The Scroll of Exalted Ponies

On their way back to Chung Do the circle and Rose discussed what to do next. It was clear that there would most likely be things they would see which they hadn't noticed before – but this wouldn't necessarily mean that the deathknight would be easy to spot.

Rose suggested that as a means to defend against future mind control from the deathknight she could use a sidereal charm on the circle, one that would cement her status as heavenly advisor to the circle and ward the circle against outside magical influences. She also quickly added that it wouldn’t impair or otherwise hinder the circle in any way – so there were no strings attached: It was purely beneficial, or so Rose claimed.

“Makes sense. I remember sidereals acting as advisors and viziers to the solar deliberative all the time back in the first age” Speaker noted.

The ritual was a simple martial demonstration, where Shimmer ‘parked’ the cloud up in the sky so that she could pay full attention to Rose along with the rest of the circle. With Rose’s mastery of what she claimed to be an entry level sidereal martial art, one that not just emulated but reshaped the essence flows of creation around her, Rose was able to demonstrate feats of skill far beyond the imagination of the circle, but that wasn’t the point of the lesson: The profound truth was that the greatest weapons in creation are not of steel or essence, but that of ponies themselves. Through cooperation and acts of giving or receiving help impressive results, that were greater than the sum of the effort put into them, could be achieved. While Speaker, Shimmer, Sully and Red didn’t learn much with regards to actual martial proves then Cash and Sunrise of all ponies seemed surprised at the insight Rose had into martial arts. Sunrise in particular, who had never displayed any skills at hoof to hoof combat, even appeared to have learned some rudimentary combat techniques from what Rose had demonstrated.

“I’m glad to have piqued your interest, but the true boon of this demonstration is the essence link I’ve made to all of you. Any deathknight or other power that wants to control your minds will now have to contend with a heavenly oracle holding a hoof over your mind to shield you from negative influences” Rose proudly stated.

Red inquired into this particular style of combat that relied on such a strange indirect approach. As Shimmer made the cloud resume its flight back to Chung Do Rose explained to Red the basics of Throne Shadow style, the ancient and odd style that sidereals used which quite literally worked best through others.

It took the circle almost two full days to reach Chung Do via cloud, but they managed to return to the castle on the evening of the first true day of fall, the first day of season of air, of the month of Ascending Air. It was a somber reminder that in two months the winter spirits could come from the north and bring snow across creation – well, they’d bring cooling rain to the south, but the rest of creation would be blanketed in snow for a few months… and come the thaw the nobles would no doubt invade.

Considering how close the circle felt that they were to finally catching the disease-spreading deathknight and ending the plague another point of discussion arose as they neared Chung Do: If they managed to catch or kill the deathknight quickly enough and cure the plague in short order the nobles might just attack Chung Do before winter… not after. While Red was certain that she could fend off any mortal army on her own – a feat that the rest of the circle honestly didn't doubt – then Speaker pointed out a grim fact related to the inherently unstable nature of the hundred kingdoms: If Red simply defeated the nobles and scattered their army a neighboring kingdom might just come and besiege both Chung Do as well as the holds of the nobles since both would then be without an army. It could lead to a never-ending circle of strife: “And if word spreads that the plague is over and Chung Do is ‘only’ defended by a bunch of anathema we might run into the same problem the Bull spoke of with the saltspire league: Endless waves of assassins instead of outright invasions. I would prefer to avoid all of that if possible”

Rose suggested that the circle somehow simply prevent the news of the city being cured from being spread once they got that far – and noted that there was no guarantee that the circle could cure the city before the onset of winter.

“Oh we can cure the plague – me and Speaker have made a cure, but the deathknight kept ruining our attempts at making large batches of the stuff. I’m sure we can have the city healthy again in a few weeks if we can just catch the deathknight” Sullen Hoof optimistically stated

Rose mockingly and cheerfully admonished herself for ever doubting that solars couldn’t do such feats: “Should have expected that”

“Perhaps, but we’re out of ingredients to make the cure. The castle alchemist had a store of these weird blue mushrooms and his notes said that he’d usually pay foals to forage for them in the great forest north-east of the city” Speaker noted.

Red was oddly horrified at learning of this: “The Spider-Tree forest? Stain-beard sent foals into the… good grief”

Speaker didn’t see the problem, but Red explained that she remembered the Spider-Tree forest being haunted by evil spirits – spirits known for killing mortals that strayed into their territory, so sending foals to pick mushrooms in the forest was a very cruel thing to do.

“Well his notes did say that only half of the ponies he sent out returned… damn…” Speaker said, realizing the high price of the alchemical reagents he’d used up.

Shimmer interrupted Speaker’s musing as she made the circle aware that they were in sight of Chung Do: “Where should I land? What’s our plan? Do we go in armed and ready or do we play it cool?”

The circle agreed that they should pretend nothing had happened and case out the castle to find anything out of the ordinary.

As the circle landed to the relieved cheers of the ever dwindling number of guards manning the castle battlements – the circle having been gone for almost a week – the circle quickly scattered and returned what would be their usual duties: Sunrise, along with a remarkably unremarkable-looking Heath Rose, headed straight to the Shogun, Speaker checked up on his water walker patient in the dungeons, Red checked in with the captain of the guard, Shimmer turned into a seagul and retreated to a nest up on one of the castle towers as all the cloud-conjuration had drained her quite a lot, even with Speaker giving her of his own strength. Sullen Hoof took control of the castle kitchen after a shouting match with the castle chef, and Cash returned to his castle office and the impossible pile of paperwork that was awaiting him there.

Down in the dungeon Speaker found the water walker mare almost fully recovered. She was even up and about, but luckily the guard posted outside the makeshift surgical bay had kept her inside – as well as seen to her being fed while Speaker had been gone.

Speaker was now faced with the uncomfortable question of what to do with this water walker. He was quite sure what Red and Cash would suggest: Execution for crimes against Chung Do, while Sunrise would probably just see her locked down with powerful mind control charms and turned into an acolyte. Personally Speaker would prefer that Milda was set free under a magical oath never to willingly break the law again. Milda seemed less cooperative, the mare apparently feeling more vindictive than cooperative seeing as she had completely wrecked the surgery room she had been kept in.

Not wanting to disturb the rest of the circle Speaker instead entered the room with the pony at arms stationed outside of it, the two restraining Milda upon which Speaker gave the water walker a hard dose of truth: He told of how the rest of her gang was either dead or under lock and key in the rest of the dungeon, how their secret divine patron had been busted and was pending judgement from the circle, how Speaker himself had slain multiple of the water elemental enforcers the gang had received from the river goddess Gudaa.

It was a little heartbreaking to see how Milda’s world shattered around her as Speaker told her of these most uncomfortable truths, but Speaker didn’t feel that much pitty seeing as she was unabashedly a criminal who not minutes earlier had been shouting at the top of her lungs that she would kill, gut, burn and through other creative means see to Speaker’s deaths and that of his loved ones.

“So, Milda, I’m going to give you two choices. Either you swear an oath to never on purpose break the law again. A friend of mine will magically bind you to that, or I will deliver you to another friend of mine, the older sister of the Shogun, who will most likely execute you in short order out on twin-fountain square. For your sake I honestly hope that you choose to live, but considering the number of ponies your actions aided in hurting and how utterly unrepentant you seem to be, then I will not shed tears for you if you choose death” Speaker said, satisfied that he was giving such a criminal a chance of, if not redemption, than at least life.

The guardspony loosened the gag he’d been forced to put on Milda since she wouldn’t stop screaming obscenities at the two of them – and to the guardspony’s relief Milda didn’t just start shouting profanities again as the gag came off.

There was uncomfortable silence as Milda clearly pondered long and hard over her two choices. Ultimately, to Speaker’s great joy, Milda chose to take the oath.

Speaker sent for Cash who arrived a few minutes later. Swearing in Milda was a relatively quick process and Cash noted that he’d been thinking of the exact wording of such an oath for quite a while, chiefly for the other water walker prisoners, so it was nice to have one to test it on.

“Do you swear to do to your utmost to uphold the law of Chung Do, or whatever other place you choose to stay, until such a time that I or Bright Machine Speaker here releases you from your oath?” Cash officially inquired.

Milda begrudgingly nodded: “I do – can I go now?”

“Sure, I’ll walk you to the gate…” Cash offered.

Speaker sighed deeply as he saw Cash walk out of the dungeon with Milda. Again Speaker despaired at the question of why he ever thought it right or justifiable to dismember Milda to gain her cooperation. Cash returned ten minutes later.

“Cash, I am a bad pony for what I did to her?” Speaker said, cleaning up the broken furniture and equipment that Milda had left behind.

Cash smiled and gave off a strangely cheerful bit of laughter: “The information you gathered from her saved the city. You’re a hero and a solar – none have the right to think less of you for what you did. And even if she talks about what you did then I’ve already spread rumors in advance about how it was information given to us by a water walker traitor who told us everything under threat of torture – so nobody is going to believe her”

Giving Cash a very disbelieving look, Speaker wasn’t sure if he even wanted to know how Cash could be sure that spreading such a lie would make the ponies of Chung Do doubt Milda. After a moment of thought the answer hit him: “Of course… still, that’s really mean. Now the ponies here will think that she’s both a traitor the city and a traitor to the water walkers. Nobody is going to trust her with anything”

“Speaker, under any other jurisdiction she would have been executed in the cruelest ways imaginable, we’re talking milk and honey level punishment. You chose to spare her, despite what she and her organization did to Chung Do. That makes you the better pony no matter which way you look at it – and it leaves her in a far better position to start a new life than she could have gotten anywhere else” Cash said with a confident glint in his eyes.

Nodding, Speaker felt far more at ease and more confident in his own sense of justice: “You’re right. And this city has suffered enough death: There’s no reason to kill any more ponies if it can be avoided”

“Good, now – I actually came down here to talk about trying to find… you know who” Cash quietly stated after quickly looking around.

Speaker nodded and motioned for Cash to follow him. The two left the dungeon for Speaker’s laboratory where Speaker barred the door and carefully examined the room to check that they were alone: “I knew it…”

“What?” Cash wondered, looking away from the strange assortment of liquids and powders that Speaker had set up.

Speaker demonstrated how the hoofprints in the dusty floor didn’t add up. There were Speaker’s large prints, Sullen Hoof’s smaller prints, and now Cash’s as well – but there was also a fourth set… one that shouldn’t be there. This had to be the hoofprints of the Ruby and Emerald mare. Speaker began to take measurements and make a mold of the hoof prints, but Cash stopped him: “Don’t bother – I’ve got it”

Cash pulled out a small jeweled bauble the size of a small onion and floated it around the hoofprints in question.
Smiling, Speaker recognized the device as a Recorder of Everlasting Glories – a holographic essence projector and recorder, devices made in the first age to immortalize the heroic deeds of the solars in their battles against the primordials: “That’s what you asked for from the sidereals, wasn’t it?”

“That and they’re tailoring me a blue silken Tang-zhuang style jacket out of essence spider silk – finally some indestructible silks fit for one such as me to wear” Cash said with no small amount of pride and relief.

Speaker looked up from the recorder and gave Cash a more serious look: “Right, but about finding out mystery deathknight – you came down to me because you had some ideas?”

Cash said that he didn’t have an idea as much as he had news. Shimmer had apparently snuck around the castle and noticed things, as had Cash while going over the castle finances: “Shimmer found several blood stains on the walls and floor in various parts of the castle, and I noticed that someone has been withdrawing money quite regularly from the castle treasury without the records showing who it was dispensed to. The last withdrawal was during calibration while we were gone, so I’m pretty sure our deathknight is still here”

His face souring, Speaker furrowed his grows into a troubled grimace at the thought of their enemy had been running around right under their noses. The problem would be to find a way to ferret out the deathknight without the deathknight noticing and galloping off.

“Ya that won’t be easy. By the way, thinking ahead, I remember you and Sully talking about having run out of ingredients for your cure? You said that we could get more in some nearby forest?”

Speaker perked up at the mention of the cure: “Yes, we’ll have to look into that once we’ve dealt with the deathknight, shouldn’t take long. By the way, you just gave me an idea: A health check against the plague! We’ll announce that every pony working in the castle has to come in for a health check to see if they’re infected with the plague or not. The deathknight might be hiding in plain view, but not showing up for the checkup would be suspicious and could disrupt whatever illusion she put up around herself – and if she comes in for the checkup – we’ll be able to nab her… that’s the plan at least”

“That’s not a bad idea – but how will you be able to tell that it’s the deathknight?” Cash asked, not sure if Speaker’s plan would work that well.

Silently pondering the question for a moment, Speaker suddenly leapt into action, mixing a series of powders and liquids together and asking Cash to fetch him a bucket full of water taken from both fountains.

“You want water from both fountains? But that makes it infected” Cash said, apprehensive of getting near the source of plague.

Speaker reassured Cash that he knew what he was doing, sort of, reminding Cash that he simply shouldn’t drink the mixed water.

A short while later Cash returned with a bucket of water floating in front of his head. Speaker quickly took a sample of water and via his essence and isolated a few small grains of dark dust from the water – the disease itself. Through a series of purification processes that Cash didn’t understand at all – only that it looked expensive – Speaker produced a black tar-like substance and proudly showed it to Cash from all the sickness that had been in the water that Cash had brought.

“Wow, you made black goo” Cash said in a disinterested tone, unimpressed on account of his ignorance.

Speaker chuckled: “This stuff should react to necrotic essence, the essence of deathknights. Beyond that I’ts harmless. I just put some on a rag and touch every pony in the castle with it as they come through the checkup – if it reacts we’ll know that we have our deathknight”

“React… how?” Cash asked.

Shrugging, Speaker said that he wasn’t entire sure. The stuff might catch on fire, or adhere like strong glue – all he could tell was that it should react very clearly with a necrotic anima.

“Well ok – I for one don’t mind setting the deathknight on fire to begin with. I’ll set up a room in the castle for the health checks and make it look legit” Cash said, quickly leaving. Speaker began packing up gear to bring up as well, for he reasoned that he might as well actually check the ponies working in the castle for signs of the plague.

The next day, shortly after dawn, the checkups began. First the entire castle guard – the two dozen ponies at arms left – were processed. Most of them were found to have bite-marks on their necks, but like the circle before having their minds freed then none of the guards noticed anything – and Speaker didn’t inquire about them so as to avoid revealing that his mind was uncompromised.

In the room Cash had set up – a meeting room previously used to entertain foreign dignitaries and other important visitors to the Shogun’s court – there was a low but sturdy table set up for examination, an empty bookshelf where Speaker had placed his gear as well as a small setup of glass vials and bulbs for testing the samples taken from the various ponies being checked.

As the day progressed and a hoofful of the ponies working in the castle, three guards and a dozen or so maids were found to have early symptoms of the plague. It wasn’t nice news to bring, and Cash and Sunrise had to console many a pony who broke down crying upon being diagnosed with the illness – but Speaker was also quick to point out to the ponies that they had developed a cure, so they would all live through it. Cash also made them all promise not to spread this news, as the castle might otherwise be overrun by the sick ponies in the city. With Speaker having his truth-telling charm on Cash didn’t have to sanctify these promises, as the few ponies who were found unwilling to honestly withhold the information were quickly identified and given a stern talking to. The ponies who were infected were told that they could not leave the castle until cured, for the castle manse prevented the spread of disease, so they were in essence under quarantine as long as they stayed. The common pattern for all of the ponies infected was that part of their castle duties had them go into the city from time to time, as they mostly drank from the castle well, not the plaza wells.

As the afternoon rolled around Red found herself immensely bored watching pony after pony being checked and sent on their way. She and three other guards stood outside the room in which Speaker and Shimmer did the checkups, while Cash and Sunrise managed the line of castle employees, which in Red’s opinion was exceedingly boring, but then again guard duty was always boring.

This changed when a meek-looking musician was sent in from the line.

She looked quite unassuming with her short-cropped black made and brown coat. A bit pale perhaps, plus she had the bite marks on her neck, but otherwise dressed in a neat and well-maintained green castle uniform, with a very nice dizi flute held in a leather sheath hanging by her side.

Red ushered her into the examination room where Speaker and Shimmer greeted her. Shimmer asked her to lie down on the low table, after which she floated over a small bit of cloth with the black substance that Speaker had prepared. A quick swab over the back of her neck with the cloth produced no reaction… at first. It was when Shimmer put the cloth down in a bowl with other similarly soaked bits of cloth that she noticed the difference: The tiny bit of cloth was ‘glowing darkly’ – eating the light around it, as if emitting a black light.

Following a script that the circle had agreed on in advance, in case the deathknight was detected via the swab, Shimmer sighed: “I’m sorry, it looks like she’s positive”

Speaker was surprised at the news, but played it off as if this meant that the mare in front of him was infected with the plague: “That’s… damn, another one” – despite never having had any acting lessons it was easy for Speaker to fake the sorrow of a positive plague diagnosis, as up until this point he had ‘enjoyed’ plenty of actually plague victims to practice on, so the sorrow was quite genuine.

The routine the circle had agreed on for the ponies that actually had plague was much different, mainly because it required Speaker to do use his diagnostic charm. Speaker approached to use that charm, his essence instantly letting him know that something was very wrong with the pony in front of him – chiefly because it told him that the mare was actually dead, which clearly didn’t make sense.

Looking at Shimmer, Speaker nodded and gestured for Shimmer to do what was planned to happen next.

Shimmer walked up in front of the mare, who looked quite surprised and sad. Donning a purposely obviously forced smile, Shimmer told the mare that she wasn’t to worry, because Speaker had developed a cure that would soon be handed out – so it would be ok, but that since she was sick she’d have to go into quarantine.

While Shimmer spoke to the mare, Speaker poked his head out and calmly told Red that they had one for quarantine. None of the infected ponies had been given this treatment: This was the line Speaker was to say to spring the trap on the deathknight.

Red and the guards entered the room, finding the mare softly crying and Shimmer trying her best to pretend that she was consoling the mare. It was a convincing crying act Speaker would later admit, but the moment Red stepped into the room and blocked the door the mare burst into tears: “No! You can’t lock me away!”

Speaker, standing between the mare and Red, felt a great wave of shame overcome him. Had he made a mistake? Had his necrotic essence-detetion solution come up with a false positive? Maybe Shimmer had caused it to react for some reason?

Distracted by guilt and shame Speaker didn’t even notice as he reared up and struck the mare with all of his might right upside the head with an essence-empowered hoof.

The mare tumbled backwards, bleeding from her nose and the corner of her mouth, looking at Speaker with a pair of quite horrified eyes.

Speaker glared at his own hooves with disbelief.

“Well that is one way to make her stop crying, but come on, that’s cold – especially by your standards” Red commented.
Speaker didn’t know what to say, but suddenly Heath Rose stepped into reality right next to Speaker with a comforting hoof on his left shoulder: “Don’t worry – you did nothing wrong: This mare is the deathknight you’re looking for”

The mare stopped crying in an instant, instead giving off an unnerving hiss followed by a stern demand for Red to step aside from the doorway: “Out of my way or you’re dead!”

Red scoffed at the mare’s demand, but the scoff turned into a bloody cough as Red dropped to the ground clutching her chest. The mare leapt out of the room in a single great bound before anyone could stop her.

“Stop her, it’s the deathknight!” Rose shouted, quickly turning to pursue the deathknight. Speaker and Shimmer followed suit, Red gesturing for them to go instead of staying to help her.

Outside the examination room Speaker saw Cash joining the chase, but quickly stopping again as the deathknight again shouted: “Stop chasing me!”

Defying the call for cessation of pursuit, Cash toppled over as blood burst from his hooves and his nose and his eyes, leaping him in a bloody mess on the smooth stone tiles that lines the castle’s hallways. Speaker too felt his chest contract painfully as he kept running, followed by the telltale warm coppery taste of blood in his mouth, but beyond that he was surprisingly unhurt. What kind of dark power was this deathknight wielding when her mere words could injure those who refused to obey her?

Looking back at Shimmer and Rose Speaker realized that Shimmer had used a shapeshifting trick to extend a leg and a hoof all the way up to the deathknight, Shimmer being in the process of retracting her leg as Speaker looked. The blood on the floor as he ran past it revealed that Shimmer had managed to at the very least graze the deathknight, and beyond that Shimmer and Rose looked surprisingly unaffected.

Rose, Shimmer and Speaker chased the deathknight around the many hallways of the castle. Speaker found it quite revealing and also incredibly frustrating that the castle guardsponies didn’t come and help – but this simply revealed that they had all been put under the deathknight’s influence. Gift finally appeared in front of Speaker as the three celestial exalted ponies chased the Ruby and Emerald Mare into one of the castle’s large banquit halls, when Sullen Hoof suddenly leapt out of hiding and tackled the deathknight.

Sullen Hoof and Ruby and Emerald Mare tumbled into the large wooden banquit table, smashing chairs and knocking over candlesticks that luckily weren’t with lit candles.

The deathknight quickly freed herself from Sully’s crasp and shot horrid chains of blood from her back up into the ceiling, pulling her out of melee range – but Speaker was quick to throw Gift to sever one of the three chains erupted into rust-stained blood.

Rose, Speaker, Shimmer and Sullen Hoof stood down on the floor looking up at the deathknight. Sully threw his cleavers at the mare on the ceiling but she evaded them by swinging around on her blood chains. Speaker had just as much luck hitting the deathknight, but suddenly Cash and Red appeared in the doorway that the Speaker and the others had come into the banquet hall via. They were both bleeding, although Cash looked far more worse for wear.

“Remember what I showed you, get her down!” Red said, Cash raising his forehooves at the mare and launching his shoe-claws.

Between dodging another barrage of cleavers and Speaker’s Gift the mare simply didn’t have any more wiggle room to avoid being struck by Cash’s essence-guided claws. Sullen Hoof quickly leapt over and helped pull on the chains that now led from Cash’s shoes to the twice-impaled deathknight and helped yank her down.

The Ruby and Emerald mare crashed down into a couple of wooden chairs, followed by some brickwork from the ceiling falling down on her as well as her blood chains ripped loose. The deathknight rose and snarled at the circle, revealing her true visage: A mare with a pale and almost porcelain-like artificial face-mask with – true to her name – a large ruby and emerald, both with a perfect brilliant cut, in her otherwise empty eye sockets.

At this point guards began rushing into the banquet hall to see what the noise was.

“Don’t touch me!” the deathknight shrieked loudly, flaring her anima…

The sight that followed was not meant for mortal eyes. For the circle their eyes simply averted the sight, as if their minds attempted to shield themselves from the blasphemy of essence that was the manifestation of the Ruby and Emerald Mare’s soul: An infinitely regressing pit of darkness opening around her, with pulsating organs that continually ground against each other and fell into the pit as wet, slick and shiny chunks of them fell apart from the necrotic forces acted on them. The mare was wrapped in a misty haze of blood as a gaping wound opened the mare’s forehead and the mortal guardsponies that had rushed into the banquit hall screamed in that particular way that only adult ponies who had genuinely lost their shit could scream.

Some of the guardsponies ran in fright. They were the lucky or just sensible ones. The unlucky ones simply dropped to the ground in silent and abject terror – some of those they drew whatever arms they had and stabbed or gouged at their eyes so that their minds might never again be tormented by such an unholy corruption of sights.

Speaker flew into a rage at the sight of the deathknight’s effect on the mortal ponies in the hall – but as he charged the mare she turned and flung open the door out to the large castle balcony overlooking the courtyard. Running through the open door, staining the nice green drapes with a mix of blood and small bits of ground random organs, the circle attempted to follow suit – but as they reached the door the Ruby and Emerald Mare stood ready to greet them: “I don’t know how you broke my hold over you, but you’ve ruined my fun and now you will face the consequences!”

Just as Rose and Sullen Hoof charged the deathknight did the charnel mare turn and again scream at them to stay away.

Before either of the two could reach the deathknight she leapt like none other high up and far away from the castle with a force so great, as she set off, that the balcony groaned and the stone brickwork began to crack, as Sullen Hoof collapsed clutching his chest, striken down by the deathknight’s dark word magic.

Seeing their quarry getting away, Shimmer instantly leapt into the air in pursuit and shifted into her monsterpony form – but the deathknight floated out and crushed an egg-shell filled with 8-scream devil powder, trailing the stuff behind her for a brief moment. The powder was aptly named and well known as an expensive alchemical crowd-control weapon, for when Shimmer flew into the stuff it clung to her like a hungry demon and seeped into her flesh, causing an intense burning pain.

Shimmer dropped from the sky screaming in pain as her wings felt as if ablaze with hellish fury.

From the now decidedly unsafe to stand on balcony, the rest of the circle looked on in despair as the Ruby and Emerald Mare seemed to be getting away.

In a split second of desperation and not knowing what else to do, Speaker quickly called out: “Throw me!”

Not even bothering to question Speaker’s logic – or the seeming lack thereof – A wounded Sullen Hoof and Red quickly positioned themselves on either side of Speaker and gave him an almighty essence-enhanced toss. Speaker quickly found himself flying through the air, in an arch that was undeniably peaking far too quickly, meaning that Speaker was about to go from flying to falling.

To remedy the situation Speaker threw Gift down relative to himself, it quickly returning to him – but while Speaker continually willed Gift to recall to his right forehoof he used his perfect balancing charm to catch Gift on right rear hoof – effectively standing on Gift. As Gift kept trying to move itself to his right forehoof, while the balancing charm meant that Speaker weighed nothing as far as Gift was concerned, Speaker was able to extend his aerial travel quite a bit – at a speed so great that by the time the Ruby and Emerald Mare’s trajectory put her over the river Speaker was in range to Gift, although maintaining balance on a device that actively wanted to slip up to his forehoof was by no means easy.

Having followed the deathknight in this admittedly strange and difficult fashion, Speaker quickly realized where the mare was going: She was aiming to land on the south-western bridge pylon! Quickly twisting around so that Gift finally reached his right forehoof Speaker threw Gift with all of his martial precision…

The Ruby and Emerald Mare had both seen and heard Speaker approaching, but she had only counted on the lunar giving chase through the air. As she saw Speaker throwing Gift at her directly she tried to maneuver out of the way – a tricky thing to do mid-leap, as one wrong move could send you spiraling off course into a painful, if not lethal, crash landing.

With what the deathknight thought was luck she dodged Gift, but it swerved and circled around to attack the deathknight from above – and succeeded quite well, the rotating blades that encircled gift chewing a deep gouge down the deathknight’s back, throwing her dangerous off balance.

So hit, the deathknight began to spin out of control. As Speaker dropped harmlessly into the river, he just barely managed to see the Ruby and Emerald Mare smash into the side of the south-western stone pylon with a resoundingly dull and bone-snapping cracking sound. Moments later the shattered remains of the deathknight joined Speaker down in the water, where he hauled the corpse to shore, stuffed it into elsewhere and returned to the castle – two big gemstones, a nice ruby and emerald, stuffed into his pockets.