The Scroll of Exalted Ponies

As the circle assembled in front of the yellow-hooded mare the question was – for fairly obvious reasons – who was this mare who had frightened off Gudaa, who could use hedgehogs as arrows?

The mare stepped forth and drew back her hood, revealing herself to be a pony with strikingly green eyes, a dark-brown coat and a strange green squiggly glyph glowing on her forehead – almost like a castemark, but it certainly wasn’t a solar or lunar caste mark. It took Speaker a moment to recognize the sign of Jupiter, one of the five gods of fate who’s divine purview is that of secrets, those kept, those told and the uncovered. This was a sidereal exalted, chosen of the mare of secrets.

“Can’t be – all sidereals disappeared along with the solars. My elders haven’t seen a single one since the usurpation” Shimmer quickly pointed out, her millennia old elders having kept vigil for their lost celestial oracles, yet never finding anything.

The sidereal mare sighed: “I can explain both the solar and the sidereal disappearance in good time – right now all you need to know is that I only intervened because my superiors would be upset if I let a circle of solars die on their turf”

While the sidereal’s statement raised more questions than it answered, Cash was more interested in current matters: “Why are you here to begin with? You certainly didn’t come here to fight our battles, because then you could have intervened a lot sooner”

“True. I was sent here to investigate the Chung Do plague when I spotted you lot flying out of town. Sapphire circle sorcery is not that common anymore in creation, so I trailed you and listened in. Now, considering how much effort you all appear to be putting into saving Chung Do I’m going to assume that you’re not the ones who started the plague?” the sidereal mare said, looking at both the circle and the destruction around them.

Red nodded: “You damn right, but what’s the big idea? Speaker said that all the sidereals were gone and now you show up?”

The sidereal sighed: “As I said I’ll explain that another time. I just need to know what you’ve learned about the plague right now – please”

Speaker looked at Shimmer, wanting to see if she was ok with him telling this impossible stranger what they knew of the strange tainting of the two fountains in Chung Do, but Shimmer was looking very agitated…

“Oh no, you’re going to explain yourself right now! The lunars have suffered millennia of wyld hunts and have had their good name vilified and demonized across creation. If the sidereals weren’t wiped out in the usurpation I want to know where you’ve been and I want to know right now!” Shimmer shouted, the knowledge that nearly half her prior incarnations since the usurpation had died at the hooves of wyld hunts, mortal ponies who’d poisoned her or other assailants who all acted because lunars were denounced as moon-mad anathema by the immaculate dogma of the dragonblooded unicorns – all because there had been nothing to prevent the unicorns from doing so.

Shaking her head the sidereal sighed, then stared intently at Speaker: "Please tell me what you have learned of the plague – I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what you know”

Speaker wasn’t sure if this stranger was trustworthy, but considering how the mare had just saved them from what would no doubt have been a costly battle then he felt that he owed this stranger at least that much: “All we’ve found so far is that the two fountains fed by the castle manse have been tainted. If you combine the waters and drink it you will get sick, and essence use rapidly speeds up the infection – even essence use aimed at resisting the infection. I haven’t had time to test it any further”

The sidereal nodded: “Very well. You keep working on that: I’m sure you’ll find a cure soon enough – makes my job easier”
“Hold on? Your job? Your superiors? It sounds an awful lot like you sidereals have a lot of organization… which you shouldn't have if you disappeared along with the solars during the usurpation” Cash said, trotting closer to the sidereal.

“Oh would you look at the time, got to go!” the sidereal suddenly said, releasing a smoke bomb that veiled her escape perfectly. As the smoke began to clear a few seconds later the mare was gone without a trace, not even Shimmer’s heightened senses could detect that there had been another pony.

The circle looked around between themselves in confusion. As the smoke cleared a piece of the watermill collapsed, making for an awful racket.

Looking around at the remains of the granary for a moment, bags of rice mixed with broken planks of wood and timber rafters spilling out of the debris, Red said: “We’ll we certainly showed Gudaa”

“No we didn’t – Gudaa probably just figured that fighting us head on, even if she had more elementals, would cost her more than she was willing to sacrifice to kill us” Speaker noted. Shimmer nodded, adding that Gudaa probably knew that the whole circle would be targeting her primarily in the event of a fight, which the god really didn’t seem that keen on.

Cash didn’t seem to be bothered by Speaker or Shimmer’s analysis: “Oh please, we won this all on our own, and we’ll deal Gudaa before all this is over – but that’s for later. Now, how about getting this rice back to Chung Do?”

“Ya come on Speaker, don’t belittle that we just faced down a god – not bad for a young circle where only two of us can really hit spirits” Red said, looking very pleased with herself.

Shimmer chuckled: “Oh please, I’ve faced down dozens of gods and spirits back west on my own, but let’s get to work”

It took several hours and quite a lot of digging through rubble, broken timber and collapsed barns to retrieve the rice, with every member of the circle doing their part to speed up the process. Sunrise somehow talked all the ants in the area into retrieving grains of rice from the collapsed buildings and depositing them in empty sacks out in the open, while Shimmer shifted into her monsterpony form and flew around, using her protean essence to mold large portions of the collapsed buildings into wood-textured blobs of clay and tossing the blobs aside to clear up access to the rice. Red took a more direct approach, going back and forth hauling heavy sacks of rice out of the rubble as Shimmer opened up for her. Speaker recalled his singing staff from elsewhere and used its powers to first segment the collapsed buildings, flowing plates of stone over the collapsed sections containing sacks of rice, and then sending waves of dirt coursing over the rest to clear the ruble in one fell swoop. All in all it took the circle the rest of the day to recover all the rice. When done Shimmer conjuring a cloud where all of it was lifted up on, flying the circle, the rice, and the surviving wounded Water Walkers back to Chung Do.

As the circle landed in twin-fountain square, the sun having set on their way back, the dozen guards keeping watch over what little food that was left at the dispensary greeted the circle with loud cheers once they realized what the circle was returning with. The prisoners were taken to the dungeon under Speaker’s tender care – him dreading having to face Milda again now that he had to piece the poor mare back together again.

In the morning the circle was saluted by the young shogun who wanted to hear all about what had happened. Cash indulged the shogun, telling of the riveting adventure of divine deceit, daring battle and the horrid trickery of the water walkers. Chung Onyx mourned the loss but was happy that the rice and at least some of the newly recruited but misguided water walkers, along with all the foals, had been brought back.

Walking through the grand hall of the castle, the young Onyx lamented to Red and Sunrise: “I saw mom and dad hold court many times, them judging a lot of criminal and stuff – but… I’ve never done it myself. I’m not sure what we should do with the water walkers you brought back”

Red was a bit torn on the subject as well. She wanted to punish the water walkers – but at the same time she recognized the ruse both she and they had been subjected to, which ended up with a lot of foals getting orphaned for all the wrong reasons. Sunrise urged for caution and suggested that they spend more time deliberating: “If any of the survivors were among the new recruits of the gang we should consider more lenient sentences, if any at all, provided that Cash can assure that they will not engage in criminal activity again”

“I guess the only pony we could really blame was Paddle Splash” Chung Onyx said, his young voice revealing the pent up frustration within him as they walked the halls of the castle.

Speaker emerged later that evening and sought out Cash Charmer, hesitantly seeking his aid: “I need you to use your talking-charms on a… patient… of mine. She won’t wake up until sometime tomorrow, but when she does I’ve arranged for a servant to come and find you, then I need you to talk her into… well…”

“Well what? Come on, I’ve got a city to run to here” Cash said with a bemused look as his head emerged from behind the mountain of ledgers and scrolls his desk was full of.

“I need her to not hate me – I need her to consent to me treating her” Speaker said, hating that he even had to ask for such a favor, but at the same time he didn’t want to have to keep her sedated any more than necessary until Milda fully regenerated.

Cash gave Speaker a bemused look: “Are we talking about the prisoner that told us where to find the rice?”

Speaker nodded. Cash cheerfully agreed to come and help out, the two quickly walking down to the dungeons.

As the they exited the castle into the courtyard Cash noticed half a dozen servant ponies pushing and pulling sealed barrels out of the dungeon. At first he was curious what was in the barrels, but when he caught a whiff of the smell of the liquid oozing out of one of them… a powerful and pungent stench of rot… he suddenly didn’t want to know – but Speaker none the less took his disgusted look as one of curiosity: “Remember when Red threatened Paddle Splash with doing to him what had been done to this prisoner? Those barrels contained her amputated limbs”

“I hope you didn’t try to stitch any of that back on this prisoner of yours…” Cash said, holding his nose shut with a hoof.

Speaker said that he hadn’t, adding that he was still at a loss at how he could ever have thought doing something so extreme could in any way be justifiable, but also noted that he had magically treated the embalming fluids that the limbs and bits had been stored in so they wouldn’t rot. Basically this shouldn’t have been possible: “But you know what’s the weirdest? When I checked on all them yesterday before we took off for the rice, they were all good. Things just don’t rot that quickly – It’s not natural!”

As they walked into the dungeon Cash reminded Speaker of one instance where things truly had decayed that quickly: The guild caravan! This obviously raised the uncomfortable question of whether the true source of the destruction of the caravan was in and around the castle, but that discussion was briefly put on hold as Speaker displayed his patient to Cash.

With all of the removed parts of Milda having mysteriously gone bad, Speaker would be forced to use his healing charms to regrow everything instead. This wasn’t much of a problem, although it did mean that it would take at least a week or two for all the limbs, skin and that one eye to grow back once Speaker got to work. However, for that to be possible Milda would have to cooperate with Speaker… mostly to help by her telling whether everything Speaker regrew worked properly – but doing that with a hostile prisoner wasn’t really an option, and Speaker reminded Cash of how Milda had acted when she had first been brought into the dungeon.

Cash didn’t seem particularly daunted by the challenge: “I will her turned into a loyal subject of Chung in no time - don’t you worry”

“Hold on – I don’t want you to use any mind control charms on her. She won’t be of any use if she just nods or says yes to everything I do. She has to be able to critically judge if I’m putting her back together right” Speaker explained, looking at the sedated and mutilated pony with great concern.

Patting Speaker on the back Cash stated with an utmost certainty in his voice that it would be no problem at all. “Speaker, use that bright head of yours. A pony like this mare probably didn’t join the water walkers because that was the only thing in life she aspired to. Now, the power and money the gang had acquired at its peak here would have been very tempting for many, probably her as well, so I simply have to redirect her likes and understandings so she considers loyalty and service to us the to be the quickest way for her to reach wealth and power – which really isn’t that unrealistic come to think of it. Honestly, it’s won’t be that difficult” Cash said, retrieving an exquisitely detailed jeweled gold ear-ring from elsewhere, part of the loot from Denansdor.

Speaker slowly nodded and had to admit that Cash seemed to know what he was talking about – even if Speaker wasn’t sure that Cash could pull it off without using mind-altering charms.

Walking back out of the dungeon, Speaker and Cash passed by other smaller cells in the dungeon where the wounded remnants of the water walkers were resting. Cash could see that Speaker had also tended to their wounds – most of them were of a far lesser scope than that of Milda’s – although a few were sprouting nubs where new limbs where in the process of growing back.

“Say Speaker, what’s the plan with these ones? Can I have some of them? I could use some help around the office, not that many healthy clerks left around” Cash cheerfully stated, looking at them like a costumer eyeballing merchandize in a storefront.

Speaker wasn’t sure what to say. Red and Sunrise hadn’t gotten back to him regarding Chung Onyx’s word on the matter, and personally then Speaker would prefer that they all simply be sworn to never knowingly engage in criminal activities again and then be let loose – seeing as they weren’t much of a threat anymore.

Cash wasn’t happy to hear that he would have to wait to get a few personal servants, so instead he wondered if Speaker knew of any other prisoners down in the dungeon he could have instead.

“Cash, we’re not slavers – we’ve talked about this” Speaker said, sounding a lot more tired than he was physically.

Still, Cash persisted, pointing out that he wouldn’t be enslaving any ponies under his command: “Consider it an alternative to prison. I swear them to absolute fealty for the remainder of their sentence, give them a decent wage during the period, come on; That’s a far better deal than what they’re getting here”

Quickly walking up to a cell at the far end of the dungeon, Cash pointed at a rather miserable looking pony inside of it. The prisoner’s face was a melty blur of old burn scars – probably hot water or oil from what Speaker could tell. The pony’s mane was similarly not really there anymore due to the burn scars, while the pony’s tail appeared to have been shaven off completely and docked, leaving but a tiny stump behind.

“Hey you, how would you like to work off your sentence helping me in an office up in the castle?” Cash called out to the brown and grey-coated pony.

The prisoner didn’t answer, since he appeared to be asleep. Speaker was quick to point this out, but Cash would have none of it.

Calling out the jailor, Cash inquired about the melty-faced pony. Speaker objected to the prisoner being called something like that, but the jailor noted that they didn’t really know the name of the pony – it had simply been caught attempting to steal from the food dispensary and hadn’t really been that cooperative after that.

Cash appeared to find this amusing, but none the less insisted that the jailor send word to Cash once the prisoner woke up.

Walking out of the dungeon Cash couldn’t help notice that Speaker had a strange look on his face. Inquiring into this, Speaker first revealed that while they had been talking about Milda he had been using his lie-detector charm to tell if Cash was planning to use any mind control charms or not on her for what Speaker wanted done.

“Well I hope that the charm told you that I don’t plan using any mind control” Cash said, smiling gleefully and confidently.

Speaker sighed and said that Cash was right, but then added: “But the jailor… the charm was still on at that point – and when you called out for the jailor, then asked if the jailor was the jailor… the jailor was lying”

Cash stopped right in his tracks: “Anything else that pony was lying about?”

“The melty-, the prisoner with the burn scars wasn’t caught for stealing food – but he hadn’t been cooperative, that was true… although the in the context of how this jailor pony said that, it could simply mean that the prisoner hadn’t been cooperative with the fake jailor” Speaker said, slowly mulling over the possible meaning of this strange turn of events.

Cash was much quicker to act, returning to the dungeon with Speaker right behind him. Cash demanded to see the prisoner log. Speaker found it very difficult not to sneak accusatory looks at the jailor who seemed quite confused as to what was going on.

Quickly flipping through the pages of the prison log, Cash turned to Speaker and asked: “Is it still on?”

Speaker gave Cash a confused look, then realized that Cash meant the lie detection charm: “It is now”

Cash then turned to the jailor: “It says here that your nameless prisoner was caught for theft a week ago. Is this true? Is it true that you don’t know his name?”

The jailor shrugged apologetically, shifting uncomfortably in his guard armor: “Ok, so what if that’s not exactly why he’s down here? Your lordships shouldn’t worry about what happens to scum like that. There are other ponies here who do sentencing and carry out punishments”

“You didn’t answer my question” Cash calmly stated, looking the jailor right in the eyes.

Suddenly Cash fell over backwards, gasping in surprise and shock. Speaker quickly helped him back up: “What was that?”

“The eyes…”Cash gasped, catching his breath as if he had galloped a hundred yard dash.

Speaker wasn’t sure what he meant, but looking back for the jailor revealed that the jailor was gone…

Cash quickly explained as he brushed off his silks that the jailors eyes were… wrong: “You remember what the Bodhisattva said about the deathknight operating in Chung Do? The Ruby and Emerald Mare”

“That jailor was a stallion” Speaker said, sounding conserned but at the same time not convinced of what Cash was hinting at.

Running to the cell with the no-name prisoner, Cash shouted at the prisoner to wake him up. Speaker was still skeptical: “Hold on, shouldn’t we be going after the jailor?”

“What pony did we last see a little over a week ago, has a brown and grey mottled coat, and never showed us his true face?” Cash asked poignantly.

Speaker willed forth Gift as quickly as he could while Cash ran back the jailor’s station to confirm that the fake jailor had run off with all the cell door keys. Gift made short work of the lock, after which Speaker rushed in and flipped the not sleeping but clearly unconscious Sullen Hoof up on his back, rushing him out of the dungeon to his medical lab.

Cash gathered the rest of the circle, the lot of them arriving to find Speaker tending to a severely weakened Sullen Hoof… who evidently had quite a lot of trouble explaining what had happened – chiefly because whoever had put him in that cell had also cut off his tongue.. no, bitten it off.

Unlike mortal ponies then exalted ponies recover from injuries much faster. This is a well-known fact among all ponies in creation thanks to the widespread prevalence of the dragonblooded unicorns. For Sullen Hoof this meant that Speaker’s medical charms were able to grow back his tongue fairly quickly – but in his emaciated and weakened state he still needed quite a lot of rest and essence-fueled nutrition-infusions courtesy of Speaker before he would be up and walking again, let alone talk in any coherent manner.

The next morning Speaker walked Sullen Hoof to the dining table in the castle, the rest of the circle eagerly awaiting the return of their night caste solar.

The first thing Sullen Hoof said as they had all sat down and each been served a dish of steamed vegetables and rice was: “Who is the hooded mare over by the fireplace?”

None at the table knew who it was it.