The Scroll of Exalted Ponies

To Speaker’s relief then his captors didn’t take him very far from the small fortress that was the Yushoto Compound. To Speaker’s chagrin they took him up on the Lookshy city wall, to a point overlooking the almost mile-high sheer cliff going down to where the Yanaze river flowed into the inland sea and crashed into the shore of the threshold. What his captors aimed to do appeared quite simple at this point: Chuck him in the ocean.

What Speaker hadn’t quite expected was for them to was tie him up his legs with strong iron chains, blindfold and gag him tightly – and then stab him in the chest with what felt like a poisoned blade before tossing him over the wall. They didn’t even stop to interrogate him, or gloat. This was quick, efficient and merciless.

The pain from the stab-wound and the poison spreading in his system was quickly negated with his anesthetic charm – and the disorientation from falling while blindfolded was thankfully negated by his elemental immunity charm and balance charm, though removing the blindfold wasn’t possible. At least they hadn’t gagged him – not that it would have mattered much… for what Speaker had been doing ever since briefly seeing that he would be tossed in near the Yanaze – just before he was blindfolded - was pray to Water Strider, the god of that very river… who owed Speaker and the circle a big favor for that business with the Monkey King.

Speaker finished the prayer about halfway down, not that that made him stop. It was freaking him out greatly that he had no clue how close he was to hitting the cliffs down below due to his blindfold, though it being the dead of night wouldn’t have it any easier to see when and where he’d come down – and Speaker knew damn well that he didn’t have charms that could protect from that kind of impact… unlike striking water at an angle, then Gift wouldn’t be able to soften up the jagged cliffs he was falling towards. Hmm, maybe the device he had been working on designing would be able to do that – hmm… yes, that might actually work, if he had the damn built and with him right now – which he did not, though the designs were thankfully done.

Up on the wall Shimmer had caught up with Speaker’s captors and revealed them with a spray of slimy webbing that glowed faintly in the darkness – and a number of Seventh Legion Skyguard ships that had been coming in to dock at the aviary who had heard the alarms had swooped in as well, though the marines on the skyships appeared a bit torn on whether they should be pointing their implosion bows and lightning ballistae at Shimmer or the three unicorns she had caught – though their orders were to respond to and stop Speaker’s abduction apparently… and the commanding officer of the ships, a very angry unicorn in a sky-blue armor and a neat little dark-blue skulcap at the stern of the nearest skyship brandishing an oversized jade powerbow trained on the abductors, was screaming at the ponies on the wall to stand down. The most useful thing the skyships were providing was illumination: Their essence powered gem-lights were lighting up the section of the city wall quite nicely, making the web-stained veiled unicorns stand out as if covered hundreds of tiny sparkling silvery gems.

In Lookshy, to quickly signal around various districts if there was trouble, the Seventh Legion had long ago developed a system of differently colored flags that could quickly be put up. From what Shimmmer could hear from the skyships, having greatly boosted all of her senses to track the previously invisible ponies she was hunting, then the Yushoto compound was flying a “VIP kidnapped” and “Raided” flags. This clued her in on what to say to the skyship captain:

“Did you see their captive?” Shimmer shouted, her entire body tense and ready to go should the abductors try to get away – though at the moment they were cornered on the wall between the skyships and Shimmer.

As Shimmer quickly sealed the doors to the wall towers to either side of the abductors with her essence webbing, the skyship captain responded: “They threw someone over the wall a moment before you showed up, just as we closed in”

The feral howl of anguish from Shimmer was heard miles away, even up in the sky on Nah as Cash and Sunrise approached. Cash quickly concluded that the howl was cry of horror and fury from Shimmer, so something really bad must have happened to Speaker. Sunrise looked to the heavens and pulled back her hood: “We should never have left them, not after what already happened”

Cash agreed, noting that if nothing else they would avenge their circlemate – though hopefully that wouldn’t be necessary.

At the standoff on the wall, Shimmer charged the four half-veiled unicorns who had tossed Speaker of the wall. The four disabled their cloaking magic and took up a collective defensive stance, but Shimmer’s was unrelenting, her limbs undulating and elongating and a mad and formless display of claws and tentacle’d limbs.

The melee that ensued was shortlived, to put it mildly. The skyships opened fire on the five fighters with their implosion bows first, scattering them – which in turn allowed the sky-marines to target the rest of the unicorns individually with the more accurate lightning ballistae, though apparently the magical armor that had veiled the them also kept them from getting hurt too much… Shimmer made up for that with bestial wrath, ripping into the two nearest unicorns, her talons trailing wide archs of blood.

Between the carefully aimed close air support and Shimmer going berserk with grief – especially once she picked up the mixed scents of Speaker’s blood and poison trailing over the wall – meant that that the fight was brutal an short-lived, though at the same time Shimmer’s grief made her fail to prioritize her own defences, resulting in her opponents landing several usually killing blows that only failed to end her due to her obsession with killing them.

An enraged Yushoto Risotto and two dozen unicorns and ponies at arms soon arrived, calling on Shimmer to spare the two abductors that were still alive – though calling them ‘whole’ or ‘intact’ would have been an outright lie at that point.

Having already lived through decades of impotent rage and frustration of being drawn to a heavenly mate that didn’t exist, Shimmer resigned herself with the knowledge that Speaker would probably reincarnate pretty quickly. Hell, with what he’d set up in Sunhill it might even be one of the doctors there who’d become the new bearer of his exaltation. Steeling herself with such hopeful thinking, Shimmer put down the mangled remains of the two now unconscious unicorns she had been savagely slamming into the blood-soaked battlements on the wall for the last minute or so, cocooning them with her webbing for capture... plus it helped stabilize them a little bit.

The grey-blue jade-reinformed brickwork was slick and shiny with the blood of the abductors as Yushoto Risotto led her honor-guard up to Shimmer. The look on her face was one of utmost outrage as she looked at the web-spun unicorns: “Unmask them!”

Shimmer gladly removed the magical silken veils that seemed to form the ‘visor’ of the strange armor the two bound unicorns were wearing, roughly so, with very sharp silvery talons. The armor itself could best be described as sets of articulated, small and carefully padded black armor plates on the wearer’s chest, knees, hooves, flanks and other places made of some kind of magical alloy, though most of their bodies were simply covered in a thick but surprisingly light enchanted black silk that shrouded their identities quite perfectly.

The faces of the two unicorns seemed to spread a good bit of confusion among the Lookshyans present. Shimmer didn’t quite get it: The two unicorns, a mare and a stallion, both had simple short military buzz-cuts for manes, but beyond that they didn’t have much in unique identifiers. They both had slight scaring and whatnot, typical and quite normal for ponies who lived the tough life of the warrior, which was quite normal in Lookshy.

“Who are you?” Risotto demanded, her fury having brought her anima flux to bear – the wood essence around her causing tiny blue-speckled mushrooms to spout on the stone around her, erupting into green-blue puffs of poison spores that swirled around the old unicorn in the form of a gaseous wood dragon.

To Shimmer’s surprise, then despite their grave injuries the two unicorns turned out to be aware enough of their surroundings to answer, though their answer wasn’t one that anyone seemed to have expected. The unicorn mare first spat out some bloody teeth, then sneered: “Fireblade, rank of Kazei”. The stallion followed suit: “Gai Fan, rank of Shozei”

Name and rank. Name and Lookshyan ranks. Lookshyan troops were taught to only give name and rank when captured by enemy forces…
Risotto’s left ear and right side of her mouth began to twitch a little: “How dare you… Yushoto Gai Fa, my own blood, attacking your own house?! Who ordered this!? I demand to know! Who ordered this!?!”

“Fireblade, rank of Kazei”

“Gai Fan, rank of Shozei”

Every pony in Creation knew well enough that unicorns, being dragonblooded, had their emotions linked to their essence. Thus, when angry, sad or even very happy a unicorn’s anima flux would activate. Her face was a contorted parody of smoldering fury, the green gaseous dragon swirling around her and the very stone brickwork she stood on was withering ever so slightly… every pony around her could easily see that she was about to blow up – even Shimmer found the sight intimidating, as Risotto’s horn glowed and her ancient jade daiklaive Lotus Edge was slowly unsheathed.

“You know, I’d like to know who ordered this as well” Speaker said.

There was a clatter of steel of on stone as three dozen ponies dropped their weapons in surprise, plus one of the skyguard gunnery crews accidentally let off a lightning ballista, but managed to yank it up so the shot just flew up into the sky.

Speaker was standing on the surprisingly flat top a plume of water, which slowly moved towards the battlements of the wall. As he got close quick hop, skip and a jump landed him on the wall, between his abductors and Shimmer, who quickly got in front of him.

Yushoto Risotto, thrice-enraged over someone attacking her home, someone kidnapping a valued asset to Lookshy and learning that it was Lookshyan unicorns who had perpetrated the foul deed, stood conflicted: She was both happy and angry all of a sudden… dragons, why couldn’t this just be a couple of obviously realm spies she could publicly execute?!

The two abductors, looking suitably confused, did not seem to fully grasp how Speaker was still alive and able to toss the poisoned blade over to them.

“Darling?” Shimmer said tentatively, struggling to hold back three eyes worth of tears of joy.

Speaker looked up to the towering beast-pony beside him: “Yes Shimmer?”

“How are you still alive?”

Speaker shrugged: “Divine intervention. Water Strider owed us a favor, I cashed it in”

“Oh” Shimmer nodded.

A moment later another officer arrived with raged breath and a scroll. He was from the Stores Inspectorate: Five suits of Armor of the Unseen Assassin had been requisitioned for a first field force ranger op earlier that day – but nobody in the Operations Directorate had ordered anything.

To Speaker, knowing that it was a team of Lookshyan Rangers that had captured and tried to kill and dispose of him told him… a lot of things. Risotto seemed to be on the same level: It was obvious to her that it had to have been a high ranking officer who had ordered this, and ordering a a smash and grab on the home of a member of the General Staff? Heads would roll for this.

The two rangers were stripped of their magical armor and weapons they still had and were taken away in chains similar to the ones that had been used to prevent Speaker from using charms, while Speaker, Shimmer, Risotto and her guards returned to the Yushoto compound for some very early morning jasmine tea to calm the nerves.

“Oh I’m going to feel this in the morning” Risotto complained as the aging unicorn was helped from the battlements as everyone returned to bed or their night-shift duty stations.

Not long after did Cash and Sunrise arrive, with everyone settling in for the night – with triple the guards plus a few other countermeasures in case of any other attempts on Speaker or his circle.

The next morning a grand inquisition was convened by the general staff, as a form of emergency meeting, to find out exactly how a fang of rangers could end up ordered to assassinate the guest of a Taimyo in her own home. This clearly wasn’t something the leaders of Lookshy was taking lightly, as the implications were dire to put it mildly.

Cash had even looked forward to hearing how the investigation would go down when dire news arrived about an hour before dawn: The two rangers had been found dead during the night to day shift change at the hospital: They had committed suicide.
“Are you serious?” Shimmer angrily proclaimed her mouth half-full of oats.

As the messenger, now coated thoroughl in half-chewed oats, nodded, Speaker inquired into the exact nature of their suicide. The messenger had little information on that to give: “…but Nurse Redheart said that something was off, so an autopsy has been ordered”
“You think you can snag that Speaker?” Cash asked, looking sly.

Speaker nodded, noting that it would be fun to meet his old master Smooth Stich, assuming that the old fart still worked and taught at Sextis Jylis Mercy. The messenger was sent off to inform Ruby where the circle had gone, to let her know that she should meet up with them at the hospital.

Leaving the compound quietly, so as to not wake anyone up – especially with Risotto not having felt well when she had gone to bed, Speaker led the circle to the district of schools.

Aside from the medical wing at Walkahavsen, also known asDragon’s Mercy, then most of Lookshy’s medical work was either done on small local clinics strategically placed throughout the fortress city, or in Lookshy’s District of Schools at the grand Sextis Jylis Mercy where pretty much anything more complicated than turning your head to cough was seen to.

The hospital did not look like one. It looked like a small fortress within a district otherwise full of salons, learning centers, schools and most of the city’s absolutely most exclusive and prestigious dojos. Among several blocks of bookstores, reading halls and studios the hospital was a massive grey mass of buttresses and fortifications, clearly meant to withstand heavy siege, while everything else looked like it was simply meant to close down during times of strife. The old scorchmarks and indentations on the south and west facing parts of the hospital were a testament to the justification of the fortifications: The grand ivory and lapis statue at the main gate into the fort paid homage to the brave healers who for centuries had been a cornerstone of Lookshy’s siege-response plans, keeping the city alive as the enemy was held off – at the cost that every time the realm had laid siege to Lookshy the hospital had always been a key target by long range magical artillery and foul sorcery.

The circle quickly made its ways past the fairly large bronze plaques at the gate that listed all the doctors, nurses and orderlies that had fallen in the line of duty. Cash remarked that just on their way from the residential district to the hospital they had passed three other similar memorial plaques at various Lookshyan civic centers and Seventh Legion buildings.

“They honor their dead, what did you expect?” Shimmer quipped back.

Cash shrugged without much though: “They could use the space better. Lookshy’s layout makes expansion pricy and risky – they’re dedicating a lot of space on statues and stuff for ponies that aren’t around to enjoy them anymore”

“Perhaps, but at least they don’t wallpaper un-used facades with tacky adverts like in Nexus” Sunrise noted.

With a pleased sigh, Cash agreed: “It is prettier, I’ll give you that – I just find it a bit morose. I would rather celebrate the living”

At the ward where the late rangers had been admitted there was a full detail of Security Directorate-led home guards-ponies. The circle quickly recognized one of the ‘coughers’, as Ruby had previously called Security Directorate ponies, as the mare from the pair of coughers that had been part of Speaker’s kidnapping into the underground depth of Valkhawsen.

The unicorn recoiled in horror when she spotted the circle, but they were all over her like flies on a honey-pie.

“Well well well, I never did get your name last we met – but I was under the apparent misconception that Lookshyan unicorns were smart enough not to make the same mistake twice” Cash stated sternly as he approached the mare with a menacing grin.

The light-blue coated unicorn mare in her white-painted lamellar armor and helmet did her best to just ignore Cash. Her scrunched up lip in the face of Cash taunting her, but when he floated her helmet off to reveal that her mane had been all but shaven off completely, leaving but a patchwork of ugly and uneven tufts of purple mane, she burst out: “No, give that back!”

“Gods, what happened to you?” Cash said, shocked at the unseemly mane styling.

Shimmer chuckled: “I happened. Damn girl, you didn’t just wait for my webbing to fade?”

Looking from Shimmer to the unicorn, Speaker quickly pieced together what had happened: The circle had left the unicorn mare, along with the other cougher and the old Valkhawsen professor, down in the ruined manse – and the two coughers had been cocooned by Shimmer’s essence webbing. Clearly they had tried to free-themselves, only to find just how sticky that webbing could be if messed with, resulting in the mare’s mane being ruined.

This led Speaker to ponder on the exact nature of Shimmer’s essence webbing: Was it based primarily on the non-sticky structural threads that spiders built their web from, or the sticky threads that spiders put in their web to actually catch insects?

Suddenly feeling poked, Speaker turned to look and saw Shimmer nodding towards the part of ward that the cougher had blocked off – Cash and Sunrise was debating the unicorn in the other end of the ward. Shimmer said: “Come on, Sunrise got her away – let’s see if we can’t find something in here”

The home guard ponies at arms didn’t seem to mind Speaker and Shimmer looking around, and it quickly became apparent why: The beds where the rangers had been in had obviously been cleaned – there were even a pair of orderlies busy washing the bloodstains off the floor and going back and forth from a nearby water fountain to get clean water for cleaning up with.

“Great – the cougher probably got them to clean this up quickly to cover up what really happened” Shimmer complained.

Speaker nodded, looking around. There was nothing out of place – the beds and the small tables next to them had been cleared out and cleaned up. Shimmer dipped a hoof in what little remained of the blood-stains on the floor: “Tastes… murky, herbal sedatives, but a lot of stress when this was spilled”

“Sounds normal for a pony committing suicide… and they would have been given something for their pain when they arrived here” Speaker sighed.

Shimmer held her breath for a moment, as if tasting the very air, before inquiring to the two orderlies about how much blood there had been on the floor to begin with. They pointed out the large area of ceramic tiles still damp with soaped up water… so there had been a good deal of blood.

“How did they kill themselves” Speaker asked curiously, his lips poised and brows furrowed in a skeptical expression.

The two orderlies had to stop and think for a moment, but then one recalled that a pair of scalpels had been recovered: “Right, they cut themselves”

“Cut themselves where? They were barely alive when they were scraped off the wall. They couldn’t have cut themselves – and with what?” Speaker wondered, finding the idea of the two gravely wounded rangers having had the ability to do anything other than remain unconscious as their wounds healed.

Shimmer asked into the scalpels. The two orderlies had no clue where they had been taken from: “There are scalpels in some of the emergency kits – but this a recovery ward, not a surgical ward, and the kits are accounted for”

“So they got the scalpels from somewhere else? They were stripped when they were brought here” Speaker noted, pondering whether they could have been stolen during a brief moment of the rangers being lucid while being wheeled in through the hospital.

Cash, with Sunrise and the cougher coming along behind him, sucicincly stated: “I think it’s more likely that the blades were smuggled in – plus you said that the two wouldn’t have been in a state to kill themselves anyway, so I’m leaning more towards them having been killed to keep them quiet”

“That explains the stress” Shimmer not, looking like she just had an epiphany: “If they were happy to kill themselves I wouldn’t have tasted that much stress in them when they died – this was sprung on them”

“Nonsense. They were rangers – they could make knives out of anything. This was suicide over the fact that they were too mangled to return to active service” the unicorn mare with the ruined mane proclaimed.

The whole circle gave the unicorn a look proclaimed quite loudly, without a single word spoken, that none of them found the unicorn even remotely believable or trustworthy.

The mare appeared to take offensive to the unspoked insinuation and trotted off demonstratively.

“Ok, so murder is a definite possibility. Who could have done it? Sunrise said, asking the obvious question.

Speaker found it unlikely that any of the doctors or nurses could have be done it, for all Lookshyan medical personnel was sworn to never intentionally a fellow Lookshyan in the line of their duty.

“That doesn’t that they can’t break that promise…” Cash quickly pointed out.

Looking at the two orderlies who were back to scrubbing the floor and mopping up blood, Shimmer said: “What about them?”

“Hey, leave us out of this – we’re day shift. This happened during the night shift” one of the orderlies said, sounding reasonably offended.

Asking around for who was on duty during the night shift when the deaths occurred, the circle was quickly shut down by the cougher mare: “I’m not allowing you to waste the hospital administration’s time. Now leave before I have you escorted out”

“I used to work here. It would be no hassle for the ponies here to look up who was on duty last night” Speaker insisted.

“Sure, and considering what the two were accused of, then letting you lot dig up dirt, make stuff up and tamper with records makes perfect sense. No, now get out of here” the unicorn mare crossly stated in a haughty tone.

Cash shook his head as his caste mark lit up: “Young lady, something terrible happened here. Good ponies that Lookshy and the Seveneth Legion has spent a lot of time and resources training have died. We’re seeking the truth. You want what’s best for Lookshy too, right?”

The unicorn mare, who suddenly sported a dazed looks, nooded meekly. Turning around quite abruptly, she marched up to the nearest nurse and demanded last night’s roster. A few minutes later, with a copy of the roster and the sign-off sheet of things that had been done during the night in hoof, the circle set forth to track down the night shift and see if they had anything to tell.

On their way out of the ward Speaker noticed the ward’s incident list on a big bulleting board: “This says that there wasn’t anything beyond the two deaths, so we can cross off the doctors on call for the night shift – they were never summoned here until after the fact”

With that out of the way Cash pondered the list: “The dozen nurses on duty would have been checking up on the two constantly throughout the night – a perfect opportunity to slit a throat or something”

“I don’t know… helots are picked for nursing jobs based on your compassion and drive to help others. It would go right against that kind of profiling for a nurse to do this” Speaker said, sending conflicted looks around between the circle and the nurses bustling in, out and around the hallway they were walking down.

“If the nurses are chosen for their compassion, then talking them into killing anyone would be needlessly difficult – what about the orderlies who worked the last night shift?” Sunrise wondered.

Speaker scratched his forehead for a moment: “We could check them first. Orderlies aren’t chosen for any special criteria, they’re menial labor”

That Speaker had said ‘chosen’ instead of hired led to a brief but somewhat heated discussion on the nature of what a helot was – apparently then only about one out of ten ponies in Lookshy could call themselves citizens, with most of them being unicorns. The rest were called Helots, who could not own real estate nor speak at the civil council or general staff. Their education (if any) and jobs were picked for them by Lookshy and they needed permission to travel abroad or otherwise go on leave from their job.

“So… Helots are basically slaves or serfs?” Cash casually remarked.

Speaker shot Cash a murderous glare.

Ever quick on the uptake, Cash quickly realized his social faux pas – unfortunately so had a couple of ponies visiting someone else who had been in earshot, and they had taken far greater offense, resulting in Cash getting smacked over the head and shouted at quite profusely.

The very angry ponies, helots by their own admission, introduced Cash to the concept of Metic – that is, ponies who weren’t native to Lookshy or its territories - and the fact that foreigners in Lookshy had far fewer legal rights than Lookshyan helots or citizen… with the added threat that they would of course rough Cash up even more so if they ever caught him badmouthing helots again.

Moving on, Cash shuck off the unkind remarks from the two helots and commented that it was exactly that kind of xenophobia which kept the rest of the hundred kingdoms in a near constant state of internecine warfare: “And honestly – neither Nexus or Great Forks has a tiered citizen system. I mean, not allowing ponies to freely seek the work they want? Nexus might have plenty of flaws, but that’s one thing it would never allow”

“Cash...” Speaker said in a somewhat exasperated tone.

Cash stopped, causing the rest of the circle to halt along with him. He turned to Speaker, looking at him: “Let me guess, you’re a helot?”

Nodding, Speaker noted that citizen rights were usually granted post-humorously to most Lookshyan helots who fell in the line of duty on the battlefield, or those who showed the wisdom and maturity for such privileges through many years of steadfast work for the Seventh Legion, as he moved on: “To most ponies in Lookshy the only land they’ll ever own will be a burial plot – and frankly, few need more than that: We all share Lookshy, from the baths, libraries, and dojos to the fact that Lookshy is one of the only places outside of the Blessed Isle where everyone has access to running water and first age sanitation”

Looking both crestfallen and annoyed as they passed a pastry shop, Cash frowned: “I get your point, and I respect the fact that Lookshy’s community spirit isn’t just the usual boasty propaganda that most hundred kingdom warlords spout, but a sword that can be swung at any foe who dares threaten you. None the less I hold that the system could be improved”

“Give them some slack – You shouldn’t hold Lookshy to the standards that you’ve set up yourself using Solar organizational charms. Unicorn charms are much more basic than those of the celestial exalted” Shimmer added.

Cash sighed deeply and shook his head: “Nexus is run by mortals – I don’t think the issue is that its unicorns who’re running this show. It’s a question of what philosophy you put behind your governance”

“Moot point – we can discuss this another time. We’re at the tenement where one of the three orderlies on duty last night lives” Sunrise pointed out.

Rousing the tired night-shift worker was a bit of a bother, but Speaker quickly reinvigorated the poor soul with some medical essence. After that the young and not that tired stallion was quite forthcoming.

“So, what I did last night? Well… did my rounds when the shift started, emptied bedpans, refilled the water fountain, emptied dustbins… went by the chapel to pray for those who needed, snack break, then did rounds again” the young stallion explained, happily munching on some of the honey-coated rice cakes that Cash had brought along as bribes.

“And what were your feelings towards the two rangers that were brought in during your shift?” Sunrise inquired sternly.
The young stallion looked at her with a blank gaze: “Who?”

“The two suicides your colleagues were cleaning up from when we got to the ward” Speaker said, sounding rather disappointed that the orderly didn’t seem to know who they were talking about.

“Oh them… I had no idea who they were until the coughers and guards showed up – you want to talk to the nurses if you want to be kept up to date on admissions. I just empty bedpans and move stuff around” the young stallion explain, shooting Cash a pleading look for another honeyed rice cake.

As Cash forked over another rice cake, he asked: “So, your second round – you did exactly the same as before?”

“Ya, bedpans, check the bins, hit the chapel”

With an inquisitive and slightly bemused look, Cash inquired: “What about the water fountain?”

“Second round is like… dead of night. Nobody needs water there – I mean, we’ll refill it if needed, but usually it’s untouched from last round. It’s the day shifts that use it a lot for sponge baths and washing” the young stallion noted.

“Ok, so when you checked it – there was nothing to see?” Cash wondered innocently.

The young stallion thought for a moment, but came up blank: “Look I don’t remember… it was really late”

“The ward had just received two thoroughly messed up unicorns during your shift. They would have needed a thorough wash before being bandaged – that should have been ample reason to refill the fountain” Speaker noted.

Cash pointed to the copy of the sign-off sheet he had been given back at the ward. There it said that the orderlies had indeed refilled the water fountain twice.

The young stallion looked perplexed: “Hey look, taking the jugs down to the well in the basement and hauling them back up on the fourth floor, you don’t forget having done that… if I had done it my back would be aching”

One quick medical diagnostic charm confirmed that the pony’s back was indeed suffering from at least two periods of very heavy strain. At this point the young stallion became almost panicky with the realization that there was part of the night that he couldn’t remember…
With this apparent, Cash finally asked: “So, did you talk with anyone at the chapel afterwards?”