The Scroll of Exalted Ponies

Digging Cash out of the collapsed hut revealed the true extent of his injuries. Red helped Cash hobble over to Speaker, after hacking off most of the splintered wooden beam that had skewered Cash’s left hindleg through his thigh – as well as slapping him quite hard to make him stop whining like a little filly, it only being a flesh-wound after all. Sure, it bled a lot, but to Red it was nothing so she didn’t see any cause for crying like a foal.

Speaker was reluctant to let go of Shimmer’s limp body to tend to Cash’s wound – but after both Red and Cash glared at him angrily Speaker relented, gently putting Shimmer’s upper half down into the by now darkened and thick puddle of Shimmer’s blood he’d been sitting in.

Cash had to admit that Speaker worked with cold professionalism as he ‘fixed’ his leg: A swift touch saw Speaker’s anesthetic charm administered, then the splintered wooden beam was pulled out with similar quiet brutality one might expect from a calmly grieving Lookshyan doctor. With pure essence Speaker manipulated the torn flesh and arteries – ignoring Cash who implored him not to leave any scaring behind, as it might mar his beautiful rump to the best of his ability. Speaker would hear nothing of it: “You’re lucky I don’t use army ants for stitches on you, now shut up”

After Cash had been treated Red dragged a reluctant Speaker over to Sullen Hoof. While Shimmer’s bisection had been swift and surprisingly clean, then Sullen Hoof had been roughly cut into, making for a gruesome injury – with the two of them not even entirely sure if Sullen Hoof was still alive… for he wasn’t moving anymore.

Ultimately Speaker found Sullen Hoof to be alive, as his medical charms simply wouldn’t work on the dead – or so he reasoned.

What followed was a swift and efficient application of essence, pulling Sullen Hoof’s cloven shoulder back together again – and thanks to Speaker’s powerful medical charms then even the shattered shoulder blade should heal over the next few days, a miraculous recovery by any standard.

Sullen Hoof was still unconscious from the bloodloss and trauma he’d experienced when Speaker finished stitching his shoulder back together with the finest strings of white shimmering essence, all illuminated by the pale white-gold light emitted by Speaker due to the rather substantial amounts of essence that he had spent on Cash and Sully at that point. The light was welcome, for at this wee hour of the evening there was no more twilight – only the pitch black darkness of night, with the moon being apparently being in its no-moon phase, denying creation the dim light of the silver chariot.

Red was also starting to feel better, her bruising not slowing her down anymore. This led her to try to do a quick survey of the surroundings – which wasn’t easy when her only sources of light were hers and Speaker’s animas. Doing this she spotted a few more casualties: Three ponies dead in the hut that Cash had crashed into, from the hut collapsing down on them and crushing them under the timbers, and two other unconcious ponies who’d been on patrol for the monster, who had fallen unconscious when the monster pony had arrived. They had been reduced to thin red smears on the ground by Shimmer as she’d stumbled back while in tyrant lizard form. They were collateral damage… and yet Red felt enourmous disappointed, as if she had failed these ponies as a solar.

Red briefly wondered if it wasn’t more prudent to try to hide away the dead villager ponies from the rest – maybe they could just say that the monster pony gobbled them up during the fight, or after it had defeated them? Oh that didn’t sit well her, the thought of having been defeated. She was a solar, a dawn caste! Speaker had told her that the dawn caste were invincible warrior ponies! …but she didn’t feel like one right now.

It was then that some of the rubble of the collapsed hut stirred, prompting Red to rush over to it – maybe there was a survivor! It turned out to be Sunrise Glow, completely unscathed but somewhat annoyed that her sleep had been interrupted, plus the fact that she was trapped under the rubble next to three dead ponies. Red bucked and tugged at the rubble, making for an awful racket, but it wouldn’t budge. Cash hobbled over, despite his leg injury and Speaker angrily shouting at Cash to not exert himself until his leg had healed, and helped Red get Sunrise free.

Out of the ruble, Sunrise Glow surveyed the darkness. Her robes were ripped, from getting caught in the hut, but for once that didn’t seem to worry her too much. First she climbed back into the rubble of the hut and flared her anima as she touched the three ponies inside, reducing them to ash and sending on their souls to reincarnation.

The two ponies who’d been smeared across the ground by the Shimmer-saurus were slightly more difficult to reduce to ash, as it required Red to help scoop their remains into a series of muddy bloody piles. Red expressed no small amount of disgust at doing so, noting that as a merc she rarely had to clean up the messes she’d make: “You know I’m starting to see why Cash wants to get us some servants…”

After Sunrise Glow had finished passing on the souls of the smeared ponies she finally came to Speaker and Shimmer.

“Speaker, I know you cared for her – you love life, but the sooner her soul is released the sooner she can reincarnate. If Luna is willing then her next incarnation will remember you and love you just as much as she did in this life” Sunrise Glow said, giving Shimmer a brief eulogy as she touched Shimmer’s brow and sent her essence of holy fire into Shimmer’s body.
Speaker wept as Shimmer’s body briefly glowed…

It was Red who made the obvious comment a few seconds later: “Uhm… shouldn’t her body have turned to ash by now?”
Speaker looked down. Shimmer’s body was still there.

Ok, this was reasonably weird.

Speaker quickly checked over the top half of Shimmer’s body. No pulse, getting colder, no breath… and yet she wasn’t turning to ash?

“I can only turn dead bodies to ash” Sunrise glow calmly said, sounding just a little annoyed that Shimmer’s body wasn’t cooperating.

Red pulled the rear half of Shimmer’s body over to Speaker. It left a bloody trail on the ground, the pool of blood mixing with the dirt to form a gory quagmire of blood. Speaker found it very uncomfortable to be able to look down into Shimmer’s exposed guts.

Checking over the rear half of the corpse revealed a stark difference. This half of Shimmer’s body was much colder – and what he had thought to be the result of being a pony from the western archipelago on Shimmer’s torso and forelegs, that they weren’t entirely limp, was now very suspect.

“But… you said it yourself, no pulse and no breath – plus she’s been cut in half – no pony can live through that” Red said in disbelief.

Speaker thought long and hard at what he was looking at. Shimmer’s diaphragm had been severed so she wouldn’t have been able to breathe, and with all the bloodloss there wasn’t enough fluid in her veins to maintain a blood pressure or a pulse… but both of these events would always be lethal, right?! What kind of lunar trickery would allow a pony to cheat death itself?

“Let me patch her up first – then we’ll see if we can find out what’s going on” Speaker suggested, trying to maintain a professional attitude to stave off his continued urge to cry. It hurt knowing that he was getting his hopes up, as the nagging dread that it would all be in vain weighed heavily on him.

Had Shimmer’s front half been alive and… well… not kicking, but at least shown signs of life then Speaker would have been tempted to use an unholy flankload of essence to just regrow everything below her waist. Severed bodyparts can deteriorate fairly quickly depending on the circumstances, so the question was if there was anything salvageable...

First Speaker healed Shimmer’s spinal cord, reconnecting both halves of her body at just that crucial junction. To Red and Cash’s surprise then Shimmer’s rear legs bucked a little when the final connection was restored. Speaker harshly told them to not get their hopes up: “I’ve seen ponies with spinal injuries react the same when you prod at their spinal columns – it’s their bodies reacting, not the pony willing it to happen”

Next up Speaker stitched together most of the damaged organs, placing Shimmer on her back as he fiddled around down in her guts. Cash couldn’t stand looking at the gory sight, as Speaker had blood up to his flank, all of it glistening sickly in the pale golden light from Speaker’s caste mark in the pitch black darkness. Speaker finally managed to reconnect her severed trachea to the bit of it connected to her stomach.

The severed parts of Shimmer’s lungs were difficult to salvage. As she had been bisected the lower ends of her lungs had been severed completely – and Red was having trouble finding the bits of lung in the darkness, as the bloody mud caked around her hooves, making for countless mushy piles of gore that all looked like tiny bits of muddy and bloody organ tissue.
Ultimately Speaker simply closed off the holes in Shimmer’s lungs. The moment he pulled the final essence-strand stitch taught Shimmer’s entire body jerked.

Speaker jerked backwards, his head and forehooves having been fully immersed in Shimmer’s still open abdomen. Shimmer’s body was thrashing around frantically, more of her intestines falling out with each jerky spasm.

Red, Cash and Sunrise were all equally caught by surprise – looking on in horror, except Sunrise Glow who’s hood still obscured her face.

Speaker’s mind ached to make sense of what he was seeing. When he spotted Shimmer’s lips turning blue things started, to a certain extent, to make sense… and he pounced on Shimmer, forcing his anesthetic charm into it: “She’s conscious!!”
As quickly as he could Speaker pried open Shimmer’s mouth and flushed her airways out with essence, re-inflating her lungs. Shimmer made once final powerful twitch and inhaled sharply, followed by a lot of coughing.

Cash fainted, dropping to the ground with a wet splash – him landing in an ever thicker and muddy puddle of blood, ruining his silks once again.

Speaker was beyond himself in joy, his eyes full of tears, calling for Red and Sunrise to get water to wash Shimmer down. With that said he urged Shimmer to stop moving so he could stuff her guts back inside and stitch up the skin around her belly.

As Shimmer slowly got her breath back her eyes opened, which was followed by a deluge of tears – and Speaker found it hard to tell her to remain quiet and immobile while his essence sewed her belly shut.

“Oh don’t… I can do that on my own” Shimmer said with a weak voice, closing her eyes.

Shimmer’s caste mark lit up and every wound she had – both inside and outside – glowed with a bluish white light which faded as flesh and tissue healed in mere seconds.

Speaker shook his head: “But how… how did you survive?”

Shaking her head and gingerly getting up on her hooves, Shimmer took a couple of deep breaths: “I did what I’m good at: Quick thinking”

Shimmer explained that the moment she was cut in half she’d activated two charms she’d never really used in concert before. One was a combat charm that allowed her to ignore otherwise fatal blows that would kill her – for obvious reasons. The other one was a hibernation charm, for while the first charm had let her power through her bisection then her body still needed certain things – like breathing and a steady flow of blood. The hibernation charm was a powerful one that put her in a dreamless slumber, removing her body’s need for breath, blood, food or warmth. Shimmer had been told stories of powerful lunars who’d hidden for centuries in the wyld using that charm.

“…but, would you have slept forever if I hadn’t put you back together?” Speaker wondered.

Shimmer smiled: “The hibernation charm is flexible. When I use it I have to choose a maximum length of time I wish to sleep, plus I made it in such a way that I’d wake up if or when I could breathe again… and you triggered that far earlier”
Speaker wasn’t sure if he wanted to know how long Shimmer had otherwise opted to sleep. Right now he was just elated.
Taking a few careful steps, Shimmer noted that she was still sore all through her insides… which was understandable. Speaker said that it’d be at least a few days – possible a couple of weeks – before her body had fully recovered. In passing he also noted that the same applied to Cash and Sullen Hoof, even though their injuries were much less than that of Shimmer’s.

The sun dawned not long after, and the ponies of the village started coming to – and were greeted with the crusty pools of blood that had stained the middle of the village red. There was some screaming, shouting, even more so when the collapsed hut was taken apart and only ashes were found inside – or the two other missing ponies who’d stood watch’s ashes were found.

While Cash Charmer would have liked to have helped with crowd control this his leg still made it difficult to pose and posture properly – and how would he have been able to speak to the ponies in the village if he couldn't strut or move about properly? Ultimately Sunrise Glow had the whole of the village bowing graciously to the whole circle within the first hour. By noon she was holding mass in honor of Celestia’s sun being at its zenith.

In the afternoon Sunrise Glow presided over her second burial ceremony, having already helped bury the remains of the foals she’d gotten down from the days the previous day.

Sullen Hoof came too during the ceremony, necessitating Speaker using his anaesthetic charm again. With Sully conscious, albeit still woozy, the circle’s warrior’s planned for the next arrival of the monster. Direct confrontation seemed impossible, and fooling the monster with a doll didn’t appear to be possible.

While still weak and without the lunar regeneration charms that Shimmer had used to bring her back to full strength, Sullen Hoof did have a few insightful observations to make:

“When the monster spoke last night – do any of you recall how it spoke?” Sullen Hoof said, his breathing labored underneath his golden mask.

Speaker was honestly less interested in hearing Sullen Hoof’s insightful wisdom, wanting rather to know why Sullen Hoof hadn’t taken his orichalcum helmet off – for it was clearly not helping Sully in his weakened state.

“No, it stays on – maybe I’ll take it off another time – but for now just listen” Sullen Hoof said stubbornly with labored breathing, weakly stomping a hoof down into the still darkened dirt.

Sullen Hoof continued to explain that prior to exalting one of the things he were good at was stalking other ponies and getting a read on them, in order to impersonate them and whatnot, usually so he could get into fine restaurant kitchens… but after exalting he’d found that he could do the same with but a few minutes of observation, instead of having to stalk ponies for days to learn everything about them. The point was that he’d gotten such a read on the monster pony… and depending on what interpretation he used, then this insight could give the circle a great edge for the monster’s next raid.
“Ok, so what’s the problem?” Red said impatiently.

Sullen Hoof sighed: “The monster sounded feral – but it wore armor. That sounds like a demon or some kind of ghost, but it conjured a giant sword and wielded it expertly, no feral monster I know of can do that. Equally, I don’t know anything about demons but if it was snatching foals it’d probably do that for some kind of sacrifice… that’s the only thing that makes sense – but’s not sacrificing them, it just killed the foal on the blunt rod”

Speaker nodded: “So what you’re saying is that the outcome of your analysis depends on how you choose to interpret your observations – and you can’t decide which one to go for, since none of them add up?”

Cash chortled: “You’re forgetting that it talked. There’s definitely a mind inside of it – although I’m not sure if it’s very much”
Sullen Hoof gave Cash a piercing gaze through his mask: “What do you mean?”

“Well it sounded stupid. When it threw me it went ‘ha ha stupid pony crash’, who talks like that? Speaker’s already ruled out that it’s some kind of changeling since it’s not eating the souls of the foals. I think it’s some kind of twisted pony who’s really stupid” Cash said, sounding reasonably sure of himself.

Speaker didn’t buy Cash’s theory: “How do you explain the ghost limbs the beast had? Or its head? That’s not what a pony looks like”

Cash smiled: “True, but did any of you get a look of where its limbs or neck connected to the monster pony’s dark armor?”
Red, Sullen Hoof, Shimmer and even Speaker had to admit that they hadn't really gotten a look at that particular detail.

“I got a good look its shoulder and neck when I tried to aim for its eyes. Shrivelled and dried up wounds. Now ghosts don’t have that, do they? I think it’s some kind of stupid pony who got lured into participating in some dark rituals or something – I mean, I don’t think it’s the monster pony who put up the rods. It has masters, masters with dark powers and connections to the underworld if what Speaker said about the soulsteel is correct” Cash said, nodding to his own words.

Speaker mulled over what Cash said for a moment. It actually made sense in a way: “Ok, so how do we make a trap for a fool we cannot fight directly?”

Shimmer started smiling: “Leave that to me – Speaker, you need to hide all the ponies in the village. I’m sure that the monster pony tracks the foals via scent. Well no, it tracks down ponies via scent, then feels its way around for a small enough pony with the tentacle-leg thing… so we just need to hide the other ponies so the monster can’t smell them, then I’ll be the bait in foal-form again. For the trap I’m thinking a really deep hole in the ground. You make that with your singing staff right? Red, Sully and Cash you three find something heavy, pointy and hopefully lethal to drop on ugly once he’s in the pit”

Speaker took a deep breath and recalled his singing staff from elsewhere. This was going to be a really deep pit…
Several hours, breakfast and some deep thoughts while drawing up designs in his book later Speaker had made the perfect trap for a monster pony. It didn’t even need what Red, Sully and Cash had found to drop on the monster, although the trees they’d marked to cut down and drop on the monster as pointed tree trunks did ultimately make for a nice addition to the lid Speaker had made.

Shimmer had to admit: Speaker had really outdone himself. With the singing staff and its power to shape stone and earth to whatever tune Speaker played, the twilight caste solar had made a masterful series of constructions – even making a replacement for the hut that had been destroyed.

Speaker had, by moving and shaping earth and stone, built a beautiful stone longhouse as a new village centerpiece to replace the destroyed hut. Next to the longhouse he had excavated an entrance down into an underground stone-tiled hall. The underground hall was clad in smoothed stone of many colors that flowed together as if it was an oil painting, and there was an elaborate built-in venting system connected to a chimney that led out air high up so a monster on ground level wouldn’t be able to track the scents of the air that came out of the place, while the air being sucked in via an air-pump powered by an equally brilliant stone waterwheel system connected to a nearby creek, which kept the underground shelter full of fresh air.

The underground shelter itself was deep below ground, making it an otherwise ideal storage facility for the village for the winter – so it would remain useful after the monster had been taken care of. The amount of earth and stone moved and decorated would have taken months, if not years. Speaker had done it in a few hours with his singing staff and his essence – and it had sounded very beautiful while he had worked.

As for the trap the whole circle agreed: It was impossible to spot at ground level, but if Shimmer in foal-form sat in the right spot she would be sitting on a thin layer of dirt and stone, just thick enough to support a foal, beneath which was a hundred yard deep pit lined with jagged stone protrusions that all pointed downwards, making leaping up a very dangerous task. The only question was whether the beast would jump away when the ground would give away – but Shimmer reassured the circle that she had a way of keeping the monster put.

“Ok, but if you keep it put, how will you avoid fall into the pit with it?” Speaker wondered.

Shimmer sauntered over to Speaker and leapt at him, turning into a flea in the process. If it wasn’t for landing perfectly on one of his eyelashes on his lower right eyelid, and flaring her anima banner so she looked like a black ember surrounded by blue-white flames then Speaker wouldn’t’ have seen her – even if her speak-in-animal-form charm allowed him to hear her: “I’ll turn into a fly on the wall – or something similar – and get out before you close the lid”

The plan seemed clear and Shimmer certain in her role as bait – this time from the very beginning. At nightfall the village ponies huddled together in the deep underground vault that Speaker had excavated with his music. A young filly by the name of Littlepip had been frightened by going into what appeared to be darkness of the vault, but thanks to Speaker’s built in ventilation system then great stone braziers could easily burn and light up the underground hall without smoking up the place, which made the villagers far more at ease.

The circle also readied itself – although Sullen Hoof and Cash had joined the village ponies in the underground vault, as their injures did not allow them to fight just yet. Sullen Hoof especially needed at least another week of absolutely no strenuous activity in order to recover properly – the alternate was Speaker shouting at him for not obeying the good doctor’s orders and Sullen Hoof seemed to respect Speaker too much to disobey him like that.

As darkness fell Red readied herself. Her role for this ambush was more of a backup: If the monster pony didn’t go in the pit the easy way she was there to put the monster in the hole the hard way. Cash had even offered to lend Red his shoes of distant claws, but Speaker was quick to point out that you couldn’t just swap out attunement – a device made of the magical materials had to be removed from its user for a full day and night before a spiritual connection like that would fade, adding that items stored elsewhere were always spiritually close by, since it was by that link that one could always recall them.

Red had hidden herself in a hut where she could see the site of the trap clearly, with Speaker behind her with both Gift and his singing staff at the ready, in case the pit needed to be reinforced once the monster was in the trap.

A key element to the trap was disarming the monster: The grand soulsteel daiklaive that the monster wielded had to be removed. This was both Red and Speaker’s job. Shimmer simply had to remain in one piece this time and lure the monster in. Sunrise Glow had also insisted that she take part in the proceedings, at least as an observer if nothing else.

As darkness finally fell and the monster pony arrived, apparently completely oblivious of the previous night’s events, it instantly closed in on Shimmer who once again was in the form of a unicorn foal. Speaker found the form oddly disturbing – for it even displayed a different cutie mark, one of a sword in front of a mountain, which fit her white coat and horn, as it matched the markings of an earth aspected unicorn.

The monster closed in at a casual pace, making no attempts to be either stealthy or swift in its approach. It left no hoof prints.

As Shimmer felt a familiar semi-solid shadow tentacle wrap around her she used her charms to make hooves extend subtle claws, hooking her onto the thin lid of earth and stone that covered the pit. The monster pulled at her, but she remained put. It walked up to her and revealed its grotesque visage, to which Shimmer let out a very convincing cry for help – her cue for Red and Speaker. Speaker played the very brief notes that made up the ancient dirge of the sprung pit-trap, collapsing the thin lid on top of the pit.

Instantly Shimmer turned into a tiny insect and flew up into the sky while the monster pony roared in confused and flailed its shadow-tentacle limbs. It quickly sank down as the earth gave way – but shadow tentacles shot up with hook-like ends which dug into the ground.

Red quickly ran out and bucked at the shadow-limb hooks, loosening one, but by the time she got to the other the monster pony had pulled itself up! The monster roared and its aura of ground organs and misty blood appeared once again, forcing Red to steel herself and call her harried blade from elsewhere.

The monster pony responded in kind forming its massive daiklaive of edged shadow and sharp pain.

Gift suddenly buzzed through the air at great speed out the door of the hut that Speaker was in, its spinning teeth catching the edge of the dark blade and spinning it away from its cruel wielder. Red responded quickly, catching the blade in her mouth which burnt her lips due to its terrible nature, the sizzling sound from her mouth abating as she quickly shifted to hold the blade only by biting down on it with her teeth.

Now the only issue now was getting ugly down the hole… and it seemed far more interested in getting its giant blade back.
A light suddenly made the monster howl and turn around: Sunrise Glow, her anima at its most potent – revealing the true form of her soul and exaltation, a miniature golden sun rising above her and shining beautiful and bright.

The young would-be mare stepped forth against the monster with an iron will and the sound of ever-resolute determination in her voice: “Creature of darkness. Abomination. I deny you and your being. You will not build your house here – for by mandate of heaven this is my land!”

The monster snarled and approached, but seemed to be in no small amount of discomfort by the glow of her blazing anima. Sunrise didn’t seem intimidated by the approaching monster: “By my brightness, BURN!”

There was a split second pause. Barely enough to blink the eye – and in that moment the looming monster, with its blood red orbs for eyes in its semi-transparent black head, began to emit a bellowing roar of pain. One blink later and the dark beast wholly engulfed in phantasms of white flame that quickly began to eat away at the shadow limbs…

The beast began to twist around and buck, panicking as it tried to throw off the flaming phantasms that assailed it.

Sunrise continued her furious verbal condemnation of the monster pony, seemingly the very sanctity of her words and the force of her essence smiting the beast with each utterance from her mouth. Seeing the sudden turn of events Speaker quickly fiddled a few quick tunes on his singing staff, marking arrows in the dirt for Sunrise to verbally ‘herd’ the burning monster along.

“Demon of the darkest pit! The heavens turn their eyes from you. Your ashes will be left in the mud of the farthest reaches and the very memory of you will be expunged from creation. Now, vile thing for darkness, back to the pit you came from!” the young adolescent firm said, speaking like a true preacher of the highest conviction.

The dark beast stumbled backwards, fires erupting in front and to the sides, herding it to the pit – while small jets and wispy phantasms of holy flame kept the things head distracted, so that it could not turn to look where it was going. With a final booming shout, far louder and more forceful – both verbally and physically – than a small adolescent pony should naturally be able to produce, Sunrise literally pushed the monster pony into the pit: “FALL!”

Speaker quickly played the music on the singing staff that had rolled the heavy stone lid over on the pit and merged that stone with the pit’s foundations. Red instantly felt the magical tug on the dark shadowblade lessen and cease, allowing her to drop the blade safely. Dropping it to the ground the shadowblade turned the tufts of grass it touched to ash… and her lips didn’t feel that different. Hopefully Speaker could fix that later.

One aspect of the pit that Speaker hadn’t been able to ‘fix’ was that with a pit so deep that ground water kept seeping into it. It had filled the bottom eight yards of the hundred yard deep pit. Of course, this would hopefully keep the beast alive… because a quick death-by-impact was far too good for it – plus it would be tired from treading in the water. Sure it might drown… but that was a really nasty way to die, something Speaker had learned well since he’d been trained to both resist and administer water torture as part of his special training when he served Lookshy, so that didn’t bother him at all: He relished in the thought of the beast suffering by his creation.

The circle breathed a collective sigh of relief. The villagers who had been able to restrain themselves from peeking out at the fight, and thus were still conscious, all rushed out and cheered as well – Speaker noticing quite a lot of them cheering “Praise Celestia!”.

From down in the pit, through a small vent that Speaker had ‘played’ into the rock lid, a lot of frantic splashes and loud roaring – and, as Cash had predicted, very simplistic swearing: “Sword! Gimma sword! Don’t like cold wet!”

It was almost pitiful to hear the lamentations of the monster, but when dawn came it had quieted down. A villager was put on guard near the vent to sound the alarm if the splashing ever stopped – because that would have meant the monster would have drowned…

During that day the village held a grand feast – with Sullen Hoof heading up most of the cooking. The plan was to fish the monster up at the end of the party and then execute it as the sun set… but a few hours before that the pony who’d stood watch over the lid-vent came running to the circle: “Uhm… the monster, it wants to talk?”