Chapter 83: The Road To Hell…

“Release him!” thundered Ruby, while Shimmer in her birdlike warform was tossing the two security directorate unicorns hard into the manse wall, sending cracks up the old alabaster walls.

With two very well-aimed burst-shots of essence string, Shimmer stuck the two unicorns to the walls and then rushed to Speaker: “You ok?”
Getting up, Speaker looked around. Ruby had the Valkhawsen professor held at the point of an iridescent white jade daiklaive with a nice ornate dragon-motif on the hilt, while the rest of the circle was just arriving, their breath ragged.

“I’m fine – wouldn’t have been for much longer without you, so thanks – oh and see if you can find the key to these shackles” Speaker said, waving a shackled hoof at Shimmer.

With a few sniffs at the strange soulsteel and orichalcum shackle, Shimmer quickly tracked down the ‘key’ to one of the two unicorns she had stuck to the wall. There wasn’t a physical key – but physical intimidation to make them break their essence-bond to the magical shackles worked just fine. Once the shackles were unlocked and removed Speaker instantly felt control of his essence return to him: “Much better”
“Alright – let’s get out of here” Shimmer said, giving the two unicorns stuck to the wall a mean glare. All they could do was glare back, their mouths bound shut by Shimmer’s essence webbing.

Looking at the old professor, then at the circle, Speaker shook his head: “No, this place needs to be fixed – they needed my essence to prevent this ruin from exploding”

Walking up to the professor, Speaker yanked the old unicorn up on his hooves by biting down on the collar of his robes – forcefully so – and looked the old stallion in the eyes: “Explain exactly how this process works”

The unicorn explained that for as long as Lookshy has existed – heck, for as long as any known records of Deheleshen has existed – this place has been, and it has required yearly doses of solar-aspected essence to not blow up.

This quickly raised the question of how Lookshy had managed to come up with solar-aspected essence in the past. The answer was surprisingly simple: Mutant creatures that spawn in a demense to the south contain enough solar essence in their blood that bleeding one dry into the altar keeps the place working…

“And you’re not just doing that because…?” Cash asked, noting that if the unicorns that held Deheleshen and later Lookshy were able to keep that practice going ever since the usurpation then it didn’t make sense to stop now.

The professor gave Cash a knowing look – the sort of look a teacher might give a student who just asked an obviously stupid question: “The Mask of Winters happened. The Bright Plateu demense is in the southern reaches of the Marukan lands – and the undead from Thorns recently took control of the place”

“So? Why not just have a reserve of the things kept captive? Breed them for our own supply?” Ruby wondered.

The professor sighed: “They don’t reproduce in captivity – trust me, it’s been tried. They’re things of living sunlight. We think the demense spawns them, because there’s always some for us to catch when we go there to get a new stock every four or five years”

“So you do catch more than one at a time? Did you run out just now?” Ruby inquired, all the while Speaker examined the altar and the crystal console it was connected to.

The old unicorn explained that several months ago Valkhawsen’s stock of the sunlight beings was wiped out – saboteurs from Thorns being the prime suspects, judging from the traces of necrotic essence found in the greenhouse where the things were kept. It was then that he had led expedition to the Bright Plateau was sent, one that returned a few weeks ago: “We’ve been scouring our geomantic maps for any solar-aspected demenses ever since – but there simply is no more time, so we turned to the security directorate for help”

“And it didn’t occur to you to simply ask? I told you earlier – I would have helped you with this” Speaker angrily quipped from over at the crystal console.

In his defense the old unicorn claimed that he had prayed at the temple for advice and then talked to the ponies at the Security Directorate, where he had talked to had assured him that Speaker would never consent to being bled to death for Lookshy, to which Cash snarked: “Sure, and the road to Malfeas is paved with good intentions”

Speaker could only derisively grunt at both of them as he ripped the cover off the console and began to dig through the crystal circuitry underneath.

Quickly finding the spiky black jade assembly that would draw essence out of blood, Speaker recognized it as a later addition to an essence relay. With a few swift blows of the hoof the delicate the device shattered, revealing the essence conduit it was attached to. The old professor cried out in horror: “No! You’ll doom us all!”

“No – now tell me how many motes need to be fed into the system” Speaker demanded, holding his hoof to the essence conduit.

The exact measurement of essence was a strange field of study mainly only observed by obsessive sorcerers and the thaumaturges who worked in magical artifice – so the ‘number’ the old unicorn gave Speaker made little sense to the rest of the circle. Only Speaker and Ruby understood the metric fully, but that was more than enough.

With this information Speaker used his essence-transfer charm and added the pitifully small amount of essence into the conduit, all the while giving the old unicorn a very dirty look: “I respire more essence than that every hour – hells, I probably piss out more motes than that on a daily basis”

Bowing his head in shame, the old professor begged for forgiveness: “I only did what I thought I had to for the greater good of Lookshy… I am truly sorry – we didn’t have time to send out other expeditions”

Leaving the three unicorns to get out on their own and heading to the surface, Speaker once more thanked the circle and Ruby for their timely intervention: “But how did you find me so quickly?”

“Oh that’s easy. When we got to the Yushoto place young Ruby here was there to meet us. She thought that you had gone to meet us in the market district, but then Shimmer smelled the alchemical drug that had been used to knock you out – what was it Sully used to call the stuff in Nexus?” Shimmer began.

Cash thought for a moment: “You talking about dream pearls?”

“Ya that’s the ones – when Silver Spoon and her cronies tried to have me kidnapped” Cash nodded, looking as if he reminisced a surprisingly happy memory at the mention of himself getting kidnapped.

Ruby nodded, she evidently knew of the things – how was a good question, but a question for another time – just like the question of when Cash had been kidnapped back in Nexus – but Speaker didn’t want to press the issue, and Ruby continued the story of how she and the circle had tracked Speaker down:

“With the guards at the compound saying that coughers had been there for you and dream pearls in the air, and you missing, it wasn’t difficult to figure out that you were in trouble, and then your marefriend turned into a three eyed bird monster and tracked your scent” Ruby explained.

Shimmer nodded, noting that it was Ruby and Cash who managed to quickly negotiate access to the caverns under Valkhawsen from the justicars and home guard.

Indeed, as the circle and Ruby followed the tunnels back – traversing the wall of golden fire wearing spun orichalcum robes – the motley crew soon found themselves in stairways that led up to the lower levels of Valkhawsen.

“It’s funny – I knew about the fire down here. The alchemy and metallurgy students come down here all the time to purify things in the flames. It’s unique: Burns away both physical and spiritual impurities of whatever you put into the fire. I guess that’s why the general staff approved of keeping the place working as is for so long” Ruby pondered as the circle emerged back into daylight, as filtered by the stained glass windows of Valkhawsen.

Speaker shrugged. He knew damn well that it was a complete waste to have a broken factory cathedral just sitting there, but in turn he knew that fixing it would mean somehow getting it to the surface – and all of Valkhawsen was in the of that.

“I’m sure you could figure something out – Valkhawsen is nothing but classrooms, labs, workshops and underground storage anyway – I’m sure that could be fit in elsewhere in Lookshy while you raise the manse – we can propose it to the general staff as another reason to cooperate with us” Cash said, sounding hungry for delicious negotiations.

Ruby first shot Cash, then Speaker a somewhat worried look – though it was clear that she was angling for an answer from Speaker, not Cash, since she had already figured that Cash would be far more difficult to get a straight answer out of: “Cooperate with you about what?”

Speaker looked at Shimmmer, Cash and Sunrise, looking apprehensive about spilling the beans – showing restraint in the face of a friendly request for once.

Sunrise stepped up: “Maheka Ruby, there are thirteen dread Deathlords that rule the underworld at the behest of the Neverborn, the unliving and ever-dying remains of slain primordials that the Exalted host slew at the dawn of the first age to secure the rule of ponie . Each of them have a plan to end all life in creation, each more vile and cruel than the other – and we’re here to gain the help of the Seventh Legion to stop the Deathlord who’s plan is closest to fruition”

The unicon mare blinked a few times at Sunrise. It was painfully obvious that she was torn between staying with Speaker, as was her duty, and galloping off to report this fact to her security inspectorate handlers who would no doubt quickly relay this news of Solar intent to the general staff.

“Go – we’ll head back to the Yushoto compound and wait for our audience with the general staff” Cash said, having seen Ruby’s desire clearly in the anguish shown in her eyes.

Ruby was off in a storm of hooves, leaving the circle to fend for themselves in Valkhawsen.

“Ok, before we leave I want to introduce you to a friend I’ve made, the headmaster here” Speaker suggested.

Later at the Yushoto compound, after tea with Drip-Crank, Speaker asked if the circle had learned anything new about Sullen Hoof. They had: Sullen Hoof had been caught up in a multi-Deathlord plot to regain control of Stygia. After foiling a plot to kill Unwanted Whisper, the filly ghost queen of the district of Whispering Streets, Sully had been approached by the Bodhisattva to help slay another district lord, a mad ghost who wished to plunge his district into oblivion. This had taken a while, and afterwards there had apparently been some back and forth assassination attempts – all in all the Deathlords were pissed and were currently amassing troops around Stygia to invade it and seize control of the city, since the council no longer supported their plans.

“That’s terrible – do we need to go help him?” Speaker asked in old realm, all the while servants poured the circle tea within one of the nicer tea salons in the Yushoto compound – no sense in letting every in earshot know what they were talking about. The afternoon sun shined warmly through the large west-facing magically transparent wall.

Shimmer laughed: “Heavens no – that’s the beauty of it. Sully has been running around killing ghost generals, so the Deathlords arehaving to tie down their deathknights to lead slow moving zombie troops, instead of being all mobile and deadly, plus the troops that the Deathlords are sending to Stygia mean less troops to defend Deep Rot and other projects, that Sully and the Bodhisatva’s Darklight Heresy have been raiding in turn”

Seeing how that made sense, especially with forcing deathknights to babysit mindless zombie troops instead of being the highly sneaky, mobile and deadly exalted killing machines that most deathknights seemed to be, Speaker found himself a bit more at ease.

“What about you? What’ve you been up to since sending Shimmer to chill out at our end?” Cash inquired, thinking of Ruby and her eagerness to help Speaker.

Thinking for a moment, Speaker took a deep breath and brought everyone up to date on what had been happening with him. From wrapping up his disassembly charm, both to make future incarceration next to impossible, but also now since it would be quite handy to wreck Deep Rot, to the mob that attacked him at the behest of a disguised Sidereal. Ruby was of course also mentioned, Sunrise noted that Ruby had introduced herself already while they had been tracking Speaker earlier, so the circle knew of her being his arbiter.

“Alright, well – after the priest attack and me taking the sidereal’s leg, we tracked the guy to Valkhawsen’s medical wing where they fit ponies with magical prosthetics. He had killed a patient and used sidereal tricks to swap his missing limb around, but we got him! Heath Rose then showed up, in disguise, and took him away to Yu-Shan” Speaker regaled.

Shimmer looked towards the beautifully painted wooden ceiling: “I can only imagine what they’re going to do to him for using a demonic weapon from beyond fate to end or disrupt mortal destinies”

The whole circle agreed that whoever that sidereal was, then he it was for the best that he had been stopped.

“Ok, so what else’ve you been up to? Beyond being taken down to some ruined manse to be drained for blood?” Shimmer said curiously.

Beyond missing Sullen Hoof’s cooking, then Speaker couldn’t think of much beyond the fact that he’d made friends with Valkhawsen’s headmaster by undoing a lunar curse on him – and through that secured help for making the magical device he had been designing.
“Oh, Shimmer told me that you’ve planning something – what are you making?” Cash inquired most curiously.

Explaining that it was to be an artifact similar to Gift, only better, more versatile and even more deadly, Cash nodded in agreement: “Sounds like fun – you think you’ll be able to have it done before we make a move against Deep Rot?”

The long moment of thoughtful silence that followed clearly showed how Speaker had not given any thought to how a long production run might not fit with the circle’s more immediate plans of war against the Barbate Arbiter.

“We’ll figure something out – we still haven’t heard from the general staff about when they can hear us, so you have plenty of time to finish your designs and figure out how long it would take to build” Sunrise remarked calmly.

Indeed, the next day the circle was informed that it would be another couple of weeks before the general staff could be reconvened. It was almost as if the various Taymo had other things to do than sit in council and debate or negotiate things all day: “Running a city state sometimes requires some hoof-on work I guess” Cash noted.

“True, by the way – how’s Sunhill going? I haven’t seen any requests filed in my desk for direct assistance ever since… heavens… since last time we were all in Sunhill for more than a day or so” Speaker mused.

Sunrise responded that while the deal with Lookshy to take in injured and maimed soldiers had been made, then Sunhill was far from any battles that Lookshy was currently engaged in: “And honestly, you shouldn’t underestimate how good the doctors and nurses you’ve trained are – though the number of sick ponies coming to city is making it difficult to avoid having them infect each other as they all come into the city”

“Hmmm… maybe sending out ships with medical crews to help ferry ponies to Sunhill safely?” Speaker pondered.

Cash noted that such a thing might was already planned once the Sunhill wharf and drydock was finished – something Speaker no doubt could speed up – though he also begrudgingly acknowledged that anything with a Sunhill banners going near Nexus was bound to get into trouble, since the council of entities were still pissed at them.

“The fools – they care only about money, not the wellbeing of the ponies they lord over” Sunrise sneered.

The next couple of days went by delightfully uneventfully. Cash taught Speaker and Sunrise his whirling brush methodology, allowing them to write even the most complex of calligraphy at speeds that saw the quartermaster at the Yushoto compound scramble several messengers to the market district to buy more paper. At the end of the week the much anticipated Manuals of Exalted Power were done, detailing all that the circle knew of Solars – what they were, how their celestial exaltations worked compared to the terrestrial exaltations of the unicorns, and what their charms could do. Indeed, in working on doing basic measurements of essence expenditure of his charms Speaker had a wonderful epiphany with regards to the nature of essence itself, which opened his mind to the world of sorcery. Sure, it would take a while longer to learn any kind of spells, but as Speaker happily pointed out: “It’s all part of the learning process – not even Solars master things like this instantly”

With the manuals handed over to the Intelligence Directorate and the Seventh Legion analysts who would no doubt be going over them for months to come, the circle found itself in a rare situation of having little to nothing to do. There was at least another week before the general staff had time to meet them, so there were plenty of time to do whatever.

Cash and Sunrise returned to Sunhill to catch up on things and do some diplomacy with its neighbors. Speaker and Shimmer got the offer to come along, but Speaker wanted to stay: He had a few doctor’s calls to make, or so he claimed, and Shimmer refused to leave him alone this time around due to a very ominous message the circle received from Heath Rose.

The message had appeared as letters of fire written in the fire of the fireplace the evening before Cash and Sunrise flew off to Sunhill, along with a group of curious gens scion passangers who had apparently paid handsomely for a trip on a flying yeddim: “Six Heavens Hunter has friends and minions. They are upset. All attempts at divining Speaker’s future points to attacks from outside of fate. Ward against demons and the dead”

To this end Shimmer resolutely refused to leave Speaker’s side, though this did worry him a bit considering Ruby’s presence as his armiger, which they discussed the next morning just after Cash and Sunrise had left: “I don’t want to see you going off on her like you did Taimyo Oilygear”

“Oh you don’t have to worry about that. While you and Sunrise wrote your big book of Solar lore I went and made amends” Shimmer said surprisingly cheerfully, to the point that it actually worried Speaker a little.

Shooting his Lunar a nervous look, Speaker asked: “You didn’t do anything rash I hope?”

“Nah, just talked, bonded a little. Turns out he defected from the realm some thirty years ago, hates it just as much as me – oh and he apparently used to sail between the isle and Thorns, to V’Neef vineyards there. Did you know that they’re still trying to export wine from those, even with the new… management… there? But it all comes out as rotten fetid grape pulp?” Shimmer reported. She also added that the two of them had, over some really nice Popo – a western drink made from fermented coconut milk, usually made in the western island nation called The Neck – talked about what Oilygear had learned of the realm civil war in the west.

Judging from Shimmer’s somewhat forced smile, Speaker inquired: “Is it that bad over there?”

Biting her lower lip and casually flicking a dreadlock with a hoof, Shimmer let out a deep sigh: “It’s getting worse. The satrap on Wavecrest snuck half a legion in under the Feathered One’s nose, while another realm noble house – not sure which one – is apparently in the process of either enslaving or killing all the ponies on the Coral isles in order to pacify and conquer them, or simply. Its chaos”

“I’m sorry to hear that” Speaker said sincerely.

Getting up and pacing about the grand dinner-table, Shimmer gave off the distinct vibe that she really didn’t want to discuss the subject anymore: “So, what’s the plan for today?”

“We practice medicine” Speaker said cheerfully.

A short while later at Valkhawsen’s medical wing, in the prosthetics department Speaker requested permission to ‘fix’ all the amputees awaiting prosthetics – but the department head was having none of it.

The deceptively young looking unicorn stallion in his plain grey doctors robes, with his short-cropped brown mane and tale, stomped his hoof sternly: “It’s bad enough that you come here chasing priests who kill my patients, now you want to corrupt the poor souls who’re here for treatment? Get out of here you filthy anathema before I call the home guard!”

One short visit to Headmaster Dripcrank later and Speaker had all the permission he needed. The department head protested, loudly to the point of threatening resignation – but the legionaries who got their legs, hooves, eyes and what have you back didn’t protest in the slightest.

It was late afternoon when Speaker and Shimmer left Valkhawsen, though on their way back towards the residential district Speaker recognized a pony sitting on a bench who looked incredibly old: Her face was a mountain-range of wrinkles, her body gaunt and her hooves worn and frayed, and her mane was patchy and showing signs of balding – a rarity for even among exalted mares who reached old age, though this pony was obvious a mortal one close to the end of her life.

“Thundermane, is that you?” Speaker asked out loud, as he approached the old pony.

Thundermane’s appearance made Speaker look down right youthful, but none the less the old pony slowly looked up and ultimately shot Speaker a snaggle-toothed smile with eyes that showed signs of cataract: “Doc, is that you?”

“It’s me. Looks like they took your stones, when was that?” Speaker inquired, giving his old army buddy a thorough look-over.

The old pony nodded and slowly said: “About a year ago. Couldn’t gallop anymore, my legs are even worse now – but the pension is good, and my family is looking to invest it”

Shimmer looked at the two – it was clear to her that Speaker and Thundermane had served together, though it wasn’t entirely obvious to her what their relationship had been. Had Thundermane been a commanding officer now retired?

“How are you eyes? They look cloudy” Speaker noted, his diagnostic medical confirming that Thundermane’s eyes were well on their way to a state of effectively total blindness.

The aging mare again nodded, slowly: “They don’t matter. The doctors gave me a year or two, tops – I’ll be with the dragons before I’m blind”
“Excuse me, sorry for asking – but are you sick from something? And how do you know Speaker?” Shimmer interjected, her curiosity getting the better of her.

Thundermane smiled, like a grandmother being asked by a grandchild to tell a nice story: “Oh me and Speaker, we go way back. He was our field medic while I served as Gunzosha in the first field force. He would come along on raids and keep us patched up. He would’ve gotten the stones too if he wasn’t so damn sma… what’s happening?” she finished, in a frightened tone, looking around wildly.

Golden sparkles leapt about inThundermane’s vision, as Speaker’s healing charm cleared up her cataracts. Thundermane turned to look at Speaker, her face one big confused question mark, but then suddenly she stumbled backwards off the bench while crying out in horror!
“Whoa – you ok?!” Speaker said, leaping into action to help Thundermane get up – but the old mare kept scooting away from him along the cobbled street.

Waving a worn hoof accusingly at Speaker, Thundermane cried: “How dare you! Anathema!”

At this point Shimmer became all too aware of the other ponies walking about the street were starting to look – and from what she had noticed of the street patrols of justicars in the area, then there would be a patrol coming by real soon: “Speaker, we should leave”

“No Shimmer – Look, Thundermane, I only healed your eyes. I haven’t done anything bad to you. Hell, you’ve heard about Matriach Yushoto’s recovery? That was me as well. Please, I’m not a bad pony – never been, you know me well enough to see that” Speaker implored, trying his best to come off as earnest as possible.

The old mare stopped scooting away, looking somewhat puzzled: “But… the priests said you’d sold your soul to demons – marked by gold on the brow with dark powers”

“Oh… my caste mark – no, that flares up like a unicorn’s anima flares up when I use charms. The powers I got are from heaven, not Malfeas” Speaker explained, helping Thundermane up from the ground.

The old pony gave Speaker a suspicious glare as she staggered up. Shimmer recognized the conflict, having encountered many ponies in the west who claimed to know well of anathema – curtesy of realm-sent immaculate monks – who found their faith conflicting with actual experiences, due to the acts of a kind Lunar or something else that the immaculate texts would name anathema who failed to live up to the anathema monsters of legend.

“I would never throw away what Lookshy helped me built me up as. I’ve always tried to help others – and with the powers I now I have can help so many more so much better. Even you – if you can hold out a year or two more; I swear by all the gods in Yu-Shan, I will turn back the clock itself and see your youth restored, let you take the stones again if you want” Speaker stated, as earnest as a pony ever could.

Thundermane, so moved by Speaker’s promise of the seemingly impossible; a restoration of youth, a shot of ‘the stones’ again – and seeing clearly again despite even unicorn doctors saying that she would be blind within the next couple of years – wiped her tears away: “I will wait for you then – and I’ll tell the others, of the few that haven’t gone to meet the dragons”

“How many from your scale are left?” Speaker almost casually said, brushing off the dirt from Thundermane’s back and checking her for injuries.

Shaking her head, Thundermane lamented: “Not enough”

“They burn so brightly – and yet so briefly” Speaker stated, as if reciting a line from a poem, with tears in his eyes.

Leaving, Shimmer asked if this Thundermane mare had been Speaker’s commanding officer or something.

“Good heavens no – she was one of the gunzosha I served wi- oh I get it – no, she’s barely a day over 30” Speaker explained.

Shimmer looked at Speaker incredulously: “But… she looks even older than you!?”

“It’s the stones. The magical implants mortal ponies get to use magical gunzosha armor, they drains your life. You age ten times faster than normal when doing that – but you gain power equal to a unicorn with it” Speaker noted somberly.

“Harsh” Shimmer said, noting that she’d encounter many tribes back west as well where young colts would sacrifice themselves in battle or in other situations for their tribe – though, it was a bit disturbing to see a pony who had sort of survived that only to waste away like this… mainly because having to die with an old body and a young mind, it just didn’t sit right with her.

Nodding, Speaker took a deep breath and looked at his forehooves intently: “I know I can fix it – I remember being able to restore youth to ponies in the first age… but my hooves, I can’t make them do the things I remember doing – at least not yet… I just hope I can get to that point in time”

That night, while Speaker slept, Shimmer turned into a tiny spider and left a frighteningly realistic copy of herself in her bed made of pillow fluff infused with a few drops of her blood – the dummy even looked like it breathed.

As she spun a nice web in the shape of a dream-catcher from the rafters above Speaker’s bed, with a few strands connecting to the door into the room, as well as each window, Shimmer suddenly felt the door-strand stretch and burst: Someone was sliding opening the door… but nothing appeared to enter, and no shadows had been cast through the paper-walls.

Crawling along the ceiling with her long spider-legs, trailing a new strand to connect her web to the door, Shimmer dropped down along the door. The moment she touched the floor she knew that something was wrong: The floor boards were bending down ever so slightly – something was standing on the floor, unseen, weighing it down.

Quickly leaping to the wall, Shimmer shapeshifted into a western prism newt, a tiny little reptile often found on and around island demesnes that fed off motes of essence. It was a pitiful and dull looking little creature, but it had a unique and subtle feature that few outside of western natives knew of: It had eyes of essence-reactive crystal, that granted it essence sight of a very high quality. Unlike Shimmer’s beast-pony form with its glowing third eye that also afforded essence sight, then the tiny eyes of the tiny newt didn’t glow – thus it was a perfectly discreet little form to be in to spot things of essence… especially hidden things of essence.

To Shimmer, as her vision stabilized from having shapeshifted from a tiny spider to that of the tiny newt form, the essence flows of Creation became apparent. In the room she was in several essence-voids also became apparent – silhouettes of ponies wrapped in partially armored loose-fitting magical garbs, three of them in total, plus two outside in the hallway beyond the opened door, all of them unicorns, all of them effectively invisible.

As the three veiled unicorns in the room approached Speaker, Shimmer evaluated her options. Letting Speaker get hurt was obviously not an option, but simply going all beast-pony on them wasn’t ideal either – assassins like this didn’t just randomly sneak into ponies rooms and set up to kill them: Someone had ordered this hit – and Shimmer wanted to know who.

Checking to make sure that she was still undetected, Shimmer took careful aim, turned into a flea, leapt, and landed on the head of one of the veiled unicorns. Landing in the unicorn’s mane allowed her to see the unicorn - not that flees had much in sight normally – but with a little shapeshifting it had enough to confirm that the unicorn’s mane was orange.

Quickly making her way to the unicorn’s nearest ear, Shimmer got right up to the pony’s eardrum and informed the pony that the jig was up: “…and if you don’t want me to burrow into your brain and take control of you, and go on a rampage throughout Lookshy to kill as many of you unicorn scumbags as possible before they take you down, I suggest you tell your buddies to stop whatever you’re doing here”

The unicorn, understandably enough, stopped right in its tracks – though to Shimmer’s disappointment it didn’t appear to say anything. Usually when she had done her “There’s a voice in my ear saying that it’ll make me kill my own family” routine back west it made ponies call out for others to either help it or stop whatever they were doing – depending on what she had threatened with.

Being a flea in a pony’s ear, Shimmer sadly had a very limited idea of what was happening outside of that ear. It was difficult to even tell if the pony who’s ear she was in was even moving, though not impossible: Detecting that her ‘host’ was moving at speed, Shimmer quickly jumped ship and turned into spider as she hit a tapestry.

It only took seconds to confirm that she was now outside of Speaker’s room – and this worried her to no end: Not only because she had no idea if Speaker was still unharmed, but also because simply silently running off when you had a lunar in your ear was one of the only wise courses of action to take, assuming that you wanted the rest of the ponies you were working with to be able to continue unfettered… and where the fuck had these unicorns learned anti-Lunar squad tactics?

Throwing caution to the wind, Shimmer turned into her beast-pony form and ran straight back into Speaker’s room – bursting in only to be blasted with a powerful elemental bolt that at the same time tried to knock her down with strong gusts of wind and a boulder-sized sphere of earth essence as well as drown her with water essence. The drowning part failed due to her warform having aquatic-capable lungs for underwater ‘flight’, but she was tossed around like a ragdoll from the combined force of the earth and air essence striking her.

A lunar in full warform being tossed around was not a quiet affair, especially not as she crashed through both paper and brick walls and out into the central courtyard of the Yushoto compound. The veiled unicorns did not give chase – having disappeared when Shimmer and a gaggle of Yushoto pony-at-arms returned to Speaker’s room.

To Speaker the hubbub had mostly amounted to waking up in chains, again, and this time with a bag over his head that he couldn’t float off. At least he wasn’t gagged and he could still use charm, not that he could do much without being able to see anything: “Oh well, here we go again”