The Scroll of Exalted Ponies

Shimmer and Speaker both blinked for a moment. Shimmer spoke, sounding tired as ever: “I’ve conjured three clouds within the last day – I’m not doing any more of that right now. Guild caravans are slow; we can catch them on hoof”

Speaker raised a hoof, sigils of essence and will already swirling around them: “That’s not an excuse anymore”

“One day you’re going to run out of charity to give, you know that?” Shimmer said, feeling as the calming feeling of mental vigor spread through her body, Speaker giving her of his own willpower to soothe her tired mind.

Cash sighed: “Come on you two – gods, Red will be pissed. She doesn’t even have a proper weapon yet”

“I’ll make her one on the go – you said that that guild caravan was scheduled to take three weeks to get to Chung lands, if it’s a full caravan they’ll have a smithy for repairs to their wagons” Speaker quickly noted, thinking about what last minute purchases they might need to make before leaving.

Cash Charm was way ahead of Speaker with regards to last minute purchases. Aside from his new fancy silk shirt, which looked surprisingly much like his last blue one with the stiff gold-embroidered collar and sleeves, Cash had bought a cart, as well as supplies; several bars of reasonably good steel for Speaker make into a sword for Red, a few herbal remedies for themselves and what appeared to be a sturdy but sizable lockbox to stash valuables in.

The circle quickly left the city by cloud, eliciting quite a few angry shouts from various Great Forks enforcers as the circle flew over the city walls at great speed.

It took no time at all to spot the guild caravan. Indeed, it wasn’t made to be hard to miss.

Guild caravans were always a sight to behold. Any pony who had ever witnessed a guild caravan coming to town would likely be speechless, or run away screaming since apparently giant monsters were coming.

A guild caravan typically consisted of several guild wagons, gigantic multi-storied buildings on wheels, pulled by equally gigantic yeddim. The guild wagons of the caravan that Speaker and the gang was tracking all appeared, from quite a distance, to be at least six stories tall, pulled by equally huge and monumentally stupid and docile yeddim.

Yeddim were strange beasts of burden, easily the biggest known land animal in creation. They had enormous trunk-like legs and broad muzzles, their entire body covered in thick shaggy fur. The amount of cargo that could be strapped on their backs alone made most run of the mill merchants blush and guild yeddim all had large howdahs built on top of them, usually with houses constructed on them again, used as offices and living quarters for high ranking guild merchants and overseers while traveling with a caravan. All the workers and slaves bunked in the guild wagons, each wagon easily having a few hundred ponies on board as crew or cargo.

Suffice to say, then any pony who knew of the guild knew that a guild caravan was essentially a whole town on wheels, selling and dealing in nearly anything imaginable, often traveling halfway across creation and back over the course of several years. This also made guild caravans really easy to spot from the sky, even with it currently moving through a forest – one had only follow the trail of knocked over trees… again, yeddim were really stupid: If trained well and told go to in a direction they would, even if it meant barging through a forest, knocking over trees. Incidentally, then the guild also did in road-work, as well as any other business you might profit from in any way.

Shimmer landed the cloud on the forest canopy several miles behind the caravan, her solar passengers using their balancing charms to walk down from the smallest leaves and twigs to the thicker brances, then making a short hop, skip and jump down to the ground. Cash Charmer’s wagon and goods were retrieved from elsewhere by Shimmer, and Red refused to let an ‘old’ pony such as Speaker haul it, even if he was more than physically fit to do so thanks to his exaltation. With that settled they began to catch up to the caravan.

Now, Speaker had never seen a guild caravan before – but he had heard plenty of stories, so he had a fairly good idea of what to expect. What he didn’t expect was what trailed the guild caravan, but now he at least understood why Shimmer had put them down so far behind the caravan.

Up the ‘road’ plowed and stomped by the yeddim hauling the guild wagons, and subsequently mowed over by the massive wheels of those guild wagons, the back end of a long line of smaller carts and pony-drawn buggies could be seen.

“Guild caravans are always guarded by mercenaries. A caravan always gets followers who try to stick close to gain cheap safe passage – I’ve done it a few times myself” Cash explained.

As the circle began trotting up towards the wagons furthest behind the caravan Red suddenly said, with a quiet voice that somehow also burned with sudden intensity and focus: “Into the bushes, now!”

Knowing very well from his time in the 7th legion that when the pony taking point tells you take cover, you do not stop and question why, Speaker quickly leapt behind a tree. Sullen Hoof, Shimmer and Cash were just as quick. Red was on the other side of the road, gesturing ahead.

It appeared as if the wagon and owner of said wagon who’d enjoyed the dubious honor of being the one furthest back from the caravan was being robed.

Sunrise Glow just walked ahead, ignoring Red’s hushed calls for her to hide.

The rest of the circle approached while in cover, ready to jump out and rescue the adolescent prophet – but the need for that never came.

“Bow to me!” Sunrise Glow suddenly shouted. Speaker could online imagine what madness was going through the teenage filly’s mind. It was difficult to hear what happened next: there were frequent shouts from adult ponies but no audible sounds of fighting. Speaker wondered if there’d even be enough left of Sunrise for it to be worth to recall his medical bag from elsewhere.

Ten minutes later Sunrise Glow shouted for the rest of the circle to come out.

What met them was a reasonably gruesome sight, although that had nothing to do with Sunrise Glow. A dozen or so bandit ponies, clothed in worn rags if anything at all, most of them with gnarled and scared appearances, all of them looking strong but malnourished, were bowing and scraping to Shimmer, begging for her forgiveness and repeatedly declaring their undying loyalty to her.

Part of Speaker was afraid to ask, part of him thought that whatever Sunrise had done would be incredibly handy to know when dealing with uncooperative patients. Cash was certainly impressed, quickly calling dips on two of the bandits as servants. Sunrise Glow would hear nothing of it.

As Sunrise Glow and Cash Charmer began arguing over whether these brainwashed ponies were to become penitent acolytes or productive servants and bodyguards Speaker surveyed the wagons. This was the gruesome part of the ordeal. The bandits had evidently murdered the previous owner of the wagon, a merchant pony from the looks of it, and had been in the process of hauling away the merchant mare’s corpse – as well as the corpse of her husband and their two foals. Apparently these bandits didn’t take bother with prisoners or slaves. Suddenly the idea of having these bandit ponies working for either Cash or Sunrise didn’t seem like that good an idea.

Red agreed to this, saying that in the years she’d worked as a mercenary there was only one punishment suitable for this kind of crime – to which end she also looked at Speaker quite sternly, without words reminding him to make her a new sword, as she sorely missed having one right now.

“Such waste of life would be foolish. They will all obey my every command – they will not harm another pony unless I give such orders, of which I have no intention” Sunrise Glow stated from underneath her hood.

Cash was similarly unphased by the fact that he was arguing for the ‘ownership’ of murderers.

Then the dozen or so bandits all suddenly dropped dead from their previously humble bows – all at the same time. Sullen Hoof then proceeded to walk over to each of them and retrieve a hoof-long and quarter inch thick needle from the back of each of their heads: “I didn’t become a solar to take slaves, nor to pardon the first murderers we come across simply because it’d be nice to have henchponies and lackeys. If you lot want serfs and acolytes go hire or recruit them the usual way, not like this. We’re better than this”

Red seemed hesitant to nod in approval, but ultimately did so as well. Speaker followed suit, noting that in Lookshy slavery was forbidden: “We see it as a liability. Slaves rebel, since all ponies yearn for freedom. It is basic pony nature. Even if Sunrise had them under her control, they could try to resist it or might even break free at some point. They would be a liability to us”

Shimmer looked at Speaker with a face full of surprise and shock: “And here I thought you a healer, not one to endorse executions like this”

Speaker sighed and shrugged: “I’m perfectly willing to help those who need help, but I will equally always prefer to see those who bring misery and death to innocent ponies punished. Besides, we don’t need an entourage right now, especially where we’re going”

Cash, accepting that now wasn’t the time for henchponies or delightfully obedient employees, quickly began appraising what the dead merchant had in his cart. As he was about to begin looting it, Sunrise loudly objected: “You will touch nothing of this – the wagon and all the goods in it are to be given to the dead merchant and his family as grave goods. They’re not yours, they are for the pyre”

Some more arguments followed, Cash wanting what little valuables there were among the dead ponies’ possessions. Ultimately Red settled the matter by pointing out to Cash that they already had a fortune in jade and gold waiting to be cashed in, so sifting through scraps here was a waste of time when sick ponies were waiting for them in Chung Do.

The funeral pyre was bright but contained. Speaker and Shimmer ensured that the rest of the forest didn’t take catch on fire, while Sunrise used her powers as a priest of Celestia to instantly and unceremoniously reduce the dead bandits’ bodies to ash. With that the circle resumed their attempt to catch up with the guild caravan.

By nightfall the circle had linked up, the guild caravan slowly mowing through the forest as it headed north-east towards Chung Do. Cash later reported that the ‘going through the forest’ was mainly because the guild factor who was the caravan master had thought it faster than taking the trade roads… despite it slowing down the caravan greatly.

“He’s probably just trying to dodge tolls – that’s normal for any guild merchant” Cash noted.

Shaking his head at this folly of the caravan master, Speaker realized that there was one part of it he didn’t understand: “Why are they called guild factors? Why not merchants like everyone else?”

Sullen Hoof laughed from within his orichalcum helmet-mask, it not obstructing the sound of his voice at all somehow: “What? The all-knowing Bright Machine Speaker not already knowing something? This is amazing – but really, you’ve answered your own question. Regular guild merchants are just that, regular merchants. A guild factor is... just that – he’s a factor, a merchant to be reckoned with, who is far more influential and wealthy, can screw with economies at a whim and establish monopolies wherever he wants. It’s not a title you earn, it’s just something you become when you get big enough to be a deciding factor for the market you trade in”

Speaker frowned but also nodded. He had no doubt that this guild factor heading the caravan was going to profit endlessly from the suffering of sick ponies of Chung Do. With this in mind he asked Sullen Hoof to investigate the medical cargo of the guild wagons. What exactly was the guild planning to sell in Chung Do as cures to the plague? Medical treatments to plague were rare and costly, not something ever manufactured on a large enough scale to require a guild caravan to transport it.

Cash agreed, adding that he’d try to chat up the factor’s people as well, but mostly just to try to sell off some of the valuables they’d taken from Denansdor: “I am supremely certain that a guild factor would love some shogunate era jewelry…”

The next day Cash and Sullen Hoof were nowhere to be seen. The absence of the two weren’t questioned, due to the plans laid out the day before, but it did leave Red hauling the wagon and Speaker and Shimmer sitting all alone in the back.

The wagon that Cash had acquired as a simple and plain wooden traveling wagon, basically a small one-room wooden hut on four wooden wheels, and while there were shuttered windows to allow those inside to look out, then it offered a good of privacy none the less. It wasn’t big enough for the whole circle to sleep on the floor, but Shimmer solved this by sleeping as a bird up under the ceiling, perched on a rafter.

Speaker found the privacy… awkward, as Shimmer seemed interested in building on their relationship. This wasn’t the first time they had enjoyed private time together, as the river-junk they had sailed from when they had met at Speaker’s manse to Great Forks had allowed them several weeks of time together – but back then there had been the wonder and novelty of meeting for the first time, again, but now? With the two lying on the floor, cuddled up in blankets, Speaker just didn’t feel like wanting to do anything.

Over the last few weeks they had fought and bled together, narrowly escaped madness and death in Denansdor and fought giant pony-eating monsters in the south-eastern jungles. Equally, with Speaker’s brief brush with amnesia and the madness that followed, Speaker didn’t feel that comfortable letting Shimmer get close…

Speaker remembered trying to kill Sunrise, oh he remembered it so clearly. There was nothing in his first age memories which helped or explained it to him, at least nothing that he could make sense of at the moment. But if he’d behaved like that, even if it was during a moment of weakness, how might he not one day behave towards Shimmer? Speaker didn’t like hurting other ponies. In retrospect he even thought that letting the bandits live might have been best – Sunrise and Cash could easily have reformed them, with Cash sealing the deal with a sanctified oath never to harm another pony again, but Speaker… having seen the murdered family, he hadn’t thought clearly.

The lunar mare was not slow to pick up on Speaker appearing worried and apprehensive, although she couldn’t figure out the source of the problem. To her Speaker’s madness had been fixed. She was used to problems arising, problems being fixed and then moving on. Dwelling on what was lost or might have been lost was not in her nature – for she had lost so much back in the west, to changelings who ate the dreams and hopes of friends and loved ones or to unicorn immaculates who would rather see heretics burn than to let them sully their souls any further by living in any other way than by what the immaculate scriptures demanded.

Shimmer tried to explain her point of view to Speaker, but he wasn’t very receptive: “Speaker, you’re going to live over a thousand years. You will have to learn that mortal ponies die. In this age even more so. You have to learn to let that go. Focus on the ones you can save, but don’t begin to doubt yourself by dwelling on the ones you couldn’t save”

“Ponies don’t become bandits without a reason” Speaker said, gazing out the front window of the wagon at Red. “They might have been outlawed for offending some noble or maybe it was farmers whose crops had failed and they had no other means to buy food. Sunrise said that she’d made them open to suggestion by offering the three things that they all wanted deep inside: Food, shelter and safety… I should have listened to the two of ‘em”

Shimmer stroked Speaker’s beard. The stallion’s nose twitched. Speaker felt a tongue tickling his left ear – but Shimmer on his right? Looking left there was nothing. Quickly turning to look at Shimmer he caught the lunar wiping her mouth.
“Really?” the solar said.

Shimmer opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue – and it just kept coming out and out… sticking it out in front of Speaker’s face, almost half a yard’s worth, then sucking it back in with a slurping noise: “Hehe, I do that with my legs too, but that feels weird – want to see what I can do with my tail?”

Speaker wasn’t feeling up to whatever lunar kinks that Shimmer wanted to indulge in. He needed time to think about the last few days.

Getting up and donning his old Looksyan uniform, Speaker said nothing as he moved the one chair in the house-wagon to the centre of the floor and got up on it, then reached up and opened the hatch in the roof, then pulled himself up and sat himself down on the roof. Speaker then drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly as he flipped the hatch over to close himself off from Shimmer. He didn’t want to get her hurt, but he didn’t know how to say it.

Later that day a scrawny pony with a cream coat and no mane, who looked as if he hadn’t eaten well in days, snuck into the wagon and was nearly killed by Shimmer. This was until his cream coat rippled and turned into grey, with brown patches on his hooves and throat. An orichalcum helmet-mask also appeared over the pony’s head. It was Sullen Hoof, with a magic disguise.

“Sorry…” Shimmer said, looking embarrassed.

Sullen Hoof shrugged: “We should have agreed on how I should identify myself when I’m disguised. We can talk about that to the others later. Where’s Cash? I have a copy of the caravan’s cargo manifest, need to talk to him, then Speaker”

Cash had not returned from his attempted audience with the guild factor leading the caravan, so Shimmer couldn’t oblige Sullen Hoof on that point, but Speaker was still up on the roof.

Up on the roof of the wagon Speaker had been trying to understand why he’d behaved as he had back when he’d lost his memories. Suddenly Sullen Hoof landed next to him, having jumped up to him, landing silently.

“I figured you’d be best to evaluate the medicine the caravan is bringing” Sullen Hoof said, retrieving the cargo manifest from elsewhere. It was a hastily scribbled, but at the same time very well written scroll, listing everything the guild caravan was bringing along.

Speaker skimmed through the lists. Sullen Hoof carefully observed his facial expression. A certain seagull landed on Speaker’s left shoulder, reading along as well.

From what Sullen Hoof could tell then Speaker’s face seemed to alternate between a frown, deeply furrowed brows and wrinkled forehead. After a while Speaker took a deep breath, looked to his left and raised an eyebrow at Shimmer in her seagull form, then to his right at Sullen Hoof: “Some of this stuff makes sense, but a lot of it will only make things worse”
Sullen Hoof, whose main medical experienced could be summed up as ‘Poison is bad for you, and stop the bleeding when cut’, had no idea what Speaker meant, but listened on.

Speaker explained that most of the medicine that the caravan was bringing was aimed at combating the symptoms of the plague, but wouldn’t cure it. There were dried herbs that could be made into medicinal teas which would help break fevers. There were other herbs and powders would which cause constipation, and then there were a ton of drugs – the bad sort.
“Ok, hold on, stuff to give make a pony constipated? Why would that be good when you have the plague?” Sully wondered, looking confused even with his helmet-mask on.

Shimmer jumped down from Speaker’s shoulder and turned back into a pony, looking at Sullen Hoof: “Have you ever seen an outbreak of plague?”

“I’ve heard of some of the dock areas and sailor hostels in Nexus occasionally getting outbreaks. The emissary usually just swoops in and kills everyone infected, then the council sends in the sijaneese with their ghostblooded morticians to clear out the dead. If it gets really bad the council orders the area burned to the ground… then it’s back to business” Sullen Hoof regaled, not entirely at ease with the memories of seeing entire blocks burning down, with any pony who tried to escape the flames being shot by archers and other mercenaries.

“Well that’s Nexus for you – anything that can disrupt trade getting killed” Speaker said, shaking his head: “Plague starts as a fever with diarrhea, then you get rashes a week later, which turn black. They form at the soft tissue around your nose, mouth, ears, groin. Then they swell and the boils form. The fever doesn’t break and two weeks after your first symptoms you die from not being able to hold food inside and your body cooking from the strain of the fever. An ugly way to die… although luckily there aren’t that many worse diseases… anymore”

Sullen Hoof was silent for a moment. Shimmer asked Speaker if he’d ever treated plague victims, to which Speaker said that what Sully had described was the usual ‘cure’: “Quarantine and fire. Wood aspected unicorns can cure any disease, even plague, but with a city of ten thousand then you’d need an army of unicorns to sweep the city, and only Lookshy and the realm can field that kind of forces in this day and age – and they have to match the realm militarily, so Lookshy can’t spare that many unicorns for the healer’s trade”

“So… what are you going to do then? If an army of dragonblooded unicorn healers can’t be raised to cure a city of the plague, how will you?” Shimmer wondered, sounding like a young filly asking a pony she was a great fan of how he would surely solve a problem.

Speaker shrugged, said that he would have to see the situation first, then his face grew grim: “Secondly, this caravan is carrying a lot of drugs… so it looks like the pony in charge thinks that if he can’t profit from selling medicine that won’t cure anypony, his merchants can sell enough opium, hashish and heroin to make them forget they’re sick as they die”
One didn’t have to be a master of social subtleties to see that Speaker didn’t appreciate this business model. Cash returning to the wagon moments later, smelling of wine, whores and his silks stained with various bodily fluids, didn’t improve Speaker’s mood, especially not after bragging triumphantly about how the guild factor in the front wagon has a whole brothel set up there, or how the guild factor had a brilliant plan about selling drugs to the sick to ensure profit no matter what.

The next day the caravan made a halt. It had come across a creek in the seemingly endless forest and the massive guild wagons took a while to be hauled through the mud as they kept sinking into the water. The rest of the caravan spent the time refilling their water supplies, and the circle chucked Cash in the stream to clean him up as at this point, after another few visits to the brothel up in the front of the caravan, he smelled like a brothel himself. Suffice to say then caravan travel meant that you didn’t get to bathe very often, and even the dragonblooded espoused cleanliness as a virtue if nothing else.

The following weeks passed marvelously uneventfully. Speaker, Sullen Hoof, Sunrise and Shimmer all agreed that it wasn’t that good that the guild factor leading the caravan wanted to sell tons of drugs to the plague-ridden city of Chung Do. Red was understandably conflicted about the situation: “We need the caravan to get the medicine there – the drugs is just how they plan to turn a profit…”

Speaker didn’t push the topic anymore after that. It was clear that Red still had the mercenary spirit going for her: Money was to be made, and Cash was doing a great job in befriending the guild factor. The two were in fact getting very friendly, to the point that Cash even got the guild factor to agree to sponsor him to join the guild once done in Chung Do, when the guild factor would return to Nexus. A few days later Cash was strutting around all proud and cocksure, having been made the second in command of the caravan in all but name, after Shimmer identified a grove of very large mahogany trees and mentioned it to Cash. Apparently one of the giant guild wagons included a fully functional lumber mill and carpentry workshop, both for continuous maintenance of the guild wagons, and for constantly making new goods to sell – and fourty-eight huge mahogany logs could be made into a lot of really profitable furniture, especially with slave labor used for manufacturing it.

Speaker spent the time taking turns with Red in pulling the circle’s wagon. Shimmer would keep Speaker company while he had wagon-duty, but to her disappointment then Speaker didn’t seem ready to talk to her yet.

While not pulling the wagon Speaker spent most of his time meditating on his first age memories. He had to understand why he’d been so violent when all he remembered was the past. As a result of this Speaker ended up slowly recalling a number of martial arts techniques relating to his thousand wounds gear style, and him and Sullen Hoof had great fun sparing, especially once Speaker figured out the Rearing Crane Release technique, which was a special essence-augmented throwing technique for when you had grappled your opponent. It allowed Speaker to toss other ponies up in the air… and make them stay there, especially after he recalled how to make them not fall down again after a few seconds using essence to extend the effect.

Sullen Hoof wasn’t sure he could see the logic of a style based on an exotic chakram having tossing techniques as part of it. Speaker wasn’t entirely sure either, but deduced a good theory on it while watching Sullen Hoof drifting helplessly about four yards up in the air as Red pulled their wagon further away to keep up with the caravan:

“It’s simple: I need to keep my opponent both at range and standing still so I can hit them. Leaving you floating in the air makes you a nice big target to hit. It’s brilliant in this way; now brace yourself so you don’t hurt yourself when I let you fall down”

There was a brief rustling of leaves and broken sticks as Sullen Hoof landed exceptionally gracefully. At first it looked like Sullen Hoof was going to land on his back at an awkward angle, but a sudden essence-powered flipping motion allowed the night caste solar to shift his position mid-fall to land perfectly safe. Speaker was impressed.

It was a week or so later that Red told the circle that she was starting to recognize where they were. The caravan had finally cleared the large forest and had entered the Chung lands. Red figured that they were maybe two weeks away from Chung Do.

It was barely dawn a few days later at another stream where the caravan had made halt for the night to refill its water supply – and for Cash to wash off several weeks of partying hard with the guild factor. The two now spoke to each other as if brothers. Cash was certain that with his hoof in the door with the guild he’d have control of the whole organization in a month once he got to Nexus. Considering how he had the guild factor eating out of the palm of his hoof at this point, that wasn’t entirely unrealistic. Speaker wasn’t sure if that was good or not.

It was Sullen Hoof who woke everyone up in the small wagon, screaming from the top of his lungs as he burst in: “They’re dead! They’re all dead!!”

A frantic scramble quickly saw everypony tumbling out of the wagon, half-dressed – except for Sunrise Glow who slept in her white hooded cloak, never seeming to take it off, which showed from how dirty it was getting.

The sight that greeted them was so gruesome that none of the ponies could utter a word – except Sunrise Glow, who upon seeing the rotting remains of almost the entire caravan ahead of them, including the guild wagons which had been reduced to moldy bits of collapsed timber, plus the thousands of dead ponies that had been in the caravan being in equally advanced states of decay, said: “Well fuck me”

Sunrise then gasped sharply in reaction to her own surprised statement, reaching for her mouth as she looked at the others, but everyone’s eyes were fixed on the carnage ahead of them to notice her lapse of self control.
Only the very back end of the wagon train trailing the main guild caravan hadn’t been obliterated.

Approaching the scene a sudden wave of horrible smells met the circle. Then other sleepy ponies started popping their heads out of their wagons, wondering what the shouting was about: “Oi, some of us are trying to sle-“ but their voices quickly fell silent when they saw the scene. Some shrieked in terror and popped their heads back in, several others fainted on the spot.

Speaker walked up to what had probably been three of the mercenary ponies that had been part of the guild caravan. They seemed to have been killed very quickly while patrolling, as they appeared to have just fallen over from a normal standing position. A second issue was everything being so incredibly rotten considering the short amount of time that had passed since Speaker had gone to bed. This wasn't just unnatural, it was weird. You would have to hose everything down in lukewarm water for a day at least first, then sprinkle loads of mold spores and other rot-catalysts, just to get everything to rot so evenly. To get everything to decay this quickly… Speaker didn't even want to know how you achieved that.

There was an eerie silence as Speaker walked down the length of the caravan and surveyed the damage. No wild animal noises in the darkness beyond the few still lit torches lying on the ground, or the few fires that had started in some some of the smaller wagons. To his horror the guild wagon that had carried the many tons of medicine to Chung Do was just as decayed as everything else. All that medicine. What was the ponies in Chung Do going to do? Sure it wouldn't have cured them, but it would have brought hope and given Speaker more time to work.

Speaker was about to break down in tears when Cash suddenly ran past, fresh smears of vomit revealing that he’d puked up last night’s dinner. Cash ran up to the guild factor’s wagon. Now, this wagon was the only one still standing, as it was partially made of a steel framework with thin stone slabs set up as walls and floor. Speaker had never been up to the guild factor’s wagon. The mercenaries protecting the caravan didn’t let anyone but the ponies ‘on the list’ anywhere near it. It was quite a sight. The massive stone wheels looked like oversized mill stones, and yet they were gilded on the rims! The stone slabs that made up the wall sections were carved with colorfully painted decorations that showed the guild factor heroically carving paths through new land, swimming in jade, and other illustrious ways of saying “I am filthy rich, you’re not, suck it”. What amazed Speaker the most was that it hadn’t been a yeddim. It was a tyrant lizard. Now it was but a hollow out pile of bones and rotting flesh in a large pool of putrid blood, but still, a guild factor who’s private wagon was pulled by a freaking tyrant lizard? Now that was impressive.

Cash stormed into the wagon, smashing through the moldy remains of the large dark mahogany doors that led into the lobby of the wagon. Speaker could then hear how Cash stopped very quickly and vomited again, then continuing up into the wagon’s higher levels.

Moments later Speaker heard Cash cry out, signaling that the guild factor was probably dead – and so were Cash’s dreams of a meteoric rise in the guild.

Cash came out a short while later, hauling a thick red jadesteel lockbox behind him. It looked pristine. At least Cash got something out of the situation – assuming that he could get it open. Sullen Hoof could probably help in that.

It turned out that Sullen Hoof was just as heartbroken as Cash. Speaker found the orichalcum-masked pony mourning next to one of rotting hulks of the guild wagons. Apparently Sullen Hoof’s cooking hadn’t just improved during their time in the caravan from Sully cooking for the circle: Sullen Hoof had been stealing food from the caravan to cook for and feed the slaves the caravan was bringing along. His plan had been to get them strong enough to rebel once they got to Chung Do, allowing him to free them all. He seemed well aware how this would rustle a lot of ponies’ jimmies, but he expected Sunrise and Cash to talk down anyone who wanted the slaves back.

The caravan had been transporting over five hundred slaves, crammed into one of the holds of that one guild wagon. They had been stuffed together like fish in a barrel. That Sullen Hoof had been able to bring food to them all seemed impossible enough to begin with – but now it had all been for naught, and it was evident that the slaves hadn’t been killed in advance of the necrotic horror that rotted away the caravan. What a horrible way to die.

Speaker and Sullen Hoof were both disrupted from their mourning when a new wave of horrified shrieks pierced the eerie silence. The sun was dawning, shedding light on the carnage, and in that light Speaker saw the source of the commotion: Shimmer had shifted into her beastpony form – which had freaked most of the other still living ponies out quite a lot.

Shimmer ignored this as she took off and flew the length of the caravan. She returned minutes later, landing near Speaker while giving off a shriek like some freakishly huge seagull. Shaking her feathered head she then spoke, with a grave tone of voice: “I know what did this”

This got the circle’s attention, as well as that of the few mortal ponies present who didn’t run away screaming from Shimmer: “I’ve seen essence like this near Skullstone. Necrotic essence. Necromancers did this – although I’ve never seen a necromancy spell do anything like this. They usually just mind-control ghosts or raise zombie ponies”

Speaker didn’t really know what to say. He remembered necromancy from the first age, when solars ‘invented it’ as they researched the mysteries of the newly created underworld following the primordial war. How could anything like that end up being used for something this destructive?

“The spell didn’t do all of this. Someone killed most of the mercs here first” Red noted, having recognized the injuries on some of the rotting merc corpses. Speaker wondered if she had any medical training since she was able to spot that – or maybe she was just good at recognizing the handiwork of other killer ponies?

Shimmer’s beastpony form’s third eye had allowed the lunar to spot essences traces of a large circle of glyphs that marked the area of effect of the spell. Someone had made them in a hurry, and to make it worse there was a really weird blood trail where the ethereal glyphs had been traced.

“Weird blood? I’ve seen a lot of blood, how’s it weird?” Red said. It was clear from her voice that she was only asking to distract herself from the fact that Chung Do now wouldn’t get any medicine. There was a quivering in her voice that betrayed her. It was so obvious that even Speaker noticed it.

“It wasn’t shed from anything living – it trailed off into the same essence that made the glyphs that outlined the spell. Magic blood made from necrotic essence. Never in over a hundred years at the edge of madness in the west have I seen anything like that” Shimmer said, drawing on her wisdom and experiences from back home.

There was an uncomfortable silence. Sighing, Cash Charmer asked the obvious question: “So, what do we do now?”

Looking at Red, who was clearly looking to the rest of the circle, Speaker wondered what to do. Shimmer was pondering the nature of the necrotic essence-made blood. Sunrise Glow wasn’t present. Sullen Hoof was distracting himself with the jadesteel lockbox.

To Speaker it seemed clear. With the indecisiveness of youth combined with a strange situation that none of the ponies present had any experience with, Speaker fell back on his gut instinct: “We do as solars must. We go to Chung Do, we save it from the plague and reunite Red with her family. Shimmer, a cloud please”

Red raised a stern hoof before Shimmer could reply to Speaker’s request: “Hold on – if we’re about to go into this kind of trouble, then they’re not going anywhere until you make me a new damn sword – you’ve been putting this off for weeks Speaker, and all the merc weapons have rusted into nothing from the spell”

It turned out that waiting a little before leaving was necessary even without having to make Red a new blade. Sunrise was walking around briefly touching each dead pony, using a tiny bit of essence to reduce their bodies to ash and to send their souls on to lethe for reincarnation. She wouldn’t be done with that for a while, and she was adamant about not leaving a single pony corpse behind, to avoid a shadowland forming:

“This much death here will do us no good. Plague is bad enough, shadowlands only make it worse”

Cash retrieved the steel bars he had purchased and Red marveled as Speaker used his essence to essentially wring a large an absolutely perfect broadsword out of the them. Sullen Hoof was equally intrigued at how Speaker had worked the metal without a forge or anvil. Speaker said that he could teach Sullen Hoof how to cook without the use of tools aside from his own essence if he wanted – but not now.

It was late evening before Sunrise Glow was done, having sent well over a thousand pony souls on their way and drained herself of essence quite thoroughly many times over, even with the hearthstone from the Denansdor manse set in her jade hearthstone bracer, one of the pairs also recovered from Denansdor, helping her respire more essence and thus allow her to incinerate more bodies.

The circle’s last act before leaving was giving the other survivors directions away from Chung lands – so they didn’t have to contend with any plague. They then lit the remains of the guild caravan on fire and flew off towards Chung Do.