The Scroll of Exalted Ponies

While the rest of the village continued their now evening celebrations, the circle tentatively approached the vent in the sealed lid to the ‘monster-pit’. There was little to no sound to be heard from it. No splashing or sound of a monster trying to avoid sinking…

The sun had almost set as Sunrise Glow called out to the monster-pony: “Beast, you wish to speak to us? Know that if you try to trick us we will destroy you”

The voice that came from the pit was the faint echo of a deep rumbling voice, menacing to hear even when quiet as whisper. Cash Charmer and Sullen Hoof both took a few steps unnerved steps back from the vent, while Speaker looked very apprehensive, especially considering what the monster-pony said next: “I wish you to thank you all”

Speaker’s first thought was that this was a trap of some kind. He clearly wasn’t the only pony to have this idea, as Shimmer, Sullen Hoof and Red all had the same look on their face – except Sully because of his mask.

The voices sounded again. It was very different from how the monster-pony had spoken previously, for now it was eloquent and well spoken – but just as monstrous: “I can understand that you would all feel some hesitation to believe me. I can assure you that I am genuinely grateful”

“And why are you so happy? Finally found a worthy opponent?” Red shouted angrily.

There was a moment’s pause, but then a reply came: “No, you separated me from my cursed blade. I was fooled into attuning to it by my now… lets say former master. It took away my ability to think properly, making me the idiot monster you fought last night”

Speaker thought about the statement for a moment. It did usually take a day and a night to break the attunement between an artifact and a pony, for he seen for in Lookshy he had seen unicorns complain that jade weapons they rarely used were bothersome to reattune to – but a blade that robs its user of its mind? That was unheard of, even back in the first age! Who would make such a thing? …maybe the same kind of monster who would send a mindless minion to steal foals and siphon their souls into soulsteel rods?

“I can assure you all: I will not harm any of you should you release me – but I will also not resist should you wish to kill me. I surrender completely to you” the monster-pony rumbled from deep in the pit.

Speaker shrugged. This would make executing the monster so much more easy. He was about to summon Gift when Cash interrupted him: “Oh come on Speaker – we have to know who it’s masters are, if there are more of its sort that’ll come and finish the job here and what exactly it is. You said yourself that it wouldn’t have been able to make all those soulsteel rods on its own. There no sense in having done all this we leave and another monster-pony comes to replace this one”

With no small amount of reluctance Speaker nodded. Cash then shouted into vent: “Ok monster, but if we are to let you out you will have to submit to us utterly – and swear a magical oath to that effect”

There was a brief sound of splashing noises followed by silence for a few minutes. The silence was suddenly and quite unnervingly broken as the monster spoke. Cash made a startled leap backwards. The source of the monster-pony’s voice was coming from just the other side of the vent: “So agreed”

A very thin shadow tentacle snaked its way up through the vent: “Shake on it?”

Cash looked very unhappy at having to touch the tentacle – but he had to if he was to sanctify the oath. He briefly swiped at the tentacle with his right forehoof, his castemark lighting up. Golden bands of old realm glyphs appeared in the air, spelling out the terms of the oath in the ancient tongue, flowing from Cash’s caste mark down into the vent.

“Ok monster, here are your orders for the time being: You will do as we say. You will not disobey us. You will not harm any of us or these villagers through action or inaction unless permitted by us. Are we clear?” Speaker shouted, surprising Red at just how much he could sound like an ornery drill instructor.

“Of course” the monster-pony said, sounding more like it was saying the same to a pony who had asked whether or not that pony was about to be eaten alive.

Speaker looked at Cash with worried eyes. Cash shrugged: “He swore, I sanctified, so we’re covered – now come on, whip out your music stick and let him out – I promised”

The circle cleared the platform and Speaker recalled his singing staff from elsewhere. As Speaker played the music on the staff that unsealed the lid of the pit a liquid darkness flowed from the crack – the liquid quickly solidified and helped to move the lid over, ultimately allowing a very strange and scary thing to emerge.

The few villager ponies who’d seen the circle talk to the monster now called to alarm. The festivities stopped and an angry mob quickly formed, pitchforks, torches and everything.

Sunrise Glow would have nothing of the mob, turning to face the crowd and shouting at them to calm themselves – adding that they should be ashamed of themselves not to trust the heaven-sent solars and their judgement. The crowd dispersed with some grumbling, the ponies of the village quickly returning to their huts, the longhouse, and some to the shelter.

The monster-pony now stood before the circle at the edge of the pit. With the bonfires from the party still blazing the monster-pony was well-lit for once, revealing its true horrifying nature: Taller than even Speaker’s large and stout physique, its thick limbs were translucent shadow-limbs as was its head. Its face was like a nightmarish creation of living shadow-flesh with oversized fangs of solid black while its lidless red eye-orbs seemed to be spheres of blood, rippling ever so slightly as the monster looked around. Its voice was unlike anything that even the best storytellers could describe or emulate to scare young foals; throaty and deep, with a raspy ‘beyond the grave’ feel to it: “Ah, thank you. To whom exactly do I owe my gratitude?”

“Why don’t you tell us who and what you are first?” Red said, still sounding angry, her very worn blade hovering next to her in an attack position, suspended in a golden glow.

The monster bowed its head and formally introduced itself: “I am the Bodhisattva of Resurgent Misery and Lost Causes. That is my title, for I have no name. I am a deathknight in the service of the deathlord known as the Barbate Arbiter of Unbound Gravitas and Unrelenting Fury, but as of this moment I renounce that service”

Speaker was intrigued. What was a deathlord? What was a deathknight? Were all deathknights like this one? Red seemed less impressed: “Wait, so you’re like the ones who took Thorns?”

Speaker perked up at the mention of Thorns. Last he’d been near that particular realm satrap had been eight years ago, during the final battles of the last realm invasion of the scavenger lands. Lookshy and the rest of the confederation of rivers defeated Thorns there, putting the realm in its place. So what was this about taking Thorns? Speaker inwardly cursed the fact that he’d been out of the loop since his retirement.

The Bodhisattva had a very grim story to tell about Thorns - for apparently three years ago the deathlord known as the Mask of Winters overran the much weakened Thorns, turning it into a giant shadowland and taking every risen ghost as a slave, plus animating the remains of the dead into zombies or skeletan golems. The Bodhisattva did claim that there was still a living population in thorns, but it was shrinking rapidly instead of growing.

Speaker was suddenly a lot less enthusiastic about talking about Thorns.

The bodhisattva digressed: “My master, the Barbate Arbiter, seeks to aid all the other deathlords in any way he can. In my addled state I was working for a necromancer with a lair set in the swamps west of Chung Do to make… things. I never understood what he was making, but now that I can think again I am certain that it will not bode well if his work is finished”
The circle mulled about this grim revelation for a moment. The bodhisattva elaborated that this made the Barbate Arbiter unique among deathlords, for the rest apparently didn’t do much in cooperation, preferring to pursue their own strategies.
“Hold on – just how many of your kind are there?” Shimmer asked.

The bodhisattva shrugged – although it looked more as if his shadow limbs simply wobbled a bit: “Enough that the thirteen deathlords are certain in the inevitability of their success…”

It was at this point that Sullen Hoof made the rest of the circle aware of the angry mob of ponies gathering around them, the ponies of village slowly emerging from their hidey holes with pitchforks and torches again. They wanted the monster that had killed their foals killed, not simply entertained with light conversation – and while Speaker started to worry that the circle at the Bodhisattva would have to run for it, then Cash boldly limped forth and addressed the crowd.

Speaker couldn’t tell what flavors of charms that Speaker was using, but he was sure that there were some in play, for Cash’s caste mark lit up: “Come now good ponies – the beast has surrendered to us! We have won! By taking away the cursed blade that enslaved his mind through foul dark magic, we have ensured that he will never kill another pony in this village again. Now, while we share your thirst for revenge, then I hope you can all understand that we have to know whether other dark creatures will come once we take this one away. Think of your foals! We may have stopped one, but what if another comes when we leave to Chung Do? We have to know where this one is from so we might stop them at the source”
The faces on the angry ponies turned from anger to nods of understanding, some even cheered Cash on as they realized the truth in his words. The crowd withdrew and returned to their previous celebrations, no longer that afraid of the monster in their midst, although most with slightly dampened spirits.

Sunrise Glow suggested that they held the rest of the interrogation elsewhere, out of sight of the village. After a short walk out of the village the Bodhisattva continued his tale, explaining that while he had been told that there were thirteen Deathlords in total, with the Barbate Arbiter and the Mask of Winters being but two of them, then he honestly did not know of others.

“I do” Shimmer noted, looking dour: “In the west, to the north of the archipelago there’s Skullstone, ruled by the Silver Prince – I’ve heard that one of his titles is Deathlord, I just never thought it meant anything. I mean, Skullstone is weird enough already with half its citizens being ghosts and whatnot, but the Silver Prince isn’t aggressive towards any of the other island nations… I just thought that was what you called a pony who lorded over the dead”

The Bodhisattva confirmed that the name sounded familiar, and that the remaining deathlords had holds and secret dominions scattered all over creation.

“And what exactly do they want?” Red asked bluntly. She did not like the answer she was given by the Bodhisattva: “To destroy creation, at the behest of the neverborn – so that they might finally pass on to oblivion”

None in the circle spoke for a moment as the celestial exalts digested that shocking bit of news. Sullen Hoof did ask why the Bodhisattva had said that his former master, the Barbate Arbiter, simply supported the other deathlords – but upon saying that he realized that in supporting them that deathlord still worked to bring about the death of all things…

“How exactly do you ‘destroy’ creation? Kill all ponies? Burn all of the forests of the east?” Cash wondered, thinking about the vast organizational nightmare it would be to coordinate a world-wide destruction scheme.

The Bodhisattva noted that it wasn’t that complicated: “Kill enough ponies and creation will plunge into the wyld” Speaker nodded at this, recalling having told the rest of the circle of the effect of low populations on the stability of the reality of creation. The Bodhisattva continued: “Problem is that there are quite a few who would oppose such a plan – me included”
This last comment surprised the circle. The Bodhisattva explained that he’d originally advocated a more ‘direct’ way of putting the neverborn out of their misery…

“Hold on, Neverborn? What exactly is that?” Sullen Hoof wondered.

Speaker explained that during the primordial war a lot of primordials got killed, mainly be the solars – but it turned out that creation simply hadn’t been built to handle its own creators dying… which was also how shadowlands had formed when the primordials fell through creation – ending up in the then newly created dark mirror version of creation; the underworld. The Bodhisattva nodded and complimented Speaker on his knowledge of such things, to which Speaker noted that with the wealth of knowledge he remembered from the first age and the primordial war then that was nothing.

The Bodhisattva elaborated that he had simply suggested that the deathlords and the deathknights attack the neverborn directly – killing them using spirit-splaying charms of which he personally knew plenty. It would be much faster… but alas his master had refused it for some reason, and when the Bodhisattva had insisted: “…you saw what I became. I thought the sword was given to me as a gift to placate me enough to do his bidding. Now I will never know the touch of another pony , nor the smell or taste of anything but death”

“So what exactly do you plan on doing now?” Speaker wondered.

“That depends on what you choose to do with me. Considering what I have become then oblivion probably wouldn’t be much worse – but I can also still pursue my original goal. There are parts of the underworld that resists the deathlords. I can gather support and hide there, or scour the wyld for lost primordial slaying devices. I will need more than a blade to force the tombs of neverborn into the abyss” the Bodhisattva mused, looking almost pensive instead of menacing for a moment.

Looking back at the village, then at the Bodhisattva, Cash nodded: “I personally don’t see any problem in you doing that – but we can’t come back empty-hoofed to the village. They will be furious if we just let you go…”

“Oh I think I know a way…” the Bodhisattva noted, requesting that the circle fetch a cart.

It was a curious display that returned to the village not many moments later. To the circle it had also been an enlightening one, for the Bodhisattva had both revealed how to defeat other deathknights with body-parts like his, as well as having provided the circle a suitable trophy to show to the village: He had ‘deactivated’ all of his shadow-limbs except for his head – for to do so would kill him. This had left the Bodhisattva as nothing but a metal cage that held his heart and a tiny amount of shriveled up organ tissue, from which his throat and head of shadow-flesh protruded at one end. The Bodhisattva had explained that he had to supply a constant flow of necrotic essence to each limb, including his head, to maintain them. If the circle disrupted the flow to a part of him it would fade and disappear, including his head. This had prompted the question of how he managed to avoid having that happen while he slept, to which the Bodhisattva noted that once his head was replaced he no longer needed sleep… but being knocked out or otherwise drained of essence would be fatal to any deathknight with such ghoulish desecrations to their bodies.

The ponies in the village were ecstatic when they saw the circle return with but the mutilated chest and head of the monster. The Bodhisattva played along by pretending to be dead – not a difficult feat since he did not need to breathe – and so the circle uprooted the soulsteel rods and whisked them away to elsewhere triumphantly. Leaving the village with the Bodhisattva, they promised to put him to good use, Cash jokingly insinuating that they’d drop him down one of the reservoirs of Chung Do’s communal latrines.

Outside the village the Bodhisattva manifested his limbs again and bid the circle luck, asking to be freed from his oath.
“Hold on – do you know anything about the plague in Chung Do?” Red asked, before even entertaining the idea of freeing the Bodhisattva.

Nodding, the Bodhisattva said that the soulsteel rods he’d been ‘filling’ with foal souls had been for a deathknight artificer who hid in the swamps ten days west of Chung Do. There the Bodhisattva recalled having heard mention of another deathknight called the ‘Ruby and Emerald Mare” who was ‘having fun’ in Chung Do. The Bodhisattva suggested that the circle dealt with both, as they too served the Barbate Arbiter.

“Is this Barbate Arbiter really that bad? I mean, the other deathlords you mention – like the Mask of Winters, they come off as a lot more aggressive” Speaker noted, acknowledging the importance of ‘support, but compared to conquering entire nations then such efforts did look less vital.

“The deathlords aren’t all that competent. They are ghosts and thus bound by their passions. Not all of them see the folly in some of their own actions, some blinded by their rage against all life or foolishly overconfident in their own abilities. The Barbate Arbiter picks up the slack. Without him I’ve been told that at least one or two deathlords might stand to be executed by the neverborn for incompetence…” the Bodhisattva mused, sounding eerily pleased by such an eventuality.

The circle agreed that such a ‘two birds with one stone’ scenario was a tempting one to pursue, so going after the Arbiter’s minions in Chung Do seemed like a perfect way to get started. The Bodhisattva warned them that going after a deathlord wouldn’t just be difficult – but it would be very dangerous. A deathlord is an ancient ghost empowered by a deathless primordial which cannot die: “But take heart, because if I can beat you to it then I will see if even death can die” the Bodhisattva explained, sounding determined and certain in his success.

“Very well. Now, while the oath you took didn’t include any provisions to release you from it, then I now hereby give you free reign to do as you please towards the goals you’ve stated. Also, I ask – not order – that you at least once a year try to send a message to us on what you’re doing and what how far you’ve progressed” Cash solemnly said.

With that said the Bodhisattva departed just as the earliest light of dawn appeared on the sky. Shimmered conjured a cloud and the circle went about visiting the remaining villages, collecting the soulsteel rods and seeing the remains of the impaled foals on them properly buried.

A few days later the circle returned to Chung Do, Shimmer landing her cloud right in the middle of the castle courtyard – much to the initial fright of some of the guards.

Captain Bighoof was at first horrified to hear of the true nature of the monster that had been killing foals in the northern villages – even more so when he learned that the killer had been released to roam free again. Of course, presenting the monster’s dark blade and the haul of soulsteel did make for an impressive prize, even if neither of the two were safe to touch for mortals… Red’s lips were still scarred from when she had held on to the blade, Speaker having also noted some strange dark discolorations on her teeth that he’d had to fix.

The old captain was more intrigued by the intelligence that the circle had gotten from the Bodhisattva: This Emerald and Ruby Mare - probably a codename or alias, just like the captain didn’t really believe that the Bodhisattva’s real name was just that. The question was who this mare was, if a mare at all.

“I’ll blend in with the servant staff on the castle and try to spot anything suspicious – then head into town and do the same if I don’t find anything” Sullen Hoof said, using his magical helmet-mask to turn into a very unimposing looking cream-coated stallion with a napkin as a cutie-mark, before sneaking off.

The rest of the circle then had to decide on what to do. The plague was still in full swing, the captain reporting roughly three hundred dead in the days the circle had been gone – almost a hundred a day, and that was just the ones who were reported or found. Many households where every single pony had died wouldn’t be discovered until the smell of rot got strong enough to be noticed outside.

Cash Charmer wanted to parlay with the gang that had taken control of the city’s civilian food supply, while Speaker wanted nothing else but to start work on a cure. Red wasn’t sure where she could be of use, to which Shimmer suggested that the two of them work on trying to find the source of the plague…

“The source?” Red said, sounding confused. She didn’t know much of medicine or healing beyond how to roughly bandage a wound – something she’d done often on herself and others – but finding the source of a disease? She couldn’t even imagine where to start.

Shimmer calmed Red down and explained: “Remember what Speaker told us of plague: This kind of disease usually only flourishes in poor places, where ponies can’t stay clean. We’ll ask around in the poorer parts of town and try to find where it all started, then track it from there”

Red wasn’t sure if doing all of that was worth it. The city was infected – the ponies of Chung Do were spreading the plague to each other now, so why bother finding a source? Shimmer had a rather insightful answer to this: “Chung Do seems to be a rich place, right? Ponies here can afford to bathe often and stay clean. The castle certainly smells of fancy soaps. Why would sickness like this come to a place with fancy soaps? Plus, remember what the Bodhisattva said: This Emerald and Ruby Mare deathknight is here, so she probably started it all. If what’s making ponies here sick is not natural then we can probably save a lot of lives by destroying the source of the plague so that the rest of the city doesn’t get sick”

This Red could agree to. She’d heard of sieges where the corpses of sick ponies had been catapulted over city walls to infect those inside – getting rid of something like that quickly could prevent the spread of disease. This kind of thinking was more akin to what Red could understand.

This left Sunrise Glow, but she said that she’d remain in the castle to begin with, giving counsel and solace to the young Shogun, especially depending on what Red and Shimmer might discover.

The circle dispersed and Red and Shimmer left the castle with Cash Charmer. Red and Shimmer lost sight of Cash as he crossed the giant bridge over the brown river to the western half of the city, while Red and Shimmer began asking around for who had gotten sick first – not an easy thing with the plague having started six months ago.

Red had thought that they would be going to the poorer parts of town, such as the docks where ponies lived and worked as dockhooves, but it quickly turned out from the stories she and Shimmer heard that the first plague victims had turned up not far from the castle, in the nicer part of the eastern half of Chung Do.

Shimmer suggested that they talk to the Sijaneese ponies camped outside of Chung Do. The Sijaneese camp was located just north of the city on the western side of the brown river – far enough away from the city that the large guild wagons they had, which were being filled with the corpses of dead ponies, didn’t pester the city with the smell.

To Red it was a rather disconcerting experience. The Sijaneese ponies all wore black funeral robes embroidered with somber motifs of stylized skeletons and elegant funeral pyres in red thread – and they were all so pale! Red had never liked the Sijaneese – not in any hostile way – but an entire nation of ponies that did nothing but collect dead ponies and intern them in endless underground catacombs? It was well known that all of Sijan was a giant shadowland because of their macabre nation-wide enterprise, but it relieved pretty much all of the threshold of having to deal with hungry ghosts of vengeful dead ponies haunting local burial grounds. Even the realm shipped most of their dead to Sijan.

Shimmer on the other hoof didn’t seem bothered at all. In the west, too far from Sijan for them to be of any service, the dead were either cremated or just tossed into the sea where the sharks would eat them in short order – ghosts were usually swept away by the tide and eaten by changelings. Red found this practice barbaric, to which Shimmer calmly retorted: “You find a better solution then”

The sijaneese ponies were initially not very cooperative, so while Red engaged in futile discussion Shimmer turned into a mouse and snuck the sijaneese ponies’ tents. An hour or so later Shimmer, still in mouse form, yanked Red’s tail – the sign to walk away.

“So… what did you learn?” Red inquired, both eager to hear of what Shimmer had read and thankful that she didn’t have to talk with that creepy mortician pony anymore.

Shimmer took a deep breath: “Well, now I’m sure that the plague didn’t just start from some pony traveler who had it infecting the rest of Chung Do. The morticians’ records match what we learned in the ritzy neighborhoods around the castle, but according to the sijaneese then it only took a few days before the plague showed up all over the city. There’s no pattern and no normal disease spreads that quickly. Whatever is making the ponies in Chung Do sick is something that all ponies in Chung Do is exposed to, and it’s something they’d all come into contact with within a few days of each other, from the richest to the poorest, for it to spread that quickly after it started”

Red could tell that Shimmer was confused. If it wasn’t for having grown up in Chung Do then Red probably wouldn’t have the slightest clue either – but having grown up in Chung Do she knew exactly what they should be looking for! Shimmer didn’t even have time to ask before Red sprung into a gallop, racing back to the city.

Shimmer followed Red as a generic eastern songbird, tracking Red as she entered the city’s western gate, crossed the bridge to the eastern part of town, then ran down to the large square in front of the castle.

The square was marked by two large fountains fed by aqueducts that came out of the castle’s walls. There were at least six dozen ponies with buckets, jugs and bowls there fetching water, chatting, all of them looking worried and a few of them not so well, with those who looked the worst being shunned by the others.

Shimmer landed next to Red who was gazing into the fountains, causing no small amount of commotion from the surrounding ponies, but she ignored them: “So… you think it’s the fountains?”

“It has to be. The whole city uses the castle wells. The castle has its own well inside. The magic of the manse makes the water” Red said, looking intently at the water despite having no clue what to look for.

Shimmer drank of the water, gargling it a bit, then spitting it out on the ground: “I can’t taste it like this – I’ll need to go big bird for that. We should get a bucket; no need to scare the ponies here more than necessary”

Red fetched a bucket from the castle, filled it, and met Shimmer in her monsterpony bird form in the castle courtyard. Some of the guardsponies on the castle walls looked ready to shit themselves, but after seeing Red talk cordially with it they calmed down.

Shimmer took the bucket full of fountain-water and drank it all in a series of big gulps. She then gave Red a weird look with all three of her eyes: “There is something weird in the water – but it’s really subtle. I can’t tell what it is. Get me another bucketful will you?”

Red fetched another bucket of water. Shimmer grabbed the bucket with her talons and drank it all in one huge gulp – and instantly vomited up a large black tar-like mass that spread out slowly on the ground and smelled horribly. The mass quickly began to evaporate while Shimmer tried to quell her violent dry-heaves.

“What in the sweet name of Celestia is that?” Red blurted out.

In between dry heaves Shimmer said that she had no idea, but that Red should fetch Speaker quickly – because she needed what he’d come up with so… because she felt really sick.

To quell her upset stomach Shimmer turned back into pony form, only to elicit a decidedly girly shriek from Red. When Shimmer looked at herself it instantly became clear why: Her body was covered in dark boils, especially around her snout, the scar around her back and belly from her vivisection and – sure enough – under her tail and around her privates. Apparently whatever the water had infected her with had been accelerated by her shapeshifting – or maybe it was her essence? Shimmer had to admit that she was genuinely curious, if it wasn’t for the fact that as an exalted pony she should not be able to get this sick!

Red ran off to find Speaker, screaming bloody murder while Shimmer started vomiting blood.