Esquestria: The House of the Sun - A pony cultist experience

You decide to hug her.

In the end you did not know what to say. Although Jade Whistle had just said that, she didn't sound apologetic or shook, she didn't even sound disappointed or surprised. If you had your eyes closed, you would think from her tone of voice that she really was being honest that the two of you should go your separate ways and pretend nothing of that ever happened.

But just like she said, your eyes are not closed to her anymore. You see her now, you know now, and from now on your world will be a world in which this morning has happened.

So you stopped her from closing the door with your own hoof.

You don't really remember what her expression looked like, if it even changed at all, but you do remember that right after that you closed on her.

And simply gave her a hug. No words seemed adequate even then, so you went with what you thought was best. Or rather, with what you felt was best.

However, you do remember that the two of you stayed like that for a while, and that right when you were about to step back from her, you think you felt her hoof on your back.

And Jade Whistle's eyes, of this you are sure, were wide in surprise when you finally let go of her.

You could see, or at least you hope you saw, that you gave her something to think about. Good, you thought, better than having nothing but her memories and empty house for company. No words were exchanged between the two of you, and you went home after that.

Of course, when you arrived home you also got hold of your daughter and made absolutely sure that she knew she is never supposed to go anywhere near the Everfree Forest. Ever.

Absolutely. Sure.

You gave Jade Whistle something to think about. You hope her thoughts are kind to her, at least in that.

You decide to call it a day, or rather to call it a night. You have been doing that more often, the semi all-nighters you used to pull while working slowly starting to become a distant memory, and you can't exactly say that you feel sorry for that. Part of you deciding that, maybe, dedicating yourself so much to it was a way of keeping your mind busy to begin with.

Well, you have plenty of other things to worry about now.

Ponpon noticed, of course, as have some of the other servants, but you feel that the general feeling is that this has been a turn for the better. Especially since you have been dedicating more of that free time to your family.

And that is an image you are taking great care to maintain, as much as it is mostly true. Your other businesses going completely unnoticed by anypony that matters.

The size of the paperwork is still the same though, and thus it is being the part of the equation that is paying the price. Well, you didn't neglect it either, but unlike how it has been these last few years you can now say for sure that you have not read every last page of every last report. Not even close to that.

You realize that you are rambling, mentally, and get off from your chair, allowing your eyes to close a bit and your body to slowly let go of its tension as you head to the door.

When you notice a particular scroll, on your "IN" box at your office desk, that you must have missed.

It is hidden behind a rather large stack of ledgers, so you can hardly blame yourself.

"And what might you be…?" you float the scroll towards you and unseal it in an almost careless manner, giving its rather short content a once over.

[Book hunt – servant action]

[Roll: 72 + 12 (Learning) = 84]

-FORGE Level 2. "A book about ingenious farming equipment, and how they function." Costing 15 bits.

-HEART Level 2. "A novel about a mare who fell in love with a drummer, the romantic parts all written in rhyming poetry." Costing 15 bits.

-HEART Level 3. "A study about yak culture. The part about their history and folklore is of little use. The chapters about their songs, however…" Costing 30 bits.

"Oh," you say in surprise, "I had really forgotten all about this…"

You bring the scroll back with you to your room. This is something you should think over with a clear mind, so you will make sure to put it on your nightstand and check it again tomorrow.

You feel somewhat grateful that you do not feel tired while dreaming.

You try not to think too much about your day, since that is a quick road towards waking up, but you can't help but recall that you were rather tired when you went to sleep. And yet here you are, completely alert, gazing at the crossroads with your objective for this foray clear on your mind.

You wonder if you actually forget something, if maybe every time you shear a bit of your mane you leave something of you behind, or if there is some sort of permanent price that you must pay for your folly, every time you come into the Mansus, that you have yet to notice.

Well, even if you do forget about something, it surely is not something as important as the things you forget when you cross the Blank Door. And you have not yet noticed anything strange about your life in the Wake so you think, or at least you hope, that there is no great soul-sucking secret that you might be missing, or that might come to bite you up ahead.

Again. You hope.

You turn your back to the Woods and head towards the Dreamlands, aiming for the kaleidoscopic sort-of pollution that you see in the horizon. You idly recall that Princess Luna was tired when she got into her dreams, during those last moments you were still seeing her memories from inside her mind during the Ritual, and that a lot of things might have been avoided if she had felt as rested as you feel every time you go into the Mansus. But her method of entrance is far different from yours, and you don't think it can even be said that she is actively dreaming as much as it can be considered her doing her alicorn magic to get into the Dreamlands, so you figure there are different principles involved.

You finally reach the threshold to the Dreamlands, and today it has the form of a staircase, going down until its steps are covered in that white fog. You feel that same revulsion, again only for a split second, that you are instead looking at a festering wound, or perhaps at a crack on the roof that is slowly letting water drip into your house. But again that impression is gone before you can properly address it.

You take a deep breath, although you know it is not exactly of any use, and descend through the stairs.

Until the white mists envelop you, and you feel the sensation of wood under your hoofs.

You can feel tension and nervousness spread through your body. The mist has a shine to it, so the impression that you have is that you are being blinded by white light as you are completely enveloped by it, but you are not nervous because of the mists. Quite on the contrary, you can feel that you are already on the Dreamlands, you can feel that you are on the wooden bridge, and you know that if you take a few more hoofsteps forward the will exit the mists and see the Dreamlands themselves before you.

But that is the problem.

You did you very damned best to try and avoid thinking about it, you made sure you went to sleep sufficiently tired so you would fall unconscious as soon as possible so that you wouldn't have time to remember it.

However, you have finally reached the point of no return.

You know that it has always been like that, and it was you who was ignorant about it. You know that you need to be able to act normally, that you can't let yourself be crippled by fear or knowledge, and that you need to leverage every last bit of advantage that you have at your disposal, your access to the Dreamlands being the chiefest among them right now.

So, you think as you take a tentative step forwards, seeing the bright mists fade around you, you know that you have to…

Another deep breath, with a promise that this will be the very last one. You whisper a few words of Winter and calm, and walk out of the mists.

You expected everything to be totally different, after what you saw in Princess Luna's dream, you expected to have some terrible revelation that would cause you to freeze or want to run away. You half-thought that as soon as you exited the mist you would look up and see a great and terrible eye, the size of the moon at night, simply opening on the heavens, looking straight at you.

But you see nothing of that. You see only a great sea of glowing doors on streets of red carpet, the city-like configuration surrounded by the eternal black nothingness in all directions. Everything is calm and quiet, as if you were walking on the streets of Ponyville during the night, and almost think you can hear the city itself breathing softly on its sleep.

Except that this time you know.

You do not have the same sense of scale and distance as Princess Luna had, and you are more thankful for it than you thought you would be. Part of you thinks that her knowledge wasn't so much her ability to perceive the darkness, but rather some revelation implanted in her mind by the thing. You almost can't believe that when you look up you should be able to see anything other than nothing.

But you avoid looking up as much as possible, regardless.

You shake your head as you reach the end of the wooden bridge, the glowing mist behind you and the red carpet flanked by the cutie-marked doors before you. You have a goal in mind, and the short span of a night to look for it. You need to locate Princess Luna herself or some trace of her presence, whatever helps you get in contact with her, while avoiding the things that you know will be stalking in the Dreamlands.

You also need to be careful of the Princess herself, of course. It won't do if you find her in a distressed state, and she decides that a pony walking around the Dreamlands is just another cruel trap in her dream.

[Glitching the System, again, breakpoints 60/100]

[Roll: 75 + 12 (Magic) + 5 (Gifted) = 92]

You close your eyes and try to reinterpret the Dreamlands as you did on the first time you were here.

You can feel that you nearly arrive at the same result, you can feel yourself slowly easing into the mindset that this is all indeed a dream, and that it is natural for the Dreamlands to shift and flux as you need, for its landscape to run like wax and mold itself like clay. You can sense the familiarity of the idea that the scenery before you ought to change every time you blink, and that a corner might not reveal the same scene if you look around it twice.

But your thought process jams at the very last moment with the image that some titanic thing might also be stretching its claws towards the Dreamlands, and suddenly you feel like the Dreamlands must also be hard and stable and purposefully confusing, so that the cutie-marked doors that make it glow might be better defended. And that blissful ease with which you might traverse the place escapes from you like a breeze might escape through an open window.

Damned sleeping logic. Damn it especially because its your life that might be at risk here.

Seriously, what use is all your Moth Lore if you can't even boggle your brain when you need to?

[You have partially reinterpreted the Dreamlands, +10 on all rolls for the rest of the night.]

Still, you didn't come prepared with only this.

You reach into a corner of your soul, you reach for the memories of the paradoxical riddles you said aloud in a dark room, while your eyes were blindfolded. You recall the sensation of looking into the ritual circle, and of feeling the winds of the Mansus looking back at you, a faint whisper of Moth depositing itself in the lock of mane you had cut out this night.

And you set out into the Dreamlands, searching for the signs of Princess Luna.

[To avoid the things that crawl, "night" period]

[Roll: 24 + 13 (Intrigue) + 30 (MOTH bonus, doubled) + 10 (Dreamland shaping) = 77]

[Their roll: 39 + 15 (Worms, small and few in number) = 54]

[The search, "night" period, CD ???]

[Search roll: 38 + 8 (Martial) + 10 (SECRET HISTORIES bonus) + 10 (Dreamland shaping) = 66]

You know what they are, or at least you know where they come from and what they are called.

But that does not make this any less unpleasant.

You set out through the dream-avenues, the mockery of a city somewhat reminding you of Canterlot in its broad and grandiose presentation. Cutie-marked doors glow softly as you pass them by, and you look at them attentively as you trot. You have already seen the glow of Luna's attention, when she passes by a dream, and a part of you hope that you might see it again.

It would at least be a sign that she is active here, if nowhere else. There have been no news from the crown about her return, and you are sure that it will be the sort of news that travel faster than a pegasus, but you still foster some hope that she might at least be out of the sorry state in which you know she was.

Maybe she is already back to her senses, but the guilt of what she did in Canterlot might be stopping her from wanting to return. That might be the best-case scenario you can think of, and might be unlikely as optimistic things usually are, but at least you can hope for it.

It doesn't take long for you to see them, though, or rather for you to feel them.

The faint echo of a gurgling wrongness that causes your heart to beat just a little less vigorously, the smell of claws faintly scraping against a blackboard, the idea of something rotting at night. All of those things hit you, although you can't tell from where, but you know that they are here somewhere.

You know that there are Worms about, as they always are.

But you must go deeper into the dreamlands, so you focus on the path ahead of you and will it into a straight and narrow path, wishing for it to have as few curves and corners as possible, so that you might not be surprised by anything coming from more directions than you can be mindful of.

The Dreamlands respond in a janky way, your mind not as half-asleep as you wish it were for you to be able to mold the scenery around you as well as you did last time, but still you see some results. Some corners, the ones where you think those terrible sensations might be coming from, disappear the next time you blink your eyes, and you press onwards.

You cross great arching roads of carpet, paying close attention to the faint glow of the doors around you.

You work your way around a group of Worms as they mindlessly chew at a some of the cutie-marked doors, doing as much as you can to be wary of their position while paying the least amount of attention to them that you possibly can.

You nearly run into one of them, as you realize too late that the path behind you had become a dead end, but the creature is thankfully unaware of your presence. So although it strains your mind dearly to remain calm, you simply wait for the thing to fumble away. And then you wait some more, before deciding it is safe for you to press on.

Not your proudest moment, you must admit, but you are deep in the Dreamlands now, and the Worms are becoming more numerous as the sea of light stretches in every direction around you, the wooden bridge and the glowing mist far from where you are right now.

And you must go deeper still, and faster, for you know that time still passes while in here, and this night will not last forever.

[To avoid the things that crawl, "early morning" period]

[Roll: 38 + 13 (Intrigue) + 30 (MOTH bonus, doubled) + 10 (Dreamland shaping) = 91]

[Their roll: 65 + 25 (Worms, small yet numerous) = 90]

You are very deep in the Dreamlands.

The sea of light stretches on in every direction, an endless vista of cutie-marked doors, the individual glow in each of them compounding into what is now a clear brightness. Not oppressive or blinding, but a stark and noticeable contrast to how bright it is on the fringes of the Dreamlands, near the wooden bridge.

And because of that added brightness, you also know that you are in greater danger.

You had to compromise. You realized at some point that going in a specific direction wouldn't make you go any "deeper" into the Dreamlands, even if you thought you were heading towards such a place. This little detail, you think, must be something that you might not have realize the last time you have been here, by sheer virtue of having so much control over the landscape then. You realize now that you must "want" to go deeper into the dreamlands, and only then will the quantity of cutie-marked doors around you become greater and denser, and the wooden bridge will feel more far away.

And so you willed it. You gave up on the notion of walking on a carpeted avenue that "looked like" it would take you where you wanted to go, and you actually "decided" to go towards that concentration of lights.

You realized it had been the correct decision when the feeling in your chest became more alarming, and the sheer amount of Worms, both near and far, increased exponentially.

Well, "correct" decision. That is highly debatable from many points of view, all of them which involve your interest in staying safe. But you are resolute in finding Princess Luna, so you must take this risk.

Although you are now far more worried with sticking to the frames of the cutie-marked doors, which are now sufficiently numerous to form a veritable wall on the sides of the carpeted road, so as to hide yourself from what might be lurking beyond the next curve or the next street.

Although you had to run away and backtrack several times, and you are paying far more attention to the sound of your beating heart, and the noise of scraping against wood, and the trembling of animalistic laughter that just sounds wrong, and all the other things that could mean the difference between safety and danger, instead of looking at the cutie-marked doors for the signs that might point to Princess Luna's passing.

You very dearly want to get away from here, or hope that this is a particularly infested place. You look around in search for some place, any place, that might be just a little less infested with the presence of the Worms.

And there you see it, an avenue that seems to be free of the creatures. You nervously look around to see if there are any Worms nearby, or if you might cross the line of sight of any one which could be somewhere close enough, before you dash across the carpeted street and towards the passage that seems safe.

[The search, "early morning" period, CD ???]

[Search roll: 96 + 8 (Martial) + 10 (SECRET HISTORIES bonus) + 10 (Dreamland shaping) = 124]

And you immediately feel a change in the air.

Evading the Worms is a strange affair. You can identify which places they have been through because the light there seems dimmer, you know where their many eyes are looking at because it just feels wrong to even approach it. They seem to radiate their abominable presence in an inconstant and shapeless area around them, but as they grew more numerous as you progressed deeper into the Dreamlands, you had almost not noticed the growth of their auras.

You had definitely not gotten used to it, of course, there is no way that anypony could ever be "eased" into that sensation by slow exposure, no matter how long a period of time was involved. The Worms are the opposite, not just of life but of everything. So what happened was that you slowly found yourself sinking deeper and deeper in their presence, your very being becoming heavier and heavier as you progressed.

But suddenly, you find yourself in a clear avenue, the air around you feels fresh, and the dream-light shines brightly as if a curtain had been opened somewhere nearby.

You look behind you, at the carpeted avenue that you have just been to, and notice how dark and gloomy it is, the presence of the Worms overbearingly strong.

But right here where you are? Right now? The difference is as glaring as night is from day, almost as if you had crossed a barrier of sorts that…

Your eyes shoot wide as you realize it. You stand in a place that the Worms cannot approach, their presence stymied and undone like a shadow might be banished by the light of candle.

You gallop ahead, as silently as you can so you might not scare the one you hope to find, but as fast as you can so you might not lose their mark. You shudder at the thought that the center of this "bubble" of safety might simply walk away from you, and that suddenly you will be in the presence of the Worms once again.

You look around, searching for the cutie-marked doors that might have been touched, alert for the signs of one that might be half-opened, perhaps during an ongoing visit. The certainty of your success increases as you feel a soothing presence growing stronger, some sort of instinct deep within you saying that you are safe in here, telling you that one who watches over is nearby.

When you finally find her.

Or rather, when you finally find something you… were not quite hoping you would.

[You have located Princess Luna's dream door at the end of "early morning" period, you will have one attempt at opening it during this night]

You feel rather foolish, as you usually do when thinking back about certain things in hindsight.

You can feel where you are, and that makes the whole thing all the clearer. You have no way of measuring it, no way of being absolutely sure, but you are certain that right now you are in the very center of the Dreamlands.

You have arrived at the heart of the sea of light that floats in the endless darkness, you stand right now at the very core of the dreams of ponykind. So it stands to reason that this will be where the door to Princess Luna's own dreams must reside.

It is obvious, really. Like any proper constellation, it is obvious that the starlight of every last dream and every last door must orbit the greatest and most important of them. It should have been evident from the very beginning that you would find the cutie-marked door of the Princess of the Night on the very center of her own kingdom, like a throne room will be in the center of a castle, and a castle will be in the heart of its city.

In fact, something tells you that the dreams of the other Princesses would be here as well, if they were asleep. But as far as word goes, Princess Celestia and Princess Cadance haven't exactly had much time for that as of late.

However, you still have… something akin to a problem.

You know your way here now. The journey might be perilous due to the sheer quantity of Worms nearby, and you suspect that their numbers are greater also due to Princess Luna's… absence? But you know that you will be able to navigate to this place much more easily in the future, if you need to, since you now actually know where to go. And although you thought Princess Luna would be active and awake at night, she isn't right now, so you might be able to find her door here again if her recent situation means that she is sleeping at this time.

However, again, you still have a problem. And that problem has the shape of a cutie-marked door.

You approach it, cautiously. Her door is like any other, with the sole difference that it is her cutie mark which is emblazoned in it. You do not know if that is an effect of the laws of the Dreamlands, or if it is the way that your mind is interpreting it, or if it is just some sort of materialization of Princess Luna's humility, although you do not know her well enough to know if that might be the case.

But it is still a faintly glowing door, which appears to be made out of wood, with a doorknob over a regular-looking keyhole.

And yet, it is Princess Luna who is behind this door, the Princess of the Night herself, regent of dreams and guardian of ponykind, as the titles go.

She is behind this door, and you need to find her somehow.

So, you need to open this door.

You take a deep breath. You hope that this is not like a Mansus door, and that there are no tricks or laws or prices to it.

You hold your breath in, and put your hoof on the doorknob.

[The lock of a precious jewel box, "sunrise comes" period, CD 100]

[Roll: 90 + 13 (Intrigue) + 10 (KNOCK bonus) = 113]

[Well then…]

You let out a gasp, sharp and sudden, as you feel rather than you see or think.

It was faster than a flash, more sudden than a memory, and yet as deep as a dream that you might have had when you were younger, that you could somehow still remember to this day.

You heard her dream-door. It did not speak to you, it did not reach out to you, but you heard it like a pony might read an open book, or a pegasus might feel the passing wind in its wings.

The door, her door, it is… resolute?

It is hard to describe with words.

You wish to say that her door is mourning, as it has witnessed the Ritual, and it saw all the terrible memories of its master unleashed upon her once again. However, doors do not mourn.

You wish to say that her door feels violated, for its failure in keeping the outside things at bay was what allowed the Ritual to happen in the first place. However, doors do not feel violated.

You wish to say that her door feels determined. It feels determined to distinguish and impede passage, it feels determined to separate and to allow the entrance of none that would cause her charge harm. However, a door can feel nothing at all.

For it is just a door.

And yet, you felt all of that.

You know this door, now. You understand it intimately, although it is just a door. You know that you could force it open, that you could violate it once again, that you could slice through its lock and cross it by will.

However, you also share in the door's wish to not let in anyone who might cause harm. You share that feeling, both in principle as a pony, and in particular sympathy to the one you know is behind that door.

So, you promise the door that you do not come as an invader. Not this time.

"You can let me in," you whisper to the door, softly, using the words that have been used since the dawn of time, by travelers as they walked by crossroads, and by pilgrims as they crossed the gates of castles, and by locksmiths as they gave shape to keys.

And the door believes in you, and allows your passage.

You step into Princess Luna's dream, and the door closes gently behind you.

You find yourself in a dark room. Not the normal kind of darkness, as closing your eyes yields no results, but the purposeful kind of darkness. The darkness of nothingness, of non-existence. The darkness of sleep.

And you see a source of light, not far ahead, the clear indication of where you should go.

And much to your surprise, you see Princess Luna, her back turned to you, her body resting against the fence of a balcony, overlooking somewhere.

It almost reminds you of the marble balcony of her room, the one you saw in her dreams, however you know this to be a different place.

But, you realize as you approach her, she is… asleep? She is asleep inside her own dream…?

You approach her, slowly, cautiously, wary that you might both wake her up in her own dream, and that she might react at your sudden presence, as well as wary that you might somehow wake her up in real life merely by being here, which might cause the dream to simply end, or perhaps something worse.

But she gives no sign of movement, save for her soft and peaceful breathing.

You reach her, close enough that you could touch her wings if you wanted to. And feel… something.

But of course, this feeling, it is something close to… relief? Yes, it is relief. You are honestly relieved to see her like this, sleeping peacefully.

Even if you have never met her before in person, even if you might be a complete stranger to her… you still saw with her eyes and felt with her feelings, and then you saw what happened to her after that. So seeing her like this, finally at something close to tranquility is… soothing.

You do not want to wake her up. It would feel too wrong.

You look out towards the view then. She is asleep in a balcony, overlooking someplace that might be a forest or somewhere near a mountain.

And you immediately notice something.

You don't know how you know it, but this place… this scenery before her, it is real. It might be a memory that imprinted itself on her mind as she fell asleep or it might be a reminiscence but... Yes, you are sure of it. You know with the certainty that one feels while in a dream, this is a sight she must have been looking at as she fell asleep.

It is real, and more importantly it is recent, you can feel it as you might recognize that the smell of a flower is fresh, instead of being some bottled perfume.

You approach the balcony, taking the utmost care not to touch the Princess, but you get as close as you can from it to get as much of a view as you might be able to. You commit all of it to memory, a forest that might be a tundra, crossed by a serpentine river and with two hills in sight. You try to make out more details, perhaps some sort of specific fauna or flora that might be particular to a certain region, but as you search for those details you realize that the image is blurred in parts.

It might be because the Princess herself was not attentive to said details, or simply didn't look for them, but the more you look at the scenery before you, the more you realize that you might as well be looking at some sort of painting. Detailed in message and shape, but not exactly with the fine features of real life.

You look at it for as long as you can, to the point where you can still see it even when you close your eyes. You must look for this place, in the Wake, you must search for it and soon, for Princess Luna has clearly been here. And this might be the best lead anypony has in all of Equestria.

You take a deep breath, seeing that there is nothing else for you here, and you prepare to leave.

But before you do, you take one last look at the Princess, a thought suddenly coming to you.

What might be going on in her mind, right now? Has she recovered? Is she doing well? A part of you wishes to stay for just a bit longer, to keep her company for just a few more moments. You know you have no right or reason to do so, you do not share the bond she has with her sister, you have never met her in person and you know that if she were to wake up right now she might even feel threatened by your presence in here.

However, you can't help but worry, you can't help but to feel sorry for the pony who has been subjected to the fate she has. And you do not mean only the things that you witnessed, but her fate as a whole, considering the changes that have been forced upon her, considering the situation she was in when she returned from her banishment, as well as the situation she must be right now, whatever it may be.

And that in turn makes you wonder, what then? What if you do find her? What if you manage to come face to face with her? Will you know what to say?

If the very best possibility comes true, and you manage to explain her the whole situation, or at least as much as you know, will you know what to do next? Will you be able to tell her what to do next if she asks for your advice?

You are rambling, you realize. This is a dream. This is an alicorn's dream in the Dreamlands, Princess Luna's dreams, of all ponies. And although you can't feel the same subtle influence that you might feel in the Mansus, you can still tell that something is affecting you.

Even if it is just sympathy, or perhaps the familiarity of being inside Princess Luna's mind again, as you have been before during the ritual.

Still, you had better leave, there is nothing else to be gained here, although you dearly wish there was.

You whisper something in her direction, although you are not sure if it was a "good night" or something else, but you are sure that you wished her well by that.

And you head out to the door, and away from the Dreamlands.

Everything has a center, everything has a focal point, much like how the Mansus is at the center of the Histories and the heart is at the center of the body. You already knew that, but tonight you have experienced what it is to find one such place. Gained one scrap of SECRET HISTORIES Lore.

It is walls, and not doors, who only ever block and impede. Doors distinguish, doors test and keep watch, and most of all doors allow passage to the chosen few. Tonight, you have felt what it is to be chosen by a door. Gained one scrap of KNOCK Lore.

You have reached Princess Luna's dreams, and curiously found her asleep. But she was clutching tightly to a recent memory, and that memory might be the best clue you will ever have. You will gain the option of analyzing that memory, so that you may track that place in the Wake. Searching for said place, be it by mundane or esoteric means, is the only option you can think of going forward with this particular clue.