The Scroll of Exalted Ponies

It took only a few seconds from the circle standing idly by, confused about what to do. Shimmer, in her half-bird hardly-pony monsterpony warform had her head and neck encased in a sphere of steel, the apparent body of a changeling cataphract.

When blood began leaking from the sphere despair truly set in, and being predators that fed of emotions and dreams this lured in dozens of lesser changelings from the outside… all of them grotesque mockeries of insects or plants in rough facsimiles of ponies, but with fangs and claws of emerald leaves that were hard as jade.

Red quickly took to defending the circle, darting to and fro within the sphere of enforced normalcy that was emitted from Speaker. Around the sphere even the artful mosaic tiles on the floor seemed to menace, with every light fixture on the wall hissing or scowling at the circle, while throwing off nightmarish shadows all around.

Shimmer began to stagger, more blood spilling from around the heavy steel sphere which encased her - so much so that she began to slip around on the floor. Without being able to see, hear or speak she couldn’t communicate with the circle – or that would be the case if the circle hadn’t had a highly perceptive eclipse caste member, for while dodging clawed swipes from grotesque spider-pony changelings with he noticed that Shimmer’s feathers were emitting shimmering albeit faint pulses of light. Thanks to Cash Charmer’s linguistic charms he was to recognize the signals as a cry for help.

With his seemingly invincible ego-shield allowing him to act largely unaffected by the swarming changelings, Cash took aim and fired a shoe-claw at the steel sphere which encased Shimmer’s head, using a bit of essence to improve his aim even further. Unlike the much softer iron, or purely righteous bolts of molten sunlight, then the claw embedded itself into the sphere perfectly.

“Red, Speaker – help!” Cash called out, trying to pull at the unbreakable chain which now linked his shoe to the claw embedded in the steel sphere.

Speaker turned to see the development, quickly disengaging from the changeling he was fighting wit to go pull on the chain: “Sunrise, now would be a good time!”

Sunrise frowned. She had hoped to hold off her participation until the circle encountered more powerful foes, but if it couldn’t be helped: “Begone you foul creatures, back to the madness that spawned you!”

The combination of Sunrise’s charms and her righteous fury caused her words to boom out quite loudly, the impact of the sound burning and shattering almost all the lesser changelings in the lobby the circle was in. Among the ashes and shards Cash, Red and Speaker yanked at the chain which managed to pull Shimmer towards the circle and soon inside the protective sphere afforded by Speaker’s chaos repelling pattern.

Speaker quickly examined the steel sphere, both as a craftspony and with essence sight: “This thing is real… its not a glamour or a changeling assumption – Red, I need your help to break this thing open!”

“I’ve got it” Cash noted, rearing back to deliver a mighty clawed blow towards the sphere.

As Cash’s blow connected, he powered up a series of charms that greatly increased how much damage he would do against inanimate objects. In the first age these charms had seen mountains shattered, and horrid temples dedicated to primordial worship reduced to dust. Here the steel sphere shattered, pelting the rest of the circle in sharp and jagged shrapnel for a brief moment.

Red ignored the shrapnel thanks to her armor, Speaker parrying the few bits that came at him with Gift, and Sunrise was to heavily wreathed in charm-wrought essence shields to be hurt by such simple things. Shimmer on the other hoof was a lot worse for wear…

Aside from her head, then the rest of her body was covered in a thick layer of bone-feather armor, like a shell of thick scales. When the steel sphere became undone the circle could see that Shimmer’s birdlike face appeared flayed, with every feather plucked and her skin pulled away – it wasn’t pretty, it was very bloody, and Shimmer didn’t exactly seem to have enjoyed the process either…

Speaker quickly rushed to her aid, using his anesthetic charm and washing off Shimmer’s face with essence. As Shimmer's one good eye peeked open and her bloodied beak cracked a tiny smile she pulled away from Speaker. Before the circle’s eyes Shimmer’s own regenerative charms made her whole again… well almost: It was clear to see that most of the regrown skin was knotted up with scar tissue, which in turn made her facial feathers a tad irregular and unseemly.
“I’ll fix you up once this is over, ok?” Speaker half-offered, half-pleaded. Shimmer nodded: “Thanks”

The circle readied itself to continue further inside the ancient palatial structure, when Red noted that the lobby now smelled of food…

“You’re right – it does… Speaker, do you remember if there’s any kitchens or anything near the lobby?” Cash wondered.

His forehead creasing as Speaker thought furiously of what little he remembered of the city of Hollow during the first age, the old Lookshyan pony ultimately shook his head: “No, the kitchens are much further inside”

“It was the changelings that came in from outside that smelled of food” Shimmer noted, sniffing the air.

Looking outside through shattered windows and doorways where the doors had long since been broken down, Speaker frowned: “Why would they… oh of course”

Speaker explained that the changeling swarm outside the building was probably somehow laced with the scent used to lure in ponies, then made to fly around the building to spread it through Firewander – like how hunters could attract prey by hanging a dead rabbit from a tree.

This made destroying the swarm a slightly more important priority, at least as far as Shimmer and Speaker was concerned. Sunrise objected: “We are here to save our friend. Additionally, when we get Sullen Hoof out of here the changelings will be without the source of their entrancing odors, so the swarm will be useless”

Begrudgingly Speaker and Shimmer accepted that cutting off the Changelings at their source would be better – but the swarm would ultimately need to be dealt with: "Also Sunrise, what's to stop the swarm from coming after us when we try to leave?"

As the circle made their way deeper into the old capitol building, its partially ruined halls clad in strange inorganic growths, tumors and bizarre decorations – beautiful only to the alien mindset of the changelings, and much of not even real, being but illusory glamours – they ultimately found their way to what Speaker was sure had been banquet halls in the first age.

“Right, the kitchens should be around here somewhere” Speaker said, his brows furrowed. He was trying hard to recall what few parties he had attended at the place many thousands of years ago – but it was difficult to match the now alien decorations of glassy gossamer decorations and wooden tumor-like ornaments that had been smeared over ancient murals and bright leaf-like stone carvings.

From a door in the back of the banquet hall, as Red and Shimmer put the last few changelings they had caught dancing to horrid screeching songs to death, the clatter of pots and pans suddenly rang out – along with a familiar voice swearing loudly and most creatively.

Turning towards the door, Speaker called out: “Sully!”

The kitchens that the circle entered into were a sight no mortal soul had any business seeing. Decaying corpses were strewn among piles of rotten fruits and vegetables, grey and hairy blobs of meat so utterly putrid that they were more mold than flesh were stacked to the ceiling – and Sullen Hoof was laboring feverishly to turn it all into what looked like some kind of broth in a big vat of glassy gossamer. The really scary thing was that it smelled really good…

Before anyone in the circle could say anything to get Sully’s attention the metal-jaguar cataphract from earlier appeared – and with it all the kitchenware that Sully wasn’t using sprung to life, with snarling and fanged mavs, far too many cutting edges and other things that likely weren’t that healthy to tangle with.

“Focus on the cataphract!” Shimmer barely managed to howl before she launched herself at the thing, dedicating her beak to biting at the steel-jaguar’s neck, flecks and chips of metal flying everywhere as she bit with a force great enough to snap ponies in half.

The cataphract snarled and flipped around itself, throwing Shimmer off into a pile of knives that tried quite hard to jab themselves into every exposed join in her carapace-like bone-feather armor.

It was then that Speaker noticed that Red wasn’t attacking… she was just standing idly by, the many animated bloodthirsty pieces of kitchenware ignoring her in turn. It was quite odd to see – of what little Speaker could see, for he was busy defending himself from animated cleavers that were flying around him, and forks that kept trying to stab at his hooves. Red looked completely oblivious, even as Cash called on her to help him against the cataphract.

Drawing a deep breath, Sunrise sat down demonstratively, ignoring whatever razor sharp spoons and living shards of porcelain was trying to cut her and assumed a meditative stance. The moment her hooves came to rest in a meditative position Speaker would later come to know as the Contemplative Seeker Divining the Heavens, Sunrise’s body pulsed out a wave of righteous essence, scorching almost all the animated kitchenware and reducing most of it to fine crystalline dust with the might of her righteousness. A few fanged pots, pans and cleavers survived the experience, but all remaining changeling cook-wear was too damaged to pose a threat.

With the sudden reprieve, Speaker was able to throw Gift at the steel-jaguar which seemed to have been having a jolly time slashing at Cash. Cash looked surprisingly whole and uninjured, but that was only until Speaker saw the changeling slash into the stallion with long and jagged claws – Cash’s heavenly clothing mending itself as quickly as the creature could rend it, and Cash’s collar of dawn’s cleansing did away with any blood gushing from his wounds just as quickly as it could exit his body.

Before Speaker could react Shimmer tackled the cataphract and struck it in rapid succession with her claws… not in any slashing motion, but more like poking the thing in a weird but undoubtedly purposeful pattern. The strangest thing happened next: The cataphract with its seemingly impenetrable steel hide emitted a soul-chilling shriek, one that rung out inside everyone’s head in a most pitiful fashion… which then faded into eerie echoes, as the steel jaguar equally faded from existence, or rather, the insides of the steel jaguar cataphract faded away, for its steel hide simply dropped to the ground like a solid chunk of metal, cracking the beautiful tile mosaic underneath.

Catching his breath as he rushed to a rather wobbly and pale Cash Charmer, who seemed very close to passing out from blood loss despite his clothes showing no stains, Speaker felt himself conflicted whether whatever strange means of killing Shimmer had used was something he felt okay about. Something that made you simply fade into oblivion? It didn’t look like a terribly nice way to die… of course, it could be a specialized means to destroy changelings, which was perfectly ok.

Just as the dust settled from Sunrise’s meditative smiting, and Cash had stopped bleeding thanks to Speaker’s essence-spun stitches, Red’s shouting pierced the room. She was shaking Sullen Hoof who seemed quite oblivious to Red’s attempts at her calling her his attention, Red herself having evidently been released from whatever cataphracts mental illusion that had trapped her when the cataphract had been destroyed: “Sully, snap out of it!”

“Red, you have to use your mind-cleansing technique” Shimmer noted. Red nodded and swatted Sully across the head with an iron-shod hoof – not in any way hard enough to hurt him, but just enough to make contact. Sullen Hoof dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes as golden flames in the form and sound of hissing snakes shot out of his mouth and eyes. Speaker rushed over and concluded that Sullen Hoof was sleep-deprived.

“So they’ve been working him day and night… the monsters” Red said furiously. Sunrise came over and asked what they should do with him, pointing out that Sullen Hoof was the reason that the circle had made the incursion into the old capital building to begin with – thus, asking without saying so whether they should push on towards whatever monstrous changeling that commanded the lesser beings they had been fighting, or simply retreat.

Red stomped a hoof hard: “I didn’t come this far to run away – and if this could happen to one of us, then it could happen to any of us: We must kill whatever is causing this”

“Shimmer, fly Sully back to the townhouse – we’ll meet up on the roof” Speaker said, Shimmer quickly snatching the unconscious and overworked Orichalcum chef up and running off from whence the circle had come.

Looking at Speaker, Red wondered just how they were going to get to the roof: “This place is huge… I don’t even know how many stories there are here?”

“Cash, are you feeling well enough to use your magic shoes?” Speaker wondered, while looking at the large chimney above the huge fireplace that Sullen Hoof had been slaving away at.

The remainder of the circle quickly cleared away the ever-hot fire crystals that made up the fireplace. It looked like all the fire-gems that Sullen Hoof had looted from Denansdor. Speaker quickly made a storage bin for them out of fire-hardened bricks, hiding it in a corner with the help of Cash and Red.

With the chimney now easily accessible, Cash fired a hooked claw from one of his shoes up to the top. With a slightly daisy-chain setup, Red, Speaker and even Sunrise were all able to hang on to Cash as he willed the shoe to winch itself up to the claw stuck further up the chimney. This process was repeated a few times over, Cash winching the circle up a good twenty yards a pop.

At the top of the chimney the circle surveyed the area while Speaker’s chaos repelling pattern kept them safe from the wyld-fire that would otherwise have swallowed them, now that they were on the outside of the building. Through the rainbow haze of the wyld-fire one could almost see to the far edge of the Nighthammer district at the other end of the city – but what was more pertinent was the swarm of changelings flying around above them.

The thousands of changelings seemed to only have two things in common: They all had something that enabled them to fly somehow – some had swollen gas-bags, or wings, or oversized fluffy growths that looked akin to dandelions, or swirling hazes of fungal spores which somehow buoyed them. Secondly, they all had some feature that denoted the ability to spread or inject toxins. Growths and organs which released fungal spores, or insect-like proboscis protrusions that sprayed out a fine mist. Some had bee-like stingers that seemed to constantly drip fluid… but the circle knew it wasn’t poison the changelings were spreading: It was Sullen Hoof’s alluring brew they were disseminating – and that had to be stopped lest more mortals were lured to their doom.

Speaker let loose the first volley: His Gift cutting a swathe through the swarm, many of the changelings rupturing like bloated corpses filled with pus-like fluid, which in turn rained down on the roof of the old capital building. This sent a shockwave through the swarm, which caused the nearest few hundred changelings to make a beeline towards the circle.

Red stood ready to defend – her anima flaring to its totemic level and bathing Speaker, Cash and Sunrise in all her glory as she reached for the glowing bow of golden essence with her will: The arrows she fired were conjured of burning white essence, and they each multiplied again and again as they raced towards the changelings, all of which burst with sickening crackling noises when their bodies ruptured. This in turn made more and more changelings charge towards them.

“Don’t let them get near us – Sunrise is probably the only one of us who can resist a direct dose of whatever Sully cooked up to entrance ponies” Speaker called out, parrying a glob of hypno-soup that had been spat at him by a changeling.

The circle ended up huddling together close. Cash was still too wounded to fight properly and Sunrise was saving her breath and essence until all of the swarm was in range for her righteous fury. In a matter of seconds Red began to find it difficult to hold off the tornado of changelings coming at the circle – Speaker even stopped attacking, his Thousand Wounds Gear style of martial arts being far more suited for attacking single targets or small groups and his supply of iron weapons exhausted, so instead he began pouring his essence into Red so she keep up her defences.

Like throwing sticks at a tidal wave, Red’s torrent of essence-spun arrows, wreathed in holy flame, skewered and smote well over a thousand changelings over the course of but a few minutes, but it was not enough to stem the tide. In the end she discarded her glowing bow and drew a knife from under her armor, her last weapon, for she had thrown everything else she had at the swarm.

Cutting an ancient symbol in the air that she could not read – yet knew perfectly, Red enacted an even older principle that made both the Mare of Endings and the Mare of Battles up in Yu-Shan shudder with a mix of ecstasy and horror. It was one of the first powers that Autochton had made possible as he had created the solar exaltations, exemplifying their role as not just slayers of Primordials, but saviors of Creation. It had gone under many names in the past, but to Red it had but one, and as the tide of ten thousand changelings laden with poison, claws and entrancing fluids crashed into the circle they battered themselves against the heavenly guardian defence – just long enough for the swarm to lose its initial momentum and allow Red to force it back with a wave of mighty essence.

Speaker beamed with pride. He had not seen that charm used in such a way – in such a truly heroic way – since the primordial war: “That was a amazing” he managed to say, his breath ragged and his own personal essence reserves all gone, given into Red.

“Great, because it was my last – I’m out” Red said, her body just as worn out as her spirit, both drained of power.

As Red collapsed up against Cash, who groaned as the added weight put pressure on his stitches, Sunrise looked at Speaker with asking eyes – wordlessly inquiring if now might be a good time for her to use her powers.

Looking skywards and seeing nothing but a seemingly endless mélange of leaves in every color imaginable (and a few unimaginable), twigs, fungal pods and fluttering insect parts, Speaker shook his head: “Most of the swarm is too far from us – if you destroy what’s near us now the rest might scatter across the city… there’s no telling how many hundreds of thousands of ponies will suffer because of that”

Cash held Red tight, closing his eyes as the sky darkened for what seemed to the last time as far as he was concerned…

It was then that an ear-piercing shriek, like that of a bird of prey, rolled across the rooftop like a bolt of thunder. It was Shimmer.

Trailing an enormous shimmering web of iridescent string, Shimmer flew much faster than any of the changelings in the swarm – catching the entire swarm like a school of fish in a net. Banking to slow her speed, Shimmer howled: “Throw her!”

His mind taking a moment to understanding what his Lunar mate had meant, Speaker quickly barked an order at Red, who’s many years of mercenary service made her snap to attention as a matter of instinct: “Red, up! Grab Sunrise, throw her on three!”

With a great heave from both of them, the old soldier and tired mercenary flung Sunrise into the air – into the middle of the ensnared swarm.

To the mortal ponies that eked out a living in Firewander the battle above the old capital building seemed wondrous. Above the rainbow flames the giant swarm of changelings – which had only appeared not a week ago – was suddenly caught in a shimmering net – and moments later a great flash of golden sunlight from within in burned the swarm to ashes.

On the rooftop of the old palatial structure, the rest of the circle breathed a sigh of relief – and coughed – as the ashes and burnt leaves that constituted the remains of the changeling swarm…

Having caught Sunrise on her way down, Shimmer landed elegantly next to the circle: “Sorry I’m late – the mercs that police around the town house had to be ‘convinced’ that I was a resident, not a monster”

Cash forced a vindictive smile and groaned: “I’ll have their commanding officer fired… hehe” then he coughed up blood and had to be steadied by Speaker.

“Can you get us home?” Sunrise asked, her voice as tired as her body and soul.

Red, although wounded, had stemmed most of her bleeding by sheer force of will and thus didn’t feel the need to run away just yet: “Oh come on – we need to seize the moment here! Charge in and kill the changeling lord in charge of this, so no more swarms are made!”

“Red, the only one of us not injures is Shimmer – and I need to tend to Sully to see if he can even be saved” Speaker implored.
Red seemed to grow an inch or two as she turned her head in righteous indignation: “They hurt my friend! Are you saying we shouldn’t avenge him?! Are you saying I can’t?!””

Surprised by Red’s frustration, Speaker took a step back and tried to calmly state his case: “No, I’m saying that charging blindly into a changeling hold is suicide, especially when your only backup is wounded and you are out of essence. Stop and think for a moment Red”

“I just... we could still do some damage before we leave” Red said begrudgingly, looking and sounding less hostile and more insulted.

Not wanting to wait that much longer for proper treatment of his wounds, which were still bleeding – even if his magic thingies were cleaning the bloodstains just as quickly as they appeared – Cash interrupted Red: “He’s saying its suicide, he’s saying it’s stupid to go in unprepared – he’s saying we got really lucky here, with saving Sully. Now let’s go home and recover, then plan what to do next”

Speaker couldn’t tell if Cash had used mind control charms on Red, for he had spent all his essence to the point that he couldn’t even activate his essence sight to check, but she acquiesced – In the end it didn’t matter. He was tired, he was hurt, and he needed to tend to Sully who was hurt even more.

As the circle flew off on Shimmer’s back, it became clear that whatever changeling ruled the old capitol building wasn’t happy to learn that it had its latest and greatest asset for luring in ponies: The very rainbow fire that engulfed the grand mile-long palace rose up and roared, howling in fury before it shattered into a million pieces which rained down over the surrounding neighborhoods, wreaking chaos and destruction. This was bound to be noticed by someone – but then again, the giant swarm of changelings getting reduced to ash by a flash of golden light had probably been seen by thousands already…

Back at the town house, Speaker tended to Cash and Red’s wounds, before turning to Sullen Hoof. When he came out from Sullen Hoof’s bedroom Speaker didn’t look as much sad as he appeared conflicted – the others took this as a good sign – but when he explained to the others what the problem was,

“Red’s mind-cleansing blow ended the compulsion to cook until he dropped – but the changelings have done a lot more damage than that…” Speaker said with a heavy heart.

Shimmer had already sensed the damage when she had flown Sullen Hoof back: “Dream-eaten?”

Speaker nodded. Red, Cash and Sunrise all reacted with a mix of gasps and horror… a solar, dream-eaten. Just as the others began to process this terrible bit of news Speaker spoke up: “Oh it’s not that bad – I can fix him – the question is just the timing”
In split moment Red switched from grief to anger, stomping her hooves hard into the wooden floor: “Timing? If you can fix him, why are you even here? Just do it!”

Straightening out his uniform and taking a deep breath, Speaker tried his hardest to maintain his professional doctor appearance: “Red, calm down. I mean that to fix Sully I’d have to use the unshaping gun – and that thing takes a whole day to recharge, so if the changeling lord who’s new favorite toy we just stole makes a move… we won’t have a weapon to defeat it, or undo any more damage of this severity”

“Hey, me and Shimmer can still fight these things” Red said, sounding insulted at Speaker‘s implication that it was only the unshaping device that was any good against changelings.

Speaker apologized for the misunderstanding – but he also pointed out that so far they had only fought cataphracts: “…and a proper changeling lord can have legions of cataphracts at its command – and it alone is far more dangerous than all of them combined”

Red didn’t look particularly daunted by Speaker’s assessment of changeling lords, remaining adamant that Speaker should use the unshaping device to fix Sully this instant. Cash and Sunrise agreed, Cash noting that the sooner Speaker did so, the sooner the device could begin to recharge. Ultimately Speaker caved to the peer pressure and left to zap Sully.

One flash of light from Sullen Hoof’s room later and both Speaker and the solar culinarian rejoined their friends.

The next two days proved delightfully uneventful. Cash quickly organized the reconstruction effort of Brookside and several of the surrounding neighborhoods, buying up a lot damaged property while at it. Speaker and Shimmer aided in the reconstruction in a more direct fashion, with Speaker also checking in at the hospital whenever a messenger would arrive to inform him of a patient that his by now exceedingly well-trained staff couldn’t help.

It was three days after Sullen Hoof’s rescue that Cash gathered the circle at the town house for dinner and dire news:

“Shimmer, do you remember that you told us that the local mercs policing the area around our house had given you trouble?” Cash began, while everyone enjoyed Sullen Hoof’s latest culinary masterpiece.

Shimmer nodded with a surly look on her face, noting that if it hadn’t been for them she would have been able to return to the others much sooner: “…and then Red and Cash wouldn’t still have be recovering from their wounds”

Cash nodded in turn, looking somewhat conflicted about what he was about to say next: “Well… I have good and bad news on that front: The good news is that I got the commanding officer of the squad that gave you grief fired… but the bad news is that because of that, he's no longer bound by the clause in his contract that prevented him from ratting us out to the immaculates, which he did – so now they know where we live”

“Will this be a problem?” Shimmer asked, her tone sounding anything but pleased.

Red smirked: “Bah – if they come for I’ll kick their flanks from here to Blessed Isle!”

It was clear that Cash wasn’t comfortable admitting that his actions might put them all in danger, but in no uncertain terms he explained that at the very least it would allow the immaculates and any other enemies the circle have might have to start sending assassins after them, or thugs to kidnap them: “And Red, that’s not something you can fight head on – they’ll come when we sleep, when we’re tired, when we’re not on guard”. Worse yet was that their servants could very well also become targets, since kidnapping a servant’s foal is a well known ‘trick’ to get said servant to… say, poison his master – or let assassins in at night.

“We don’t have servants here…” Red said, sounding somewhat confused about Cash’s line of reasoning – as well as deeply annoyed to have a foe that couldn’t be fought head on.

Sunrise shook her head: “Really Red? Have you ever seen Sullen Hoof do the dishes after we’re done eating? Or Shimmer sweep the floors? Clearly Cash has servants come and go as needed”

“The simplest solution to the servant issue is to make room and get some live-in servants, obviously – but without additional security…” Cash began, when Sullen Hoof gestured to speak.

Having been born and raised on the mean streets of Nexus, Sullen Hoof knew well of the tactics that Cash spoke of – indeed, his own past as a poisoner was a testament to this, but it also meant that he knew how to avoid these issues: “Cash, you’re not thinking about handling this problem properly”

“I’m all ears if you have a better way to ensure that the immaculates don’t get us in our sleep” Cash said, not sounding as if Sullen Hoof could convince him that there was anything else to do…

Sullen Hoof craned his neck and removed his orichalcum helmet-mask. As he put it gently on the table, everyone trying to not stare as his gruesome burn-scars that covered most of his face, he explained that the immaculates were many things in Nexus – to the legions of workers they were hope, and to the rich merchants and factory owners they were a means of control: “Now, there are brothels in Harlotry – Houses of Binding – where sorcerers summon demons for ponies to have sex with… a practice that I can assure you is not in any way in line with the immaculate faith, but do the monks say anything? No they don't. Not a single word”

Cash nodded with rapt attention. Speaker wasn’t sure where Sullen Hoof was going, but listened on none the less, as did everyone else: “Places like the houses of binding, or that brothel where the workers dress up in gold and silver paint to pretend to be ‘evil anathema’ that horny costumers can 'conquer', are left alone because they have friends in high places. They have wealthy patrons who prefer their entertainment left alone, and these wealthy patrons are the same merchants and factory owners who fund the immaculates via donations, so the immaculates in turn can convince all their workers and slaves that they just need to suck it up, accept their piss-poor pay and hope for a better gig in the next life”

“So… we should just bribe the immaculates with donations?” Cash wondered out loud.

Sullen Hoof chuckled – an act that really looked quite unnerving due to his thoroughly messed up face: “No, we make friends with the ponies who donate to the immaculates. If the monks then screw with us, it will upset our friends… who might then stop donating. Trust me Cash, we can’t hope to match the fortune that everyone else is giving to the immaculate temple, but if we can threaten that fortune – then we will be left alone”

“Fair enough – but how to make that kind of friends, and fast?” Speaker wondered. He liked Sullen Hoof’s strategy, but he couldn’t see any quick way of executing it, especially not with Cash making more rivals than buddies in how he was buying up property in Firewander.

“Well that’s easy – we already know how to do that!” Cash suddenly blurted out. He then reminded Speaker of the idea of the concierge medicine… and added that this time it wouldn’t be to raise money, but to make friends: “So hey, we can just tell whoever you pop by that if they like your work, they can donate to your hospital – that’s even better actually, because nobody wants to hear about the immaculates closing down whatever they’ve been giving money to”

Shimmer seemed all aboard the idea, but Cash’s last remark about charity confused her: “Hold on Cash, didn’t you say back when me and Speaker opened up the clinic that charity isn’t really allowed here in Nexus?”

“Well…” Cash began, lingering on the word for a good couple of seconds before trying to explain the impressive lack of logic and brazen double-standard behind the civilities in Nexus that governed charities. Apparently charities were legal – but only in certain ways – and even more so only when someone really wealthy and powerful funded the operation as a means to legitimize it. Indeed, apparently there were a number of such charity organizations in Nexus, all run by wealthy ponies to make them feel better about working their slaves and workers to death every day.

“Right – it’s said that for every barge full of dead slaves the sijaneese sail off with, a soup kitchen is opened for a month somewhere in Nighthammer or the south-side of Sentinel Hill” Sullen Hoof chimed in.

Speaker would have asked what exactly his clinic then had counted as – but didn’t bother. It was clear that in Nexus that having and spending lots of money simply made things permissible, or at the very least meant that you wouldn’t have to answer for your actions, no matter how cruel they were.

The next day Cash gave Speaker and Shimmer a list of addresses and a large pouch of money, with instructions to get some much finer clothes: “Where you’re going, wearing that old faded uniform of yours will not get you through the door – I know you like it, and you can always put it back on when you get home, but not while working for this kind of clientele”

After a brief shopping trip Speaker and Shimmer began hitting up the addresses on the list. Most of the places had apparently been messages by Cash to expect Speaker, though a few simply turned them away – some rudely so – at the door or gate to their various mansions and estates.

It quickly became apparent that the most common thing among the ludicrously wealthy ponies that Speaker visited were demands that he and Shimmer swear themselves to total and complete secrecy about whatever they were about to cure. This didn’t surprise Speaker, as it also quickly became apparent that many of the illnesses he had been summoned to cure were not as much lethal ones – as they were socially embarrassing ones, though they were all quite serious: These ponies had plenty of skilled doctors, even dragonblooded unicorn healers, on call, but even the ponies gifted with the powers of the dragons couldn’t cure everything.
- or if they could, they didn't seem to trust them not to blab about it.

After undoing a particularly nasty infection on a wealthy merchant’s nutsack – an infection evidently caused by a lover having bitten him there a little too hard – Speaker and Shimmer found themselves in the situation that the merchant refused to let them leave without them accepting some kind of payment – the idea of him giving to a charity hospital for the poor was apparently far too disgusting a thought for him.

Ultimately Shimmer sensed something familiar with an ancient ceramic vase painted in blue and silver that the merchant had. Speaker’s essence sight confirmed her suspicion: The silver paint was actually moonsilver. It took a little haggling from Shimmer’s side, but ultimately the Solar and Lunar left the residence – though through the sewers – with the vase tucked away elsewhere.

During their subsequent house-calls, Speaker found himself increasingly faced with a concept that he wasn’t that familiar with – indeed, if it wasn’t for Shimmer’s respectable business savvy (A skill mostly developed via arranging trade agreements between western island tribes) then Speaker might well have found himself in a lot of trouble, for a lot of the clients they visited offered him various contracts and retainer fees, and most of them were quite insisting. The catch was that a lot of the contracts had tricky wording that Speaker, as smart as he was, simply couldn’t make heads or tails of. Now, give him a construction diagram for a manse with all its intricate essence flow diagrams – that he could work with, but wording like non-competition clauses and exclusive treatment arrangements just didn't make sense to him. So while Shimmer allowed Speaker to sign the more harmless retainer contracts, she noted that for the others they would have to consult their business partner first before being able to consider signing anything that binding.

In the end, after a few days of making the fat and bloated thin and pretty, the weak and old into vigorous and old, and even at one point undoing a young mare’s brain-damage caused by having choked on her own umbilical cord at birth, Cash reported that the hospital had gotten five separate cash donations, the largest of which was a literal cart full of silver bars – plus a number of large donations of used but clean linens of various colors as well as a host of other things, some with names of the donators, some without. All in all, Cash was quite certain that once these rich ponies started talking about Speaker as their private miracle worker they would never allow him or his housemates to be touched by the immaculates.

Red found this news quite pleasing, as she had evidently spent her time since the rescue mission into the old capitol building making plans to purge it of changelings, once and for all…