land”

The circle watched on as the adolescent filly plummeted to the ground. She fell into a forest, but it was easy to see where she landed: One needed only seek out the plume of dust that was thrown up by the impact.

Shimmer landed at the edge of the forest and turned back into a pony, the circle quickly heading in to find Sunrise Glow.

By seeking out the slowly settling plume of dust, the circle quickly came across a clearing… no – clearings do not have trees that have been knocked over. This was a crater. As the dust settled it became clear what stood in the center of the crater: Sunrise Glow, giving the rest of the circle a disapproving frown: “Took you long enough”

That night the circle camped out near where Shimmer had landed outside the forest. Their very souls ragged from the miasma, none of the ponies wanted to move on before they had at least recovered a little – all except Speaker. He felt fine was more than ready to get back to the scavenger lands.

“You finding that Rectifier really cheered you up, didn’t it?” Sullen Hoof mused, as he stirred in a pot placed on the campfire. The scents from the vegetable stew in the pot were soothing to both mind and body, and everypony relaxed to the view of the flickering lights from the campfire.

Speaker nodded, feeling just as good as he did when they had first entered Denansdor: “True, but its broken – I need tools to fix it, first age tools”

Cash wanted to make a comment about how it’d be up to his powers of business to purchase such rare tools, a challenge he’d gladly face compared to having his mind dissolved by Denansdor’s miasma – but he was too mentally exhausted: “I… I feel like when father would make me memorize sales ledgers… my poor head…”

All the ponies in the circle slept like rocks that night.

The next morning Circle began to take stock of exactly what they’d gotten out of this whole trip.

The amount of jade that Shimmer had spirited away… it still baffled everypony’s mind. Cash was most impressed, for he alone in the circle knew what that much wealth could purchase. Sunrise urged caution, pointing out that the jade had Denansdor stamps: “If you show up with that in Nexus it’ll be a day before all of Creation knows where you got it - and ponies will want to know how you go it”

Cash didn’t seem worried: “My dear holy mare – while I do appreciate your concern, then Speaker here could probably whittle down each slab into a thousand jade bits. Nobody would have to know where it came from, only that I, Cash Charmer, have my saddlebags full of them”

“Well, don’t plan any spending sprees just yet – I’m going to need another day or so before I can conjure another cloud safely…” Shimmer commented, sitting perched in the form of a seagull on a nearby.

“Are we going to have to wait around a few days every time we go out and do something?” Red wondered with a slight hint of annoyance in her voice, while marveling at the giant blade detached from the wrecked guardian automaton that Speaker and Shimmer recovered after she had defeated it.

Speaker trotted up to the oversized blade. He explained that sorcery is trying on the mind, and that he was working on recalling ancient charms that could transmit the patterns of essence that inform pure will so that he could lessen Shimmer’s burden. Red nodded to that and joined Shimmer as they undertook the daunting but welcoming challenge of relaxing all day.

Looking at Sunrise, Speaker motioned for her to come over. The adolescent holy mare got up from her meditations, adjusted her hood, and approached.

“I need you to take a quick trip back into the miasma – your immunity is still working, right?” Speaker plainly stated.

Sunrise Glow nodded and listened as Speaker floated out his notebook from his saddlebags: “I’ll sketch you up a map – Shimmer can carry you up into the sky so the two of you can spot where to go. I need you to find my old workshop in the Heaven Peach Commune, the tinker-town resort that I occasionally resided in back in the first age. In there is a hoof-boot of orichalcum and adamant, decked out with tiny gears and essence condenser rods. I need you to bring me this”

“Is this device the tool you will need to fix the rectifier?” Sunrise inquired, sounding more as if she was questioning Speaker’s motives for fetching the device, rather than wondering what it did.

Speaker blinked a few times. He hadn’t expected Sunrise to ask such a question. Looking down at the sketched map, then back up and Sunrise, Speaker sighed: “Yes and no – this Hoof of the Great Maker will be invaluable for fixing things in the long run. But no, it will probably not be useful to mend the rectifier, but if you have charms that immunize you from the miasma, then other solars might use the same charm to raid Denansdor as well. The Hoof of the Great Maker must not fall into the hooves of anypony who might just sell it as an ancient relic, it is far too priceless for that – not to mention far too destructive if used wrong”

Sunrise Glow beheld Speaker from underneath the hood of her cloak. It was hard for Speaker to see what she was looking at, or really look her in the eyes, but ultimately the adolescent nodded, stating that since they do not have anything else to while Shimmer rests her weary head, then she would do this: “…but you will owe me a favor for this. I will be walking into old places where they might be traps or other hazards. There is no telling what the unicorns have done to your workshop since you last saw it”

Speaker nodded, thanking Sunrise. Moments later Shimmer flew off with Sunrise held gently in her talons, leaving Speaker to join Red and Sullen Hoof around the ember of last night’s campfire.

“So, Speaker, those seventh legion war stories you mentioned back in the blank room – I’ve been dying to hear ‘em” Red said.

Speaker gave Red a quizzical look: “What in Celestia’s name are you talking about?”

Red reminded Speaker of what he had said back in the blank room. Speaker looked confused.

“Come on – we don’t have anything else to do here, and I’m my head is still reeling. Tell us a story from your tours of duty. What was it you said you’d served in back at the Great Forks gate? The 7th legion, something something field force, something something Gunzosha scale? You must have seen a lot of crazy things there” Cash said, having gotten quite comfortable on a thick patch of moss.

Speaker looked at Red and Cash as if they were crazy ponies. An uncomfortable silence followed. Sullen Hoof was the first to piece together what seemed to be to the problem:

“Speaker, what is your earliest memory?” the nexus pony inquired.

The Lookshyan stallion stroked his beard for a moment: “Hmm… that’d be back in the first age, just before the primordial war started…”

“No, I mean from this life – do you remember what you spent your mortal life as, before exalting” Sullen Hoof corrected, sounding increasingly conserned.

Speaker couldn’t see what the fuss was about: “I lived in a nice lodge in a forest in the hundred kingdoms, what of it?”
“Where did you get the uniform you’re wearing?” Red asked, having caught on to what Sullen Hoof was suspecting – and not liking what she was hearing one bit.

Speaker looked down at himself. The faded uniform which had once been bright red, now more of a soft pale red, seemed… alien, yet he was sure he’d always worn it. Speaker brushed off this cognitive dissonance as nothing: “It was probably a gift from a friend”

Cash, Sullen Hoof and Red all looked at Speaker, speechless that a Lookshyan pony couldn’t recognize his own uniform. A few questions later and Speaker was getting annoyed… and it was becoming increasingly difficult not to accept the apparent truth: Speaker could not remember anything but the last few weeks of his mortal life before exalting. The Miasma had eaten his memories.