The Tome of Exalted Ponies

Chapters

Chapter 1 A Lesson In Water
Chapter 8 Hidden Under Pearls and Flowers
Chapter 17 Eye of Heaven, Closed
Chapter 34 Light Brought Forth
Chapter 51 A Kingmaker's Offer
Chapter 2 Traveling by Air
Chapter 3 Hot On the Trail
Chapter 4 Unearthed
Chapter 5 Struck Down
Chapter 6 Moontouched
Chapter 7 Gifts and Rewards
Chapter 9 Bitter Truths
Chapter 10 Shining Lies
Chapter 11 Sand and Fire
Chapter 12 Strangers in Strange Lands
Chapter 13 Dawn of Evil Light
Chapter 14 Tiger Tiger Burning Bright
Chapter 15 Divine Enlightenment
Chapter 16 A Bone to Pick
Chapter 18 Celestial Secrets
Chapter 19 Heavenly Enlightenment
Chapter 20 Building Bridges
Chapter 21 Monkey Business
Chapter 22 Victory of a Different Day
Chapter 23 Wisdom of Sunipa
Chapter 24 Monkey See, Monkey Do
Chapter 25 Nightmarish End
Chapter 26 New Dawn
Chapter 27 Dread Aforethought
Chapter 28 Fearful Revelations
Chapter 29 Pointy Ends
Chapter 30 Thorny Engagements
Chapter 31 Into The Palace Of Pain
Chapter 32 The Cheerful Shadow Courtier
Chapter 33 Darkness Before Dawn
Chapter 35 Setting Sunrise
Chapter 36 Twilight Diplomacy
Chapter 37 A Battle of Gold and Darkness
Chapter 38 Mountains of Undeath
Chapter 39 The Body Hammer
Chapter 40 Abandoned Elsewhere
Chapter 41 Sleepless Horrors
Chapter 42 Stranger Foes
Chapter 43 Prelude to Darkness
Chapter 44 A Mother’s Love
Chapter 45 The Binding Of The Shoat
Chapter 46 Endless Depths of Fractal Madness
Chapter 47 House Call
Chapter 48 Fleeing from Shadows
Chapter 49 Seeking Higher Power
Chapter 50 Corpse God Risen
Chapter 52 Treasonous Alliances
Chapter 53 The Sunhill Blitz
Chapter 54 Strangers In Strange Lands
Chapter 55 Jungles of Desperation
Chapter 56 Change of Plans
Chapter 57 Shameless Behavior
Chapter 58 Corruption of Designs
Chapter 59 Bowed No Longer

Chapter 1 A Lesson In Water

The scripture of soup is a lengthy one, known for its numerous verses, but rich in heavenly martial wisdom. It is shared in Yu-Shan among the Sidereal exalted as a way to memorize and learn the ways of all magical martial arts.

It is usually taught as series of parables of how various martial artists would eat a bowl of soup at a restaurant:

The Snake stylist would deliver a withering flurry of fang strikes to the surface of his soup, disrupting the flow of essence across its surface before finally taking a sip using his spoon. Then he would take a moment to suck on his badly scalded hoof.

…

Stepping up from the cabins below, yawning and shifting in her light barding, the old mare breathed deeply as her steel-shod hooves clomped onto the deck, old eyes looking around wearily. The yellow river looked as it always had: Murky waters, lots of ships and heavily loaded barges going up and down it, along with about as many fishing boats along the rich and fertile river banks as there were mosquitos in the air.

Sanguine Lotus looked out over the water from the deck of the ship. Why was she feeling so antsy about this? She had met plenty of new clients before, and these fools sounded perfect for wringing out as much silver from as possible. Was it old age? Nah, she had more than a few good years left for sure, grey mane and wrinkles or not.

“Hey, no biting!” shouted a stallion behind her, prompting Sanguine Lotus to look behind her and barked with a hoarse voice that had called out a lot of commands over the years: “Hey, knock it off!”

The two stallions wrestling with each other, one of them currently biting the other one’s ear, looked up and quickly said: “Sorry ma’am” as they disentangled themselves from each other.

Oh, the joy of having your own little band of mercenaries. Well, a mixed blessing really – especially when your last client stiffed you. At least the captain of the ship had been easy enough to convince to let them come along free of charge. The cargo wasn’t even that valuable, just a lot of crates full of sand. Freaking sand? Who buys a shipload of sand? Oh well, it meant free passage from Melevhil to Sunhill, which ideally would be just in time to make payroll.

“Commander, what kind of work do you think we can get at this Sunhill place? I mean, the stories that we’ve heard from those merchants… it sounds really sketchy” a mare said as she approached Sanguine Lotus.

Turning to face the mare, Sanguine Lotus gave her a scrutinizing look: The scars on mare face read like a detailed story of the tough life of a sellsword. Her mane was cropped short, ideal for wearing a helmet, and her clothes were basically the padding from her armored barding without the barding, not much different from what Sanguine Lotus was wearing: “First up, don’t call me commander. That’s only for when we’re being paid. Secondly, all that those stories told us is that the guild hates these Sunhill ponies. This means they’ll no doubt be desperate for all the military aid they can get”

“Right, sorry Silly. Do you even think it’s a good idea to work for someone on the guild’s shitlist? What if we get blacklisted too?”

Silly chuckled: “Berry Petal, that’s the wonder of being a small mercenary outfit. We can call ourselves whatever we want. I’ll introduce us under an alias at first, and if things don’t pan out, we can sell what we learn to the guild. So, once we get there shut up and keep your eyes and ears open, and let me do the talking”

Berry Petal nodded, taking a moment to take in her commander’s plan: “That’s brilliant”

“The art of getting paid my dear lieutenant. You lot picked me for command for a reason”

The ship took another week and a half to reach the channel leading up to Sunhill. Silly had to admit it was rather impressive to see that large an amount earthworking having been done there so quickly. Digging and shoring up canals that long would normally take years with an army of slave labor – and Sunhill had somehow managed to do that in just under a month according to the captain? In one of the most fought over regions of the hundred kingdoms? The amount of merchant shipping coming and going from the place sent conflicting messages, for a place supposedly on the guild’s shitlist.

Thinking strategically, Silly had thought long and hard on how this Sunhill place could possibly have remained intact for so long. Well, ‘long’ was a bit of an exaggeration – She had heard the rumors of the place having been founded about a year or two earlier, couldn’t remember where she had heard of it first – but being this popular with merchants that quickly? Quite suspect.

As the ship moved up the canal Silly considered what she knew of the place: It was said to a have a large central manse that the lords of the city lived in: “That would the giant golden pyramid we can see over the trees there…”

“Dragon’s puckered butthole, look at that thing!” one of her fellow mercenaries blurted out, everyone sticking their heads out to gawk at the city state they were approaching.

Along the canal were neatly ordered farms and plantations, irrigation channels, small roads and rows of tall trees making for a crisscross of dividing lines in the landscape of cash crops and food crops. Whoever managed the land clearly knew what they were doing, and had even managed to make the plantations and orchards look really pretty.

“Hey Silly, for a place that’s supposed to be on the guild’s shitlist, then this doesn’t look so bad” another of Silly’s troopers said, stating the obvious.

It was very suspicious indeed. Any city state or kingdom in the river provinces that ran afoul of the guild and its legions of merchants had a funny tendency to get raided constantly by warlords loaded with greatly discounted weapons, armor, provisions and… well… guild mercenaries. These lands looked pristine. Silly didn’t like this, but there had to be an explanation: “Maybe they only pissed off the guild recently?”

“Nah, that merchant in Melevhil said that Sunhill had been on the guild’s bad side since its founding a few years ago– something about fucking shit up in Nexus before their leaders led an exodus to set up shop there” another mercenary noted.

Chuckling for a moment, Silly imagined how utterly pissed her former boss would have been if her troops had so casually spoken to her so casually. Iron Hoof had been such a hard-ass, which was why she had split off from Iron Hoof’s mercenary company to begin with, taking a dozen of her most loyal friends with her. Her troops seemed to recognize that their leader was once again getting lost in thought: “Hey boss, you still with us? We’re getting close to the harbor, should we go get our stuff?”

“Yes – sorry – just thinking about how much Iron Hoof would have hated working in a place like this. He never could stand marching through anywhere that didn’t already look like a battlefield” Silly mused. Her troops all nodded, a few chuckling.

Approaching the harbor, Silly took note of the distinct lack of any kind of fortifications. There wasn’t even a city wall, nor any kind of artillery protecting the harbor. What kind of weird place was this?

“Wow someone spent a lot of money building this place… and there’s nothing protecting it” Berry Petal said, looking at the stone piers and harbor structure.

Silly had to agree. The cargo cranes looked exceptionally well made – and you couldn’t make cast iron things that big: “The cranes… that has to be steel somehow. How the hell did they make they so large? Where can you get steel made like that?”

“Never mind that – look at the buildings. It looks like they grew them out of the ground! Stone, windows and all. What kind of weird wood-aspected unicorn architect do they have here?” the stallion with a nibbled ear said, hanging over the side of the ship.

The ship came to and the gangway came down, the first ponies disembarking being the captain and her first mate. They had to negotiate docking fees, otherwise they would have to sail off again. Coin quickly changed hooves, and the captain returned, shouting for her crew to start unloading the ship to warehouse number sixteen, wherever that was.

“Alright, you are all free to disembark – if you want to stay on for the next leg of my trade route it’ll be silver” the captain said, looking at Silly with the serious and no-nonsense expression of a business pony who had just paid someone money she’d rather have kept for herself.

It struck Silly as something of a change of character. She remembered how spooked the captain had been at that river-side quarry where they had boarded, so afraid of… what? The journey had been completely without incident.

“Alright, you heard the captain – let’s get off here and earn us some good dinars” Silly called out, her troops quickly rushing down to the cabins to fetch their gear.

A few minutes later everyone mustered on the deck. Silly’s gear had been brought along as well, battle-worn, but an absolute masterpiece of barding – some armorsmith in Marita’s journeymare project. Everyone put on their kit: It was standard procedure. They all knew that it was all about giving a strong first impression when meeting a new client.

Marching behind Silly, the dozen pony mercenaries stomped along behind their leader down the pier. Their steel shod hooves all sparked against the stone, Silly somewhat confused that she shouldn’t seem to find any lines in the stone: “This is continuous… it’s not made of carved slabs”

What kind of strange sorcery was at large in this place? She could feel it in the air – something strange.

“Hey, are you new here?” a young colt, who had just jumped out in front of Silly, said.

Stopping up, causing a bit of a pile-up behind her with much rattling of barding and weapons, Silly glared at the colt who seemed either absolutely oblivious or incredibly brave, from within her spiked helmet with its many notches and dings from countless battles. The colt looked nine or ten, with that spry child-like enthusiasm, with a mottled grey and brown coat and a brown mane… and smiling at her like a salespony eying a future costumer.

After having concluded that the colt wasn’t just going to move out of her way from having glared at him, she finally drew a heavy and slow breath to reply: “Yes”

“Excellent. I’m a guide working for the Sunhill Information Services, Reedmane. For a half dinar I can show you around town, guide you to any location in Sunhill you’re seeking or help you find any pony you wish to visit here” the colt said, sounding very well-rehearsed, but not at all forced.

Silly had to think for a moment. It wasn’t the first time a youngster had accosted her when just having arrived somewhere new – of course, usually that meant trying to distract her while a co-conspirator tried to pick her pockets – but this colt was staying at a respectful distance and there were no one else around, other than the sailor-ponies who were unloading cargo, but they weren’t trying to get close to her either.

“You lot look pretty well armed – but since you’re not just attacking anyone, I assume you’re here looking for work? Heard about the call for mercenaries I assume?” the colt said, sounding surprisingly well-informed and not at all intimidated.

Looking around, Silly saw a bustling harbor. There were stalls along the harbor-roads selling food and other useful things, ponies smiling, ponies doing business, other ships loading cargo and barges unloading cargo. Why would this place need mercenaries? Silly looked down at the colt: “Yes, we’re mercs – who do we talk to about getting hired here?”

“Oh, that would be Lord Bright, but I think he’s… hmm…” the colt said, turning around and looking towards the golden pyramid at the center of the city. The light at the top of the pyramid, bright even in the noon-light of day, was surrounded by a number of flag-poles. The colt seemed to be looking at the flags up around the light: “…he’s no available right now. We’re having some issues north-east of the city. Some idiot princeling who’s upset that we’ve accepted runaway serfs into the city”

Silly had dealt with nobles and royals plenty of times. An issue outside the city requiring the attention of the lord-militant of a city-state? With a laugh, Silly said with a knowing smile: “Sounds like something this Lord Bright might need our help with”

The colt nodded: “Could be – but I doubt it. Still, it’ll be the fastest way to get to talk to him. Just don’t be assassins, ok?”

Ok that was patronizing. Silly growled at the colt: “What in all the hells of Malfeas do you think we are?”

“Heavily armed and armored ponies. We get group like yours coming once or twice a month at this point. Most claim to want to work for us, some turn out try to kill our lords for the guild bounties. They usually don’t survive the attempt” the colt said frankly and cheerfully without missing a beat, stepping aside to let Silly continue into the city.

If they had been somewhere where Silly had known the local leaders better, she would have struck the colt for mouthing off at her with all of her might – but Sunhill was still an unknown quantity. The kind of leeway that mercenaries hired by the local ruler got hadn’t been established yet. Begrudgingly shaking her head, Silly called for her troops to form up and follow her again: “Forward, march!”

Stomping through the city Silly couldn’t help but notice that the colt’s attitude towards her wasn’t a unique case: She saw an immaculate monk who was trying to preach that the locals were being misled and their souls corrupted by their anathema lords – who in turn was getting pelted with fruit. She saw the young gainsay their elders. She saw no fearful eyes in her direction as her troops came through. What kind of crazy place was this? They had better pay well.

Speaking of paying well: Moving through Sunhill Silly saw a lot of silver changing hooves: There was business being done, a lot of business: “Petal, what are you seeing traded here?”

“We’ve moved past several smithies at the last block – but they’re not making much in weapons, at least not out in front. Looked like some very strange forges though, not seeing any bellows. And I swear this place gives me a Great Forks vibe, there’s magic in their air for sure” Berry Petal noted.

Silly appreciated her second in command’s perceptive nature. Petal had spotted a lot of ambushes, sometimes even long before the ambushers had spotted them. Of course, Petal’s observation about the magic of the place was spot on. Silly could taste it: “I guess the rumors are true – the pyramid in the middle of the city really is a manse, and a powerful one probably – must be the secret behind their wealth”

Why did marching past the pyramid make her feel so uneasy? The magical light atop the pyramid, it was calling to her, like that time dealing with the band of changelings who lured ponies in with wordless song of purple tears. Still, they had gotten paid so well from that mission, and those alchemists had paid so well for the changeling corpses. Getting paid twice was always fun.

Getting away from the pyramid felt good, the band of mercenaries marching through what turned out to be a district dedicated to… something that smelled weird. Alchemy? It was difficult to tell – there weren’t any stores that had signs out advertising with what they were doing, just more of the organic-shaped buildings that looked grown instead of built. Some kind of state-run enterprise?

Exiting the city on the far side from the harbor, the band of mercenaries came to a large meadow. There weren’t any ponies out on the meadow, but Silly did take note of the watchtowers set in tall trees that grew along the edge of the city. That was another strange detail: Sunhill appeared to terminate rather abruptly, going from stone roads to dirt roads. There didn’t appear to be much in the form of scattered farm-houses as was the norm – those houses had been on the inside of the city limit. Strange. There were also plenty of livestock trails, but it looked like they had all been herded away from the fighting. The cowpies smelled fresh enough.

“Commander, over that ridge – look, banners” Berry Petal called out.

Indeed, the top of banner-poles with Sunhill banners could be seen just over the ridge ahead. Silly marched her troops there, telling them to prepare for skirmishing: “Get your bows ready, lets show much we can help out”

Approaching the peak of the ridge, the formation of Sunhill troops came into view. It had to be around four or five hundred heavily armored ponies, with Silly being somewhat confused at first about the weapons of the troops, until she realized that the formation was made up of dozens of smaller squads that each had different weapon loadouts. Some had spears, some had heavy clubs, some had what looked like catch-poles. It was a strange mix, but they all stood firm and looked disciplined enough.

Of course, the real revelation came when the mercenaries got up on the crest of the ridge, seeing out over the Sunhill troops.

This was not just some small skirmish or dispute over runaway serfs…

Before the Sunhill troops, at the foot of the hill with the city on it was a massive army, looking easily twenty times their numbers. Massive units of archers, spear-ponies, lancers, slingers, even ballistae and a few catapults. This was the kind of army you sent out to conquer small kingdom.

…or a magical city state.

“Commander… I don’t think we can do much here… what are we going to do?” Berry Petal said, her voice betraying her fear.

Silly remained resolute – but she wasn’t delusional: “You’re absolute right Berry. Take the troops back to the city, get to the western city gate, or whatever is the furthest from this side of the city. Wait for me there. I’ll go talk to this Lord Bright up in front, then I’ll meet you back at the gate later before the city is overrun. Make sure to spy anything worth grabbing near you before we leave”

Berry Petal looked at Silly with admiration in her eyes, as she just didn’t have those high-level planning skills. This was why Petal had never advanced to anything more than lieutenant back when they had all worked for what’s-his-name. Still, Petal turned around and barked orders at the rest of the troops, everyone quickly hightailing it back to the city.

Taking a deep breath, Silly steeled herself and galloped to the front of the Sunhill formation. On her way she couldn’t help but see the steely gazes of resolve of the troops she ran past. There wasn’t a hint of fear in them. What dark sorcery had the city used on their own here? How did they expect to remain standing at the end of the day? Sunhill would be burning by sundown from the looks of things.

At the front of the formation Silly could see the full spread of the approaching army. It was moving with weapons out – it was moving to engage, though it had to march uphill for that, before it could get close enough to charge.

“Where is he… come on” Silly said to herself, desperately looking for whoever was in charge.

Closing her eyes for a moment, Silly centered herself. This was a military organization – this was her thing – she knew how this worked. Opening her eyes again, she quickly spotted the messengers and relay-banners who were standing ready to pass on orders from their lord. Right, and they were all looking… over there – that one.

Wait. That old pony?

The old pony who wasn’t wearing any armor? Just some old faded uniform over his teal coat and grey mane?

“Great, the lunatics are running the asylum… dragons preserve me” Silly said, as she took off her helmet and approached, mouthing a quiet prayer to the immaculate dragons.

Near this eponymous Lord Bright, Silly once more took note of just how disciplined and stoic all the ponies were. They were just standing by, awaiting orders.

“Lord Bright, I assume? I am Sanguine Lotus, leader of a band of three dozen seasoned and battle-hardened mercenaries. It looks like you can use some help” Silly said, putting on her game face. She had negotiated rates and terms with nobles and royals before, even the crazy ones. It was all about getting a feel of them, and then not offending them too much, and getting paid handsomely up front if they were really flaky.

The impression she already had was that this Lord Bright had either cast a spell on his troops, or somehow had their undying loyalty for some other strange reason – and if nothing else, that spoke of having some kind of unseen power. One did not simply march up against an army of thousands with a few hundred unless you had a plan, especially since the city had not at all appeared to be preparing for a siege, evacuation or to repel attackers. That monk going on about living under anathema rule probably wasn't that far off.

Lord Bright turned to Silly, sizing her up. As his eyes went over her, she got the unique sense that she was speaking to a very skilled military leader: He was looking at her armor, her equipment, her helmet, and sizing up the aspects of her that were relevant for a warrior. This was, if nothing else, points in the Lord’s favor as far as Silly was concerned – it also helped that he didn’t appear to have crazy eyes or anything like that.

Smiling, Lord Bright spoke with a sage and grandfatherly voice that none the less sounded a lot spryer that what one would have expected from an old pony with a beard that long and grey: “Thank you for your concern. However, I doubt we’ll need any help here. Our call for mercenaries is chiefly to act as bodyguards to our diplomatic envoys and our merchant caravans. If you could wait back in the city and arrange a meeting via the Lords Secretariat, then I’ll be with you sometime tomorrow”

Such confidence. How could this Lord be so sure that he would still be alive come sundown?

“You’ll have to forgive me Lord Bright, but it looks like you need at least another three or four thousand ponies at arms, even with the high ground. How do you expect to win here without your city being overrun?” Silly said, not really wanting to ask the question, but she simply had to know.

Lord Bright chuckled: “You haven’t heard much of my exploits, have you? An army like this… it’s nothing”

“My lord, a delegation is approaching” a junior Sunhill officer called out.

True enough, a well-dressed pony and two ponies at arms were galloping up the slope. Even a hungover sergeant who had been hit over the head once too many would recognize a negotiator like that: “Ponies of Sunhill. I am herald Silken Quill. The great warlord Prince Orchid Blossom of the Five Rings demands your surrender. The banners of Orchid Blossom will fly over Sunhill, whether stained by your blood or not”

Silly took a few steps back to signal that she didn’t have anything to do Lord Bright, who in turn simply shook his head: “Silken Quill, you know what happened last time – what makes your master think he can succeed on his third try?”

Hold on, third try? Had this army tried to attack the city twice already, and failed?

Silken Quill looked very offended, his extravagant garb looking quite rich: “Your foul sorceries won’t help you this time. In his infinite wisdom Warlord Blossom has acquired the aid of an immaculate master to dispel your dark magic”

A chill ran down Silly’s spine. She had seen immaculate monks fight – they were beyond good – and on two occasions she had even seen immaculate unicorn masters in actions… once against a rogue river god, and the other against a band of brigands who had been raiding immaculate monasteries. The memory of the screams of those brigands as the master had punched and kicked them into chunky salsa sent a shudder through Silly. How could this Lord Bright still be so confident against a master of magical martial arts?

“By all means, send forth your new champion. It’s been a while since I’ve had a proper fight – this way we can at least make sure that the least possible number of ponies get hurt here” Lord Bright stated, sounding utterly unphased or intimidated.

Taking a deep breath, Silly watched as the herald and his escort galloped back to their master. She thought furiously about how the situation could make sense, based on what she knew: This Lord Bright, and his four fellow anathema lords, they had built Sunhill from scratch in just a few years. Never mind that a manse the size and scale of their golden pyramid would usually take half a decade or so to build in peacetime, but there were what? – at least forty or fifty warlords at any given time rampaging around the hundred kingdoms, conquering territory, pillaging what they couldn’t seize, and generally spreading misery. A place like Sunhill had no right existing as it was – no walls, no visible defenses, yet lots of merchants and merchant shipping? A place constantly on the verge of being overrun by warlords wouldn’t attract merchants. That meant that it wasn’t just the locals who were calm about the situation, but also ponies from elsewhere in Creation – it also meant that the merchants weren’t afraid of the lords of Sunhill putting them under some dark spell or seizing their goods.

It was confusing to make sense of it all – Silly knew she was missing something – but her train of thought was thoroughly derailed as the sound of metal rings on a staff became too loud to ignore.

The immaculate master had arrived.

Dressed in the sky-blue robes of the immaculate faith, the master was without a doubt an old and seasoned monk: The unicorn’s mane was completely shaved off, her gaze stern as she approached with bright red eyes. The monk’s orange coat looked eerily similar to Silly’s own, though Silly’s yellow eyes were different from the monk’s bright red eyes.

Also, Silly couldn’t light herself on fire like that, as the unicorn flared her anima to reveal the elemental might of her exalted soul: “Filthy anathema, I am Abbot Scarlet Tigress. All of Sunhill must be put to the torch. Pray to the immaculate dragon Heshiesh that his cleansing fire will purify your souls before your next incarnation”

The Sunhill troops withdrew a bit to form a half-circle around Speaker – both to give him room to fight – but likely also to avoid getting caught in anything. Silly withdrew to a similar range, having seen many a unicorn unleash their elemental fury from their magical horns. She had seen the chosen of the dragon of air smite wyld barbarians with lightning, and the chosen of the earth dragon crush their foes by having the ground yawn open and swallow them all. Only a fool fought a unicorn – only a mad-pony fought an immaculate master.

The monk didn’t seem terribly interested in any kind of formalities or protocol, launching herself like fireworks at calibration, exploding in a burst of flame as she leapt at Speaker, drawing two curved blades of red jade from within her robes mid-leap.

Such swift movement – jumping from a standing position – Silly couldn’t remember any normal pony who could have dodged such a fast attack. Lord Bright didn’t dodge it either… but… he had no armor? No weapons?

…and yet Lord Bright stood triumphant and unharmed, wreathed in a golden shell that hugged his form, the monk quickly darting back a couple of yards.

“Turn around and leave – you don’t want to fight me. You will only get hurt” Lord Bright stated calmly.

The unicorn made a disgusted expression, beyond words for her disdain: “I have studied the wisdom of Heshiesh. You will find that its flame can scorch anything”

“You are welcome to test that claim – but you will not like the result” Lord Bright said – but Silly keenly noted the subtle change in his behavior. She knew that if the unicorn struck again, it would be met with force.

Swinging her head around, the unicorn mare stirred red hot fire essence around her horn, forming a massive fireball. Craning her head back, she flipped it forward with great force as she flung the fireball at her foe.

Lord Bright rose from all four into a low and very strong stance, every muscle in body suddenly taught. To Silly’s amazement and confusion, he drew a golden disc from… nowhere? He held it up in front of him with his right forehoof, and the fireball erupted upon it.

Silly had to look away – the heat from the blast was immense. She could feel the few exposed parts of her coat getting singed, even at her distance.

Before she managed to look up again, she heard the sounds. The sound of… some kind of unholy steam whistle, mixed with strange metallic grinding, but the sound was moving around very fast? Then there was the impact. What was going on? Rubbing her eyes, Silly finally looked up: The monk was… floating up in the air, having somehow been flung into the air, but she wasn’t falling down.

What the absolute jellied dragon-dick.

Then Lord Bright spun around, throwing his golden disc which flew out into the air. It banked, turned back around and then rose into the sky – only to come down, banking at the last moment, striking the monk with its flat side and slamming her screaming into the ground. Dirt, bits of grass and loads of dust erupted all over.

That’s when the Sunhill troops began to cheer.

Lord Bright held a hoof out, as the flying golden disc zipped back to his grasp, and then nodded towards the dust-clouded crater.

Four Sunhill troopers approached cautiously, spears lowered, their black and yellow armor in stark contrast to their lord’s appearance. A breeze moved the dust away, revealing the monk in the crater, wheezing softly as she had been completely knocked out. It was a testament to the toughness of the unicorn that she had survived the attack, but only barely.

Lord Bright turned to Silly, shouting: “That is why Sunhill has nothing to fear”

Sanguine Lotus was having trouble believing her lying eyes. A finisher so quick, so powerful? It was clear that the unicorn never had a chance – was this the power of the anathema lords of Sunhill? No wonder they felt safe without walls around their city.

As the unicorn was hauled off on a stretcher, Lord Bright quickly inspected the mare: “She needs splints on her left hindleg and right foreleg. She should wake up in roughly four hours – leave a message for Sully to be on watch in case she tries anything”

They had protocols for taking hostile unicorns prisoner? Keeping a powerful unicorn captive was no small feat – their powers were difficult to contain, even when wounded. Silly couldn’t help but nod out of respect. It took some solid organization to pull that off.

Lord Bright appeared to take that as a cue, turning to face down the hill towards the approaching army: “Thank you for the warm-up! May I have another?”

A carefully aimed ballista-bolt flew up in an instant, but was parried by the golden disk – the freaking steel tipped log was parried by Lord Bright’s golden disk. With a deep sigh, Lord Bright made a gesture, as if signaling for something – but Silly couldn’t see the ponies at arm next to her doing anything.

That was when the storm clouds formed out of nothing. In mere moments the valley where the army marched was shrouded in darkness, the storm clouds having blotted out the sun. The heavy rain that followed made any attempt at marching up the hill into a muddy nightmare, troops slipping and falling everywhere, and the siege weapons being pushed and hauled getting stuck almost instantly.

Lord Bright then touched a pendant around his neck, closing his eyes. A magical image of him appeared high in the sky over the hill, surprisingly the hell of out Silly. So not only could this Lord Bright do magical martial arts, but he could also do strange illusion magic? The giant illusory image of Lord Bright spoke, its voice booming out over the valley:

“Lord Orchid Blossom. Your attacks on Sunhill are becoming annoying. I plan on going on a long journey soon, and you will not enjoy the same level of mercy if one of my fellow lords have to helm the defense of Sunhill. Leave, return to your lands, lest I command this storm to strike you with lightning”

A single bolt of lightning came down and struck somewhere among Orchid Blossoms’s forces – it seemed to hammer the message home very firmly. Silly couldn’t see if anyone had been hit, but she could see entire regiments routing.

Was this the power of Sunhill? The ability to command the weather and strike down any foe attacking the city with lightning and heavy rain? Looking around, it seemed that the valley that the army was in stretched around Sunhill – which was… odd… because come to think of it, the canal that the merchant ship she had arrived had been at water level with the Yellow River. This would mean that this valley was under the water level… probably more magic at play – still, if this meant that the whole city was uphill, except for its water-side.

Oh, Silly had so many questions – but ok, at least now she could hopefully set up a deal with this Lord Bright and start earning coin.

Satisfied enough that her future clients weren’t going away any time soon, Silly hightailed it back to Sunhill and found her fellow mercenaries making a nuisance of themselves at a tea house near the western gate out of the city. Rounding them up, she tried to explain how the battle had been won before it even started – but as she had expected, then they found her story quite impossible.

Berry Petal shook her head: “You can’t just make it rain and thunder like that – you say he didn’t even start casting any spells or anything and he’s not a unicorn either”

“I know – but that’s what happened. You must have been able to see the illusion he made of himself to shout at them” Silly said, getting a little annoyed that she wasn’t being believed.

The mare serving tea piped up as she distributed cups from a tray: “Oh it’s nothing – you just can’t see the elementals our lords have working for them. We’ve got hundreds of them living here in Sunhill. Fire elementals in our forges, water elementals helping keeping our crops watered and sewers running, earth elementals helping in the mines. You just can’t see them unless they want you to – that’s how they made the storm to ward off Orchid Blossom’s forces again”

Having her story corroborated by a local seemed to make her fellow mercenaries finally believe her, to which end Sanguine Lotus breathed easily. After going to the city manse and arranging a meeting with Lord Bright the next day, Silly and her crew found some cheap but surprisingly nice lodgings and hunkered down for the night. Strapped for coin, she had no interest in giving anyone drinking money, and the rest of crew knew that – though she also hoped that these lords of Sunhill would be up for giving them partial payment up front.

That night Silly dreamt a strange dream: She was young again, and galloping across a great open sunlit field, clad in shining golden armor and wielding a great golden blade, in front of a vast army as she raced towards a foe that didn’t really… make sense… but it felt like a foe, something to be defeated – and there was a song, but the words didn’t make any kind of sense, but she did catch herself humming it when she woke up.

Chapter 8 Hidden Under Pearls and Flowers

The Dreaming Pearl Courtesan stylist is too busy murdering someone with a razor-edged silver spoon to properly attend to her soup—by the time her victim's corpse has been disposed of and the unfortunate flecks of scarlet scrubbed from her kimono, it's gotten entirely too cold!

…

“Greetings honored one. From what noble house do you hail, that I might address you properly?” said the tengese pony in locally accented sea-tongue, bowing deeply before Speaker as he and Shimmer trotted down the pier from the Denzik ship.

Smiling, happy that his newly acquired seemed to give the impression of him being of noble blood, Speaker replied: “You may address me as Lord Mnemon Bright, and this is my servant Last Shimmer. Are you a guide?”

“Oh no Lord Bright, I am far too lowly to be of any aid to you – but if you seek a guide, I would suggest you seek out the House of Terrestrial Enlightenment, it is the bright orange structure at the end of the harbour” the local said, quickly bowing out and almost galloping off before anyone could get a word in edgewise.

Shimmer shook her head: “Well Lord Bright that’s one way to pump us for information without giving anything back”

“I don’t know, he talked about this terrestrial enlightenment place? I guess it’s an information centre for visiting realm ponies” Speaker mused, looking around to try to spot the structure in question. There were a lot of ponies milling about the harbour, a lot of ponies carrying heavy cargo on their back, but also groups of much fancier looking ponies with clearly armed bodyguards and other servants following them around. It wasn’t difficult to tell who was a visiting realm scion and who was a local dockworker.

Having already spotted the building in question, Shimmer sighed: “It’s to our right Lord Bright, and look at how many are standing in line…”

Approaching the orange building, Speaker had to agree with Shimmer. The line of ponies waiting to be serviced was very long indeed, though it quickly became clear that it was mainly because of the size of the entourages… so not that many ponies were really in line. Of course, the real fun was seeing how the various nobles standing in line were arguing with each other whether they should be in line behind someone ‘less noble’ than themselves, and clearly everyone else were much less noble than they themselves were.

As much fun as it would have been to stay and watch various unicorns and their retainers squabble over who was more worthy to be in the front of the line, then it wasn’t productive. None of the idiots were fighting, but Shimmer said that she could smell the desire for open hostilities in the air: “It’s everywhere Lord Bright… they must be really angry at each other”

“Well, if what Ever-Ember told us is true, then a lot of dynasts are basically vacationing here as a way to hide from the civil war. If the legion garrisoning An-Teng is recalled to the blessed isle, then it might come to open conflict over who can stake the biggest claim over bits of An-Teng. We should just focus on getting out of here” Speaker figured, his military training and experience as a head of state coming to the forefront.

Shimmer looked around for a tavern, or any other place where one might expect to find a ship captain: “True Lord Bright… hey, look over there. Next to the provisions store: That looks like the kind of place a captain or ship officers would hang out in, I’m sure of it”

The tavern in question looked promising. It wasn’t the kind of muddy watering hole that overflowed with drunken sailors – no, this place looked classy, and a bit more expensive.

At the door two large and muscly stallions stood guard, two local tengese who appeared to be wearing flower leis over their simple cloth skirts. They even had flower leis hung over the big ugly clubs that stood by their sides. The message was easy enough to read, even for an illiterate: “Don’t make trouble, or floral-scented trouble will come for you”

Entering the establishment, the duo found it looking like any other tavern: There was a bar, there were many tables, even more chairs, and over half of them had ponies sitting on them.

Approaching the bar, Speaker expressed the desire speak with a captain or officer from a river boat or barge. Since the City of The Steel Lotus was set at the mouth of the River of Queens, then it saw both ocean-going shipping and river shipping – and this was what Speaker sought. The barkeep was reluctant to say much, but a hoof-full of cowry shells saw her helpful enough: “Those three there came in on a sloop a few days ago. Pretty sure they’re talking about leaving soon”

The table in question had four ponies seated: A well-dressed captain, easily identifiable by his fancy hat and jewellery, two officers, and a silk-clad unicorn who was probably talking to them for the same reason Speaker and Shimmer wanted.

“…not? Look, you’ve shipped my cargo before at this rate, why the price-hike?” the unicorn bemoaned, the young-looking mare looking not at all happy with her situation, her exquisite silk dress looking a bit out of place in the tavern, even if it was a bit upscale.

The captain, a mare who looked as if she was well on her way to earning herself a strong hangover the next day, shot the unicorn a mirthful grin: “Because SOMEONE has been seizing ocean-worthy ships, and pressganging crews into service for their house navy – so there aren’t that many ships left going out or down the river of queens, and that means I get to hike up my prices. It’s called supply and demand”

“You drunken lout – I have a tight budget for this! You exploiting the situation isn’t helping anyone!” the unicorn protested, the stone beneath her hooves cracking as her elemental anima revealed itself via tectonic force.

It was clearly a tense situation, and other guests at the tavern were inching away from the table where the angry unicorn stood. Speaker stepped up: “Easy now, maybe there’s a way I can help out?”

The unicorn gave Speaker a deathly glare: “Mind your own business pony, do you even know who you’re talking to?”

“No, and clearly you don’t either – how about we introduce ourselves?” Speaker quickly replied, his old age and experience having given him more than enough to maintain his cool in the face of an angry unicorn, elemental powers or not.

The unicorn mare drew breath sharply through her nose, maintaining her stink-eye even through her deep exhalation, as she composed herself: “I am Ledal Gamys, here to secure continued house business – you?”

“The name is Mnemon Bright, here on the last legs of a long vacation” Speaker replied, smiling at the silly thought of how much he had dreamt of becoming a unicorn in his youth.

Gamys’s eyes flashed a bright white light as she looked Speaker over, then she spoke in a language that Shimmer didn’t understand a word of – but Speaker did. It was the tongue of high realm, the language of unicorn nobles that lowborn ponies weren’t really supposed to know: “Pray tell what is an unexalted scion of house Mnemon, who speaks in an accent that puts you far from the blessed isle, doing here?”

“At this point? Vacation. I had personal business north-west of Wavecrest, now I’m slowly making my way home with what time I have left on this world” Speaker said, his tone grandfatherly and nostalgic.

Visibly calming down, the unicorn nodded: “Very well – and you offer to help me with this troublesome captain? The price he is asking to ship my cargo of rice and timber is outrageous”

“I just need to buy passage to dragon’s eye lake for me and my servant. I’m sure I have enough funds left to help you out as well after that”

A bit of haggling and negotiations later – with the unicorn revealing herself to be exceptionally unskilled in the art of business and barter – and Speaker had managed to talk the captain down to a price that the unicorn found quite reasonable, without Speaker having to pay extra, also securing himself and Shimmer passage further east along the river of queens in the process.

Leaving the tavern, the duo quickly found themselves approached by the unicorn once more, her now out of breath as she had run around to find them: “I just… I wanted to thank you”

“No problem – as far as I’m aware house Mnemon is on good terms with Ledaal” Speaker mused, Shimmer finding herself fairly annoyed that she couldn’t understand a word they were saying.

Gamys laughed: “Oh the dragons missed out on a good pony with you. You must come to my grandmother’s dinner party tonight. The way you wrangled that captain, I wouldn’t be surprised if she offers you a job as administrator here. You could think of it as a permanent vacation with the odd bit of paperwork”

Caught flat-hoofed by the surprising offer, Speaker said he had to confer with his servant to remind him if that would fit into his travel plans: “Shimmer, would you be okay with us doing this? It’d probably be more of you not understanding anything they say… if they even let you in with me”

Shimmer thought about it: “We’ll be fine Lord Bright– we just have to be down at the harbor tomorrow morning before the ship sets sail, so try not to get too hungover”

“Perfect – this’ll be fun” Speaker said, because he couldn’t really turn down such a party invitation lest it rouse suspicion.

At the House Ledaal estate in a ritzy part of the city later that day, Speaker and Shimmer found themselves in luxurious surroundings inside the walls of the compound: Beautifully carved and decorated teak buildings, replete with lapis and mother of pearl. It wasn’t marble and jade, but it looked almost as nice. It fit perfectly with the city’s south-western aesthetic as far as Speaker was concerned, and Shimmer found the many trophies taken from sea monsters on display very impressive: “There must be some very good hunters and fisher-ponies here Lord Bright”

“Indeed, there are young one. Now, you two would be Lord Mnemon Bright and servant, yes?” spoke an old unicorn mare in high realm, her voice craggily and worm, and despite her horn she looked as old as she sounded, which meant she was really old.

Speaker bowed: “Indeed I am. To whom do I owe the pleasure of speaking?”

“I am Ledaal Asina, head of this household and host of this little soiree”

The duo was led further into the compound, but before entering a large hall a servant came and asked Shimmer to come with him. This was as expected and so Speaker bid his faithful servant farewell and hoped that she would have fun on her own.

“Oh, don’t fret about the servants. They get their own fun” Ledaal Asina said, as she led Speaker into the party proper.

And what a party it was. In the vast, richly decorated palatial and triangular hall, replete with beautiful floor mosaics, Speaker found himself faced with a huge crowd of exquisitely dressed ponies. The place was so big that there were three teams of tengese musicians playing in each end of the triangular hall, several tables laid out with luxurious food, and far more very comfortable looking seating arrangements spread along the walls. There were also well over a hundred guests, all dressed to kill, and Speaker quickly saw that there were at least a dozen other unicorns among them.

“Whoa, what am I looking at here?” Speaker said to himself, briefly wondering if his cover story would hold up to that many other realm scions and unicorns.

Ledaal Asina let out of a haughty laugh: “Oh, just the biggest party for anyone who’s worth anything here in the city. Now, let me introduce you to some of my friends”

Exquisitely tasting coconut liquor, spiced with south-western jungle herbs and spices, challenged Speaker’s sobriety, even as an exalt – and the house servants were as generous as the host, Asina introducing Speaker to a number of unicorns and dozens of unexalted ponies from various realm houses, including a number of ponies from house Mnemon. Speaker found himself straining to keep his story straight, but thankfully nobody really questioning him beyond him saying that he was born to a unicorn who was exiled to Great Falls: “I was asked not to reveal the name of my dragonblooded parent – honestly I think it’s to avoid having my reputation be tainted by what got her exiled”

“Sensible, but tell me about yourself Lord Bright. You carry yourself proudly, and I couldn’t help but notice that your eyes keep going to my daiklaive. Have you served in the legions?” Ledaal Asina asked, the gaggle of other scions around them all looking curiously at the new arrival while Asina wiggled her hips to show off her gem-encrusted scabbard.

Speaker smiled, feeling very much as if he was being put in the spotlight far more than he really wanted. It also wasn’t made easier by the fact that he had in no way thought up a more in-depth cover story than what he had already said: “I… yes, in my youth – I wanted to help where I could, then I trained to become a doctor”

“Really? Well, medicine in the east is very advanced – all those native medicinal herbs” another half-drunken scion commented.

Oh, how Speaker wanted to boast about his accomplishments as a Solar doctor – he was so proud of his accomplishments, and these ponies wanted to know… but of course he couldn’t tell them about everything, because most of his grand achievements had been done over the last few years as a solar. Still, he had to say something… he couldn’t just clam up now…

“Well, out with it” the old Asina said and gave Speaker a poke with a beautifully hooficured hoof, having clearly spotted that Speaker was being reluctant to say something.

Taking a deep breath, Speaker had to think quickly on how to spin his life into something aligned with the realm: “I was at the battle of Mishaka… it was just before I retired and started planning saving up and planning this trip”

Oh, the battle of Mishaka. Everyone around him suddenly seemed to understand why Speaker had been a bit reluctant. The final battle of the last realm invasion of the river provinces, which had ended with the satrapi of Thorns and its armies utterly crushed.

“Oh… were you also there for what happened… afterwards?” Asina said cautiously, as if she really didn’t want to talk about how Thorns had been overrun by the undead later on.

Speaker shook his head: “Thorns fell to the Mask of Winters and his undead forces ten years after Mishaka. The autocrat was a fool for not having rebuilt his forces in that time… no, I had retired back to a hunting lodge outside of Grey Falls long before that”

“Ledaal Asina, are you scaring your new guest with ghost stories again?” a new voice said, one that oozed drunken confidence.

Speaker turned to look, seeing a clearly fire-aspected stallion with a black coat, an eyepatch, and not just a red mane, but a mane that seemed to have been styled and dyed so that it looked like a flame... or maybe it was naturally like that. He was similarly wearing a red and yellow silk outfit that was covered in fire and dragon motifs: “No, I was telling her about myself”

“So, you fought at Mishaka? I studied that battle quite a lot at the House of Bells” the stallion said proudly, giving Speaker a very clearly appraising look.

Nodding, Speaker found himself regretting having mentioned anything about that battle. If this unicorn was a scholar of any kind, then it wouldn’t be difficult to sus out that he was lying through his teeth… but then Asina said: “Cynis Denoted Flame, don’t intimidate the poor soul with your pedigree”

“I’m not – I’m just curious!” the unicorn stallion replied, perhaps a little too drunkenly and eagerly.

Asina judged the stallion: “Then my dear Denny, slow down – you’re speaking to a mortal, he can’t go as fast as you want him to”

“I just want to hear a first-hoof account of the battle, instead of the sanitized accounts that made it into my text books” Denoted Flame said, floating his coconut-cup full of drink at Speaker.

Ok that would make spinning a yarn so much easier: “Best I can do is second-hoof accounts. I was a surgeon at a field hospital, patching up legionnaires that had been blown apart by Lookshyan essence artillery. I did talk to some of officers I worked on once we ran out of sedative though…”

Denovah looked eager to listen, gesturing for Speaker to continue: “Go on”

“All I know is that whatever unicorn was in charge for the enemy forces had their light auxiliaries do some kind of tricky manoeuvre that opened up a hole in our main line, and then they probably sent in their magic-armored shock troops in. I just know that it was an ugly rout, and I barely had a minute from the trumpets sounding to close up my patients and gallop back to Thorns to hide behind the city walls” Speaker said, trying to flip his actual experience of having been a Lookshyan field surgeon to how it had probably been for the enemy.

The stallion nodded slowly, his expression souring. Speaker held his breath – was this house Cynis unicorn about to blow his cover story wide open?

“That certainly sounds better than the nonsense they tried to teach me at bells. Thorns was always better at training duelists, not battlefield strategists who had to use others to fight for them” Denoted Flame said, sounding quite disappointed.

Asina put a friendly hoof on Denoted Flame’s shoulder: “There there – we all lost friends and family there”

“I just… how do you spend a decade failing to rebuild your military and train up an army that can defend itself properly?” Denoted Flame lamented, sounding thoroughly frustrated, puffs of steam coming from his ears.

Speaker considered his options. He could probably bow out of the conversation at that point, but at the same time he felt sympathy for Denoted Flame. As much as he didn’t like the realm or the idiotic autocrat who had failed to defend Thorns properly, then the innocent citizens and serfs that lived there did not deserve living under a deathlord.

“The good news is that the scavenger lands are rallying against Thorns, against the Mask of Winters” Speaker said, trying to reassure the distraught unicorn.

Asina perked an eyebrow at Speaker: “So you recognize the danger of the deathlords?”

“Of course. I fought at Deep Rot. I know exactly how bad these things are, but I also know they can be struck down” Speaker said a calm manner, his inner officer bubbling forth.

Cynis Denoted Flame’s brows flared as if they caught on fire, his draconic slitted eyes narrowing on Speaker: “You fought at… what?”

“Lookshy likes expendable auxiliaries. My parents have used me since I learned to read to spy on Lookshy. I was trained in medicine by experts from Great Falls at the medical school in Lookshy, as an exchange student. I knew ponies there. I was there at the Lookshyan games they held before that campaign, keeping tabs on things. I was asked by my old mentor to volunteer for what she said would be the greatest and most important battle I would ever have a shot at being part of…” Speaker said, carefully trying to gauge whether his tall tale was turning out to be too outlandish.

Asina loked doubtful: “Lookshy has good counter-intelligence. You expect me to believe that they would let a realm spy come along for a campaign in the underworld?”

Denoted Flame’s eyes went wide: “Hold on – the underworld? What campaign are you two talking about?”

“Darling, you need better spies, or better updates from your house. It’s been almost a year since I heard that Lookshy had mustered most of its first and second field force, flew it on their skyremes into the underworld and destroyed… something… something bad, and they won – and my spies tell me they had a number of anathema along helping them” Asina explained, her sneer at mentioning anathema quite clear.

With a gesture, Denoted Flame had a servant rush to bring him something to sit on. His expression was quite dumbstruck: “How can I not have heard of this?”

“Because you never pay attention when I tell others how dangerous the deathlords and the undead are” Asina said, sounding just a bit too smug for Speaker’s taste.

Ignoring her, Denoted Flame turned to Speaker: “Tell me everything”

“My fee for an intelligence report is…” Speaker said, looking around before settling his gaze on his empty drinks glass: “…another drink, a good one”

With the unicorns and realm scions appearing to have bought Speaker’s story hook, line and sinker, Speaker was able to somewhat freely tell his story of the battle of Deep Rot, of the poison that had been distributed to everyone that would kill you after a week or so, but would also prevent you from rising as a ghost if you died. The aerial battles between skyremes and flying undead horrors, how Lookshy’s skyfleet’s flagship the Skywolf had traded blows with the dread deathlord, and how a team of brave and selfless Lookshyan rangers had ultimately given their lives to bring a soul-breaker orb into the heart of the underworld manse… ending the enemy threat permanently.

Looking around, Speaker saw that the crowd of ponies around him had grown considerably.

“Well go on – it’s not everyday we get a veteran with a story this novel to tell” Asina urged Speaker on, no longer sounding smug, but instead really curious and eager.

A quick reorganization of the furniture saw Speaker placed on a very comfortable couch, with many dozens of eager listeners seated before him, while servants milled around and served drinks and snacks. This certainly wasn’t how Speaker had expected the evening to go, and now he really had to concentrate to keep his story straight.

“Is it true that there were anathema at the battle as well?” one curious mind called out.

Speaker nodded: “In more sense than one. I never met any of them personally, but I heard from the guards that several had been captured… and what they whispered about them did not sound like what immaculate texts describe at all. These ones had neither silver nor golden light to them, but a black light and bled from their brows with their marks of curse and shame. Where they fought Lookshy’s troops I received no wounded, for there you simply died”

Gasps and whispers erupted in the crowd.

“But yes, I also heard rumors that there were both golden and silvery anathema fighting alongside Lookshy’s forces, something that I actually felt the effect of personally, sort of. As a field surgeon, I had to handle the wounded, and according to my commanding officer we only saw a fraction of the casualties and wounded they had expected. At one point one of them even came down from on high in a cloud born aloft by heavenly music! No idea how that worked, but it sounded amazing” Speaker elaborated.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Speaker found himself very happy that he had only needed to use a tiny bit of essence to help his story-telling along – not enough to in any way flare his caste mark or anima.

With his story told, Asina called out a toast to Speaker: “Truly, you helped perform the work the of the dragons!” much to the cheers of everyone in earshot.

The party resumed its previous format, though many conversations where had about Speaker’s amazing story and its multitude of implications. It was also quite late at that point, so Speaker tried to excuse himself.

“That’s quite alright – but you simply must stay here for the night. I shall have servants prepare our finest guest quarters” Asina insisted.

Such hospitality was not something a realm scion was meant to reject, this much Speaker knew. Oh well, him and Shimmer hadn’t bought room and board anywhere else. To this end he accepted the offer, but with terms: “My servant will also need somewhere to sleep, and we have to be up early tomorrow to catch a ship going to Thousand Dragons Lake”

“That can be arranged – but really… to be quite honest, our guest quarters aren’t that comfortable, but I know a perfect alternative” Asina said in a coy tone, fluttering her eyes at Speaker.

What did she mean by… oh my…

Having Speaker wait for a moment as she too bid her party farewell, Asina retired with Speaker to her private chambers. To say that Speaker was just a little uncomfortable with the unspoken proposition would have been… difficult to tell – for he too was fairly inebriated, and had spent much of his energy on keeping his story straight back at the party so he had little mental fortitude left to resist any base urges.

It also didn’t help that in his youth he would have leapt at the chance to bed a unicorn mare – and while Asina was old enough that her age actually showed, meaning that she was well over two and half hundred years old, then it simply meant that physically she actually looked as old as him… and he knew the passion and bedtime energy of the exalted damn well.

Asina found herself surprised by Speaker’s energy, but equally very pleased by his technique. She returned the favour, reminding Speaker how the unicorns were originally half-elemental beings meant to only breed and fight against demons.

Good times were had… right up until Asina, exhausted and in that zen-like state of blissful afterglow when one’s thoughts are clear and the mysteries of creation lay themselves bare: “Lord Bright?”

“Yes dear?” Speaker replied, feeling extraordinarily good about himself. Didn’t hurt that the last time he’d had a roll in the hay was before Deep Rot, well over a year ago, with Shimmer’s previous incarnation.

The unicorn mare’s breathing became stilted, consciously controlled. Speaker could tell the difference – something was up. She drew the bedsheets up over herself: “Before Lookshy launched its campaign, it held its first Lookshy Games in quite a while, to explain away why it was mustering so many forces”

“I know, I was there – quite the show” Speaker said, yawning.

Asina became very quiet and shuffled over to a far corner of the bed, away from him. Speaker couldn’t even hear her breathe. When she finally spoke, it was with a trembling voice. “The magical martial arts tournament… there were anathema competing – and the pony who won the second place… I got reports that it was a stallion by the name of Bright Machine Speaker”

Oh, that was the problem.

“Well, are you asking if I am that pony?”

“Maybe…” she said, the fear quite audible in her voice.

Speaker shook his head and laughed: “You do realize that it is a grave insult to accuse an innocent, elderly war-veteran, son of a house scion, to be anathema? And equally, to blow the cover of an anathema so powerful that he is a trusted ally to Lookshy, one who fought a deathlord to a standstill, could be very dangerous just the same… plus the humiliation you would face once everyone at your most excellent party hears that the eastern storyteller you encouraged everyone to listen to, was a nasty anathema. One is a silly faux pax that can easily be waved away, another could likely get you killed and have your reputation utterly tarnished. So, which is it?”

It took a while before Asina replied. Speaker knew well that he wasn’t as good a wordsmith as Cash Charmer, but as a strategist and military officer he knew well the wisdom of offering a potential foe a peaceful resolution as an alternative to a direct and deadly confrontation.

“I… oh silly me, must be me talking in my sleep again…” Asina said, Speaker easily being able to tell how she was forcing herself to sound cheerfully and chipper again. Still, he was perfectly happy playing along if she would, if for nothing else then to let her save face.

With a deep breath, Ledaal Asina surprised Speaker as she shimmied back to him: “…but say you might have been such an anathema, or spoken to him after the battle in the underworld, what story would you have to tell?”

In the darkness, Speaker smiled. It was very late when he had finished telling his story.

Chapter 17 Eye of Heaven, Closed

The Celestial Earth Dragon stylist is a stalwart mountain against which much soup crashes, but none can burn him.

…

Faced with the strange challenge of staying both out of sight and out of trouble for two days in heaven, Shimmer, Speaker and Sunrise conferred with their sidereal friend Heath Rose outside the impressive structure that housed the vast bureau of heaven.

On golden cobble, in the shade of the orichalcum columns of the bureau front entrance, the two solars and lunar found the vast number of gods, spirits and elementals going in and out of the bureau quite overwhelming. The amount of divine foot and flying traffic was vast, amazingly colorful and came in every shape and size imaginable – often accompanied by loud entourages and swarms of messenger spirits.

Guiding the three to a nearby celestial tea-house, Heath Rose quickly dispatched several messenger spirits to consult with her superiors. The replies came back quickly: “Alright, we’ve got three obvious spies following us, which means maybe a dozen more well-hidden ones. I figure we have maybe an hour before they’ll start reporting us to the lions, so we need to find something for you to do”

“Is there a heavenly hospital I can help out at?” Speaker wondered, sticking to what he’s best at.

The sidereal thought about the idea for a moment, but shook her head: “We have access to a lot of first-age medical wonders up here, and various gods of healing – you would probably offend several of them if you showed up and started to do their work”

“What about those golden lions? What if instead of hiding from them, we help them?” Shimmer suggested, taking to heart a word of wisdom that Sage had once told her about turning enemies into allies.

Heath Rose first looked at Speaker, then Sunrise, before settling on Shimmer: “That… might actually work. If we got ask Shining Barrator if he’d like some temporary expendable deputies… oh that would probably piss of the bronze faction so much if we could make it look like he picked a side here”

This of course required a bit of explanation, but as they left the tea house Heath Rose simply stated that the ‘police chief’ of heaven, the leader of the celestial lions, lion-dogs, scarabs guardians and other enforcer spirits, was named Implacable Shining Barrator: “Being the police chief of heaven is… a thankless job. He gets tens of thousands of petty grievances daily from even pettier gods who whine that someone served them lukewarm tea, or wore a perfume they don’t like near them. It makes running actual investigations very difficult, but I’m sure he’d love a few agents to vent his frustrations to… or on”

Barrator’s office wasn’t that far from the bureau of heaven. Indeed, the celestial lions and other guardian spirits were ostensibly a sub-division of that very same bureau, though it was housed in a separate structure which looked like an imposing fortress. Its gates were sized for the enormous three- to four-yard-tall celestial lions that worked out of the place.

It was surprisingly easy to gain entrance to the place – then again, who would ever cause trouble in the biggest police station of heaven? Barrator’s office wasn’t difficult to find either, though it did involve having to stand in line for a few hours – the line was very long, even though it seemed as if Barrator was going through his petitioners very quickly.

At the door, on a large black marble plaque with inlaid orichalcum old realm glyphs, Shimmer read: “Department of Peculiar Matters of Special Import”

Inside, the four-yard-tall massive living statue of a lion sat behind a desk scaled for his size, utterly dwarfing the ponies that stood before him. His entire form gleamed, for it was of never-tarnishing orichalcum, and in this Shining Barrator was amazingly beautiful to look at. He had black markings that stood in stark contrast to his otherwise golden appearance on his face that looked a bit like whiskers, as well as ornamental markings around his eyes and a symbol on his forehead that was a bit hard to read from a distance.

“Heath Rose… what have you done this time?” Barrator rumbled, his voice deep and unmistakably full of authority, as the giant lion peered down from over his desk.

The sidereal straightened her back, trying her darndest to put on a smile. It was clear that the two had some kind of history: “Hey Shiny, no – I haven’t done anything, at least not anything that anyone can prove. No, I have three ponies here with me that I thought you might be able to put to good use”

“That’s Shining Barrator to you, young sidereal. And who are these ponies you have brought to my office, for they smell of the essence of the Most High. Don’t tell me you’ve gotten me a pet solar?”

With a bow so deep it looked as if she was going to topple over, Heath Rose did well to hide her smile: “Oh no mighty Shining Barrator. I’ve gotten you two, plus a lunar – they need a valid excuse to stick around for two days, and I know that you are always short on agents not bound entirely to the golden codes”

The golden mane of the mighty heavenly lion rippled. A lone spark ran across his whiskers. He beheld the three celestial exalts presented to him with eyes that seemed to drill into one’s soul: “You want me to hide more strays?”

Oh, so this wasn’t the first time Heath Rose had done this?

“No, but consider what the solar, who brought the department of prayer processing for the Most High to heel, could do for your professionally disinterested lions?” Heath Rose proposed, sounding very much as if she knew about a thing or two that she probably shouldn’t know.

The look on the enormous golden lion’s face said it all: Heath Rose hadn’t just hit a nerve; she had absolutely nailed it. As the lion’s eyes narrowed, sending the sidereal a look that mixed disgust with a strange flavour of resigned anger: “You, out”

Heath Rose cheerfully got up, smiling at the three Sunhill lords: “I’ll have an aerial rickshaw pick you up in two days, have fun!”

As the door closed behind Heath Rose, Shining Barrator slowly moved his gaze to the three exalts before him: “So… what am I going to do with you”

It took a few seconds before anyone spoke up. The lion was undeniably imposing, and as the police chief of heaven, then all three understood quite well that the spirit was not one to be trifled with. To this end Sunrise first gestured for permission to speak, Barrator nodding at her.

“Before we speak of anything, considering the potentially sensitive nature of such discussion, would you permit us to examine your office, to ascertain that nobody is listening in? We were warned before coming here, that we were being followed” Sunrise said, her old realm crisp and clear, and the tone of her voice officious.

The grumpy look on the lion quickly faded into one of mirth: “Has the trials and tribulations in Creation rendered the lords of Sunhill that paranoid?”

Sunrise shook her head, pulling back her hood to reveal her beautiful rusty red mane: “Our foes are legion, and we have become wise in their craft. Among our foes number the bronze faction, and we can see little reason why they would not stand to benefit from spying on you here”

“A lot of fools in heaven would like to be privy to my conversations in this office, but I can assure you that it is quite safe. As a spirit of heaven, I have an innate sense of my surroundings, but if it will assuage your paranoia, do go ahead and examine my office – just don’t make a mess of things… perhaps your little investigation might amuse me” Shining Barrator replied, sounding half-laughing by the very the very thought of anyone trying to spy on him, for he knew how heavily warded his office was.

Sunrise nodded to Speaker, who in turn faced Shimmer and asked if she knew that cat-eye charm: “I can’t quite remember the name of it – you told me once it lets you see that which attempts to hide from sight. Please use it if you know it”

Shimmer knew the charm alright, and so she carefully observed the room in great detail as her eyes began to see the impossible, while Speaker methodically scanned the room with his essence sight.

“Shimmer, what do you see here?” Speaker asked, after having looked at a wall mosaic for a while.

The lunar came over to Speaker, and instantly her cat-eye charm lit up several strange things that clearly weren’t supposed to be seen: “The whole mosaic… there’s something really weird about it”

Shinning Barrator sighed: “It’s self-cleaning. Most things in here are – I don’t want any cleaning staff nosing around what I do – easiest way to get spies in around here”

“You say that, but the spell built into the mosaic shouldn’t have magical ears… no reason for a cleaning spell to pick up sound. I can see ears of essence hidden in every triangle built into this mosaic” Shimmer observed, pointing out several strange essence constructs that her charm was highlighting to her.

Speaker nodded along: “Yes – this thing has been spying on, no… is spying on us right now. Can’t make out where it’s sending the information though. It’s really subtle”

The eyes of the great lion spirit glowed with a clear white light for a moment: “I have the keenest eyes of all of heavens police force. I am not seeing anything, are you sure?”

“Oh, I think I can see why you’re not spotting this… look, Shimmer can you see this filigree?” Speaker said, looking very engrossed in trying to figure the puzzle before him out.

A bit of very careful tinkering and tweaking allowed Speaker and Shimmer to damage the hair-thin network of orichalcum threads embedded into the mosaic’s mortar, which seemed to have an obscuring effect uniquely attuned to obscure its presence to the sense of celestial lions. After it was disabled, the golden lion quickly saw the ruse in the mosaik’s hidden features…

Suffice to say that the great lion was not at all pleased. Indeed, roaring with rage it bounded over its desk and was about to slash the mosaic into bits with its giant claws, but Sunrise grabbed one of its hindlegs and pulled it down: “Calm yourself! We have to examine the mosaic to find who did this – destroying evidence leaves us with nothing”

Shinning Barrator quickly got up again, sending Sunrise an absolutely furious glare – but he seemed to recognize the wisdom of her words: “Make it quick – and you, don’t you ever lay a hoof on me again”

Speaker and Shimmer quickly resumed their investigation, this time with the benefit of knowing what to look for. It was Shimmer who spotted the impossibly thin thread of essence leading into the brickwork that carried the information that the mosaic’s hidden spell heard.

With three shiny golden badges, each stamped with Shinning Barrator’s own claws, the three exalts found themselves deputized to enforce the laws of heaven and officially put on the case to hunt down whoever was spying on the police chief.

“Is anyone going to point out that whoever we’re after will no doubt have heard all this? They’ll destroy any evidence and make a clean escape long before we find them” Sunrise noted as the trio left the fortified heavenly police precinct.

Speaker agreed, trying not to sound hopeless, though he seemed to have accepted that they likely wouldn’t catch anyone: “I think the best we can do is track this thread to where it ends and then draw our conclusions from that”

With her nose to the golden cobble, Shimmer was using her charms to sniff out the impossible thread hidden between the cracks of the cobble: “Don’t give up just yet – I don’t think whoever put that thing there was listening”

“What do you mean?” Sunrise asked.

With great care Shimmer plucked the string up from between the coble, carefully floating it up for the others to see: “It pulses, but weakly. It’s like the long limb of a creature that’s in hibernation. I don’t think its awake”

“Interesting… but I guess it makes sense – a surveillance system that lies dormant can be more difficult to detect” Speaker mused.

Licking the thread, which looked about as awkward as one might expect, Shimmer scrunched her nose: “It doesn’t taste of anything Lord Bright… but it makes my tongue feel all tingly”

“That’s what you get for licking random magic string. Let’s just find where it leads” Sunrise stated, sounding very much as if she disapproved of such silly behaviour.

Tracking the string some more led them several dozen miles across more than enough city blocks of office palaces and pagodas of such exquisite make and material, that it was actually quite distracting – but Sunrise was great at keeping Shimmer and Speaker from gawking too much, plus she was able to tell off several celestial lions and golden lion-dogs, all of them who wanted to know what a trio of ponies were doing loitering around Yu-Shan without any obvious reason to be there.

“Wow they really don’t like ponies up here, do they?” Shimmer commented, as she sniffed out what directed the string went.

Sunrise sighed: “Even as celestial exalted, our mandate of heaven only covers creation. This is not our domain, and so we have no right to be here without permit or invitation. It is the law”

“Lovely – but check it, the string goes from the coble up the wall over there – it goes into that building through the window!” Shimmer pointed out as the sun set in a matter of seconds, the moon leaping up on the sky just as quickly – for the ‘time of day’ in Yu-Shan was surprisingly random, determined by the games of divinity, not by time.

A quick investigation revealed that the building was the home of a Bureau of pony affairs sub-department, but Sunrise found that a bit odd: “This building is much larger than what a sub-department that insignificant should have. This calls for an official investigation”

The trio ascended the stairs to the office pagoda, Sunrise in front. Going up the stairs, Speaker clued Shimmer in on an important aspect of dealing with celestial gods and spirits: “Up here, spiritual power is a function of hierarchical and organizational power. This is to our advantage, since Sunrise and especially my essence is so potent – but you need to watch out. Any god or spirit that detects that your essence is weaker than them is likely to bully or order you around like a servant… or order your arrested for looking at them funny”

“Gotcha, make my essence look bigger Lord Bright” Shimmer said, as waves of silvery essence washed over her body from her head back to her tail due to some unknown charm being activated.

Speaker shot the lunar a raised eyebrow, but Sunrise was at the door.

Hewn of green jade and decorated with gemstones of mind-boggling size and lustre, the door was beautiful beyond words – and it swung open without a sound.

Inside, on white jade floors, a front desk sat with a spirit that looked bored out of its five skulls. Indeed, the inside of the building had a very bone-like theme to its décor: Various pony bones hung from the walls in macabre displays that looked just marginally relevant for a medical college – but certainly not for an office building.

“What goes on in this building?” Sunrise demanded to know, her old realm clear, concise and with an unmistakable tone of “Don’t fuck with me” to it.

The spirit jostled awake, surprised by anyone actually making it do its job: “What? Who? This the Bureau of pony affairs, sub-diving of hoof itches – who’s asking?”

With the desk several feet taller than any of the three ponies, Sunrise was well hidden to the desk spirit – but the solar quickly leapt up on the desk: “I am – Sunrise Glow, chosen of Celestia for the Zenith Caste, deputized by Shinning Barrator to investigate heavenly irregularities”

Three of the four mouths of the spirit dropped open – while the fourth and fifth one looked at each other, looking quite surprised as well: “Well damn… neat – is there anything else I can help you with?”

Sunrise quickly launched into a series of quick but well-worded questions, asking for schematics for the building and a list of all spirits and gods that worked there. Meanwhile, with the desk spirit thoroughly distracted with sending messenger spirits out for the various requests for architectural drawings, and rummaging through cabinets for staff lists, Speaker and Shimmer snuck off into the building proper.

With the shape of an eastern river snake, Shimmer snuck silently along gemstone cubicles. Speaker kept his pace, using essence to quiet his hooves and make him less noticeable. Stealth charms weren’t his forte, but he had made sure to learn the basics.

Sunrise kept the secretary busy for quite a while, making logical and reasonable requests – by asking for copies of original building schematics, not locally kept copies, which meant sending messenger spirit all over Yu-Shan. This sudden drain on the sub-department’s messenger spirit staff didn’t go un-noticed, and both Shimmer and Speaker had to dive into hiding places when the sub-department head god came stomping out from his office towards the front desk.

“Are you here for the latest itch tests?” a confused spirit asked Speaker, the solar having successfully hidden from the department head, but not from the godling in the cubicle he had hidden in.

Right after the department head had stomped past, Speaker gave the spirit a sheepish grin without any answer to the question, and then quickly stalked off on hooves quieted by essence.

At the end of the pagoda where the spy-thread had come in through a window, Speaker and Shimmer found the department head’s office. The door was locked, but Speaker almost instantly dismantled the lock – quietly so – replacing the polished bronze cover to hide the emptied-out lock mechanism. Inside they found a spacious office with a positively decadent looking lounge chair, a desk that looked a lot more like a massive buffet table and open bar, and half a dozen dancer and minstrel spirits who seemed to enjoy their break.

“You know, I think that someone is paying the god in charge here a lot more than what he’s supposed to get – because this doesn’t look like what we saw out with the other office workers” Shimmer mused, wondering exactly how bribery and corruption worked in heaven. Was there a black market here? Heavenly freebooters? Heavenly pirates? She knew that they had crossed several bridges over some strange looking rivers on their hunt.

Speaker nodded: “And this office doesn’t have the right kind of windows. I think it’s in there”

Looking at what appeared to be the door to a closet, Shimmer nodded – but then her ears fluttered: “Big boss is coming back!”

With but a few seconds to spare, Speaker reached before him and through sheer force of will grabbed essence and shaped it into a messenger spirit: “Sunrise, get to the department head’s office”

The messenger spirit flittered into nothing, zipping to Sunrise Glow – and just as the door slammed open, the enormous hoof of the god of hoof itches looking curiously imposing, the voice of Sunrise Glow rang out beyond the door: “Hold up – we are not done yet!”

The god seemed to turn to address the solar hailing him, his exquisite silk robes swinging about the god’s divine form, quickly closing the door. A rumble followed, ostensibly the god roaring and yelling – and indeed the dancers and minstrel spirits looked very weary, one of them whispering to Speaker: “What have you done? He’ll be angry for days now!”

Speaker shrugged at the minstrel spirt, its form of a living instrument with arms and legs looking somewhat comical: “He’ll cooperate with deputies from the department of Peculiar Matters of Special Import, if he knows what’s good for him”

The spirit dancers and minstrels all shied away from Speaker after he said that, and then the door opened – not in a violent fashion – but from Sunrise’s measured and calm motions, followed by an angry god.

Now, the god of hoof itches had the superficial appearance of a pony, but his hooves were huge and appeared made of some kind of chipped stone, but equally they looked freshly painted in bright garish paint. The god seemed thoroughly pissed: “I must protest! This is an invasion of my workspace!”

“This is an official investigation – you can take your complaints to the Implacable Shining Barrator” Sunrise calmly stated, not even bothering to turn to face the god.

With his giant stone hooves, every step of the god was loud and thunderous – and he quickly darted into the office once Sunrise stepped aside. Spotting Speaker and Shimmer, the god glared at them with eyes that shined with a baleful light: “More intruders? What is the meaning of this!?”

A quick glance at Sunrise told the two all they needed to know. This god was clearly upset at being called out for his obvious flaunting of wealth beyond what his station should afford him. With a stern reprimand Sunrise pummelled the god with words, demanding that he reveal who is giving him extra funds: “…and I also need to know what you have in the room beyond that door”

It was enlightening for Shimmer to see how Sunrise spoke: The priestly mare did not mince words like how Cash did – everything she said, she meant – but at the same time Shimmer sensed that Sunrise was using charms to make sure that one couldn’t easily dodge her questions, leaving the god squirming as he could not present any actual arguments for why he shouldn’t tell her everything.

Thusly shamed, the god admitted that he did not know the name of his benefactor, but that their ambrosia was perfectly fine: “…and I can’t open the door. I do not have the key”

“Not a problem – I have a solar key” Speaker noted, striking the door with the same disassembly charm he had used on the door into the god’s office.

To Speaker’s surprise the charm failed. Indeed, Shimmer and Sunrise were also surprised – but to Speaker, it simply taught him some interesting things about the lock: “Whoever made this, made it to resist an exalt trying to open it – this was to resist investigation by exalted. That just makes it even more suspicious”

“You said you don’t have the key. Who comes and goes through this door – someone has to enter it” Sunrise said, looking at the godling with judging eyes.

Cowering under the withering gaze of Sunrise, the god exclaimed: “Nobody. I was at the baths of Venus when it was set up, and I have never seen anyone come and go from in there”

Ok, that was very strange.

With the lock magically fortified beyond even what Speaker could break, he instead whipped out his singing staff and played a tune that formed a second door in the wall, next to the locked door.

What was revealed inside was… not all that surprising, but it fit with what had been observed so far: The origin of the magical string-like wire was a construct of jade and other magical components, Speaker quickly concluding that it was a communication device: “This thing can relay messages – and I guess nobody would question magical messages coming out near a department head’s office. This is just another relay”

“But the mosaic has to be activated remotely – can this thing receive activation commands?” Shimmer wondered, trying to sus out where that kind of input would feed into the machine.

Nodding, Speaker looked over the machine again, his aura blazing in golden light as he sought the mechanism for activating the construct: “Yes, here – this jade node is sensitive to sorcery. A magical message sent to it should start it”

This gave Shimmer an idea, and a wide and sneaky smile crept over her face: “Perfect, here’s what we’re going to do…”

Chapter 34 Light Brought Forth

The art of relentless persuasion stylist convinces the soup to become palatable and tasty, then consumes it wholly.

…

Thousands of ghosts in Thorns howled as their comfortable twilight existence was upended, the burning light of day bringing their undead nature to the forefront as nature itself rejected them. It was sad in some sense, many of the ghosts being previously living citizens of Thorns slain by the Mask who had risen in the shadowland, who had simply continued their unlife as if nothing had truly happened… but that was no longer an option.

Speaker came flying into the theatre square, finding the rest of the circle and Silverclaws embroiled in battle, though now that the shadowland had lifted the scores of zombies and hungry ghosts fighting them were noticeably weaker!

Quickly looking around to get a reading of everything and using a charm to make that happen instantly, Speaker realized that the removal of the shadowland had come at a very fortuitous point in time: Sunrise, Cash, Shimmer and Silverclaws were all engaged fighting hordes of zombies, ghosts and a not quite depleted number of Thornguard.

Judging where his skills would help the most, he flew overhead of the mob of hungry ghosts that Shimmer had tangled up with her essence webbing – something that he hadn’t even known that she could do – throwing Gift and Homage down into the throng of ghosts, each enhanced by the aptly named ghost-eating technique, each ghost that the orichalcum weapons cut apart exploding in a puff of essence that raced up into Speaker’s anima, refuelling him spiritually and giving him no small amount of reprieve: “When did the ghosts show up ?”

“Just after you flew off Lord Bright – I think they must have been hiding in the basement of the theatre like a garrison. Been wrangling them ever since and tossing them into the pile here” Shimmer replied, her voice strained as she had clearly been very busy.

Well, that made sense. Looking to Fire Orchid, Speaker saw her bloodied – but it did not appear to be her own: “What about the others? Who needs help?”

“I think Silverclaws and Cash could use help Lord Bright – they’ve been tussling with a pair of abyssals that came from the theatre” Shimmer noted, a flash from her anima pointing in their direction.

At first it struck Speaker as odd that he hadn’t noticed anything in that area of the plaza, for it was near Sunrise – but then he noticed that he wasn’t hearing anything from Sunrise either as she was clearly channelling vast amounts of essence through herself in a magical trance, purging more and more shadowland with every moment. Of course! She had to be using her silencing charm, so nobody could distract her through words or making other noise!

Flying over to Sunrise, Speaker found Silverclaws and Cash quite embattled, facing off against two deathknights who were both blazing with necrotic essence, their paths traced clearly on the cobble by thick coatings of blood left by their dark passing, their anima making even the stone weep.

Cash looked as he usually did – his self-repairing heavenly silks and his collar of dawns cleansing meaning that it wasn’t really possible to see if he was hurt, but he had his claws out on his shoes of distant of claws, and was making great use of them, while Silverclaws appeared to be positively plucked; her peacock-feather gown slashed, torn and stained red with her blood, though it had apparently managed to handle her warform just fine.

The two deathknights fighting them looked very martially inclined, one being a lithe stallion wielding a nasty whip of blood, which clearly spoke of him being a laughing wounds stylist, while the other abyssal looking like a burly mare with a nasty array of spiked soulsteel shoes on, combined with armor adorned with large spikes – it wasn’t quite obvious what her fighting game was, but judging from the amount of blood on her piked shoes, then she was certainly a dangerous one.

None of the two looked terribly keen on seeing Speaker join their fight, but they didn’t get much of a choice: Speaker threw Gift and Homage at the lithe whip-wielder, the abyssal quickly batting Gift aside, but Homage got a hit in that saw the abyssal flung high into the air – both abyssals looking a tad surprised at that.

The other deathknight was about to shout something at Speaker when Cash fired some more claws at her, drawing her attention. The twilight caste solar in turn swooped in and grabbed the tossed abyssal, flinging him even higher up in the air, where the blood-whip-wielder struggled mightily to right himself, and presenting an ultimatum: “Surrender and I’ll drop you down gently – if you don’t, you’re coming down hard”

The floating stallion did not appear to like his options – but then he saw something… something that made him both smile and chuckle: “How about you surrender instead?”

Briefly looking to see what the git was sniggering at, Speaker saw to his horror a gigantic yeddim-sized undead creature of some sort, one covered with great steel plates and spikes, battering down the northern city gate – and a horde of zombies rushing around the openings already made. Bloody hell – enemy reinforcements!

“Right, off with you then” Speaker said with a heavy heart, tossing Gift once more so that it struck the flailing abyssal stallion from beneath, flinging the deathknight high into the air – and this time the poor soul came down just fine, splattering on the cobble quite spectacular.

The other deathknight did not take having her buddy slain well – but Silverclaws was spitting venom at her eyes, and Cash was launching his claws at her just the same, locking the deathknight down into a very defensive posture: “Damn you!”

Speaker flew over to the two of them, evaluating the situation: “Need help with this one?”

“No, we’re good – but don’t get close to her or attack her up close, hurts really bad” Cash said, sounding more than a little happy that he only had to deal with a single foe at that point.

This of course made the news that enemy reinforcements were incoming all the touchier, plus Speaker didn’t want to give the abyssal any happy news. Flying up, Speaker could tell that the zombies were still a dozen or so blocks away – but that wouldn’t last long. The northern city gate was completely broken down by that strange necromantic construction, which was beelining towards the square, ploughing through factories and workshops – which was a lot slower than the zombies rushing through the streets, but it was much shorter too.

Checking the square, Speaker flew over and called upon Shimmer to finish up the ghosts quickly: “We’ve got incoming, lots of them”

“Oh great, what Lord Bright?” Shimmer said, as she tightened the knot on her webbing, the giant wiggling ball of hungry ghosts almost completely wrapped up.

It was not happy bird noises that Shimmer made as Speaker brought her up to speed, especially since it was clear that her webbing would be critical for corralling and wrangling all the zombies. On the plus side, Shimmer explaining that her plan was just to pick up and toss the web-ball full of ghosts and toss it into the ocean, which gave Speaker an idea just as she was about to patch the last gap in the sphere: “Hey, keep that hole open would you?

Flying back to Cash and Silverclaws, Speaker girded himself to defy the warnings of his comrades, as he tried to grab the deathknight – but she swatted him away, appearing to not want to suffer the same fate as her late peer: “Oh no you don’t!”

“Really? You think you’ll last long with a three on one?” Cash called out, clearly trying to get under the deathknight’s skin.

Despite her very aggressive martial posture, the abyssal appeared clever enough to know a bad situation when she saw it, as she tried to back away and avoid being encircled: “I will get you at some point!”

“You say that, but are you looking at what you’re backing up to” Silverclaws quickly noted, dropping from her fighting stance to just stand and point at something behind the deathknight.

Speaker had to chuckle. That was such a dirty trick, trying to make the abyssal look away – which would obvious make the deathknight vulnerable to a sneak attack – and the grim mare appeared to be well aware of it: “Oh screw this!”

With a single mighty leap the deathknight soared over the rooftops, heading south towards the palace and juggernaut – though not before Speaker tossed Gift to tilt the abyssal off course just enough, that the mighty leap became a lot of spinning, flailing and screaming into the side of a building. It wasn’t clear if that killed the deathknight, but it probably didn’t feel good.

All three exalts breathed heavy sighs of relief, when Shimmer called out: “Can I toss these yet?”

“Yes, please do!” Speaker replied, as he looked in Shimmer’s direction and saw a flagpole near her bent precariously.

A moment later Shimmer called out “Pull!” and used the bent over flagpole and her webbing as a makeshift catapult, launching the ball of wiggling and moaning ghosts high into the air towards the harbor. It left a clear trail of ash, as the sunlight scorched the ghosts – one of the clear indications that the shadowland had been undone.

As Shimmer approached the three, Fire Orchid joined in – having wiped the floor with the last of the zombies: “So, what’s next?”

“Big horde of zombies and necro-surgically made monsters coming down wall street towards us, led by the Physician – they’ll be here in a few minutes” Shimmer said, as she extended her senses outwards.

Silverclaws stomped the cobble hard: “Damnit… where do all these deathknights keep coming from!? We haven’t even seen the Physician or the Bloody Canoness yet – where did the Mask get this kind of backup!?”

“These two we just fought, the way they looked around this plaza when they teleported in – they were looking around as if they hadn’t seen this place before. They weren’t local” Cash pointed out; his charms of subtle social cue detection having run passively throughout the fight.

Fire Orchid groaned, wiping blood-stained hooves on her brow: “So he figured out that we’re pulling something and brought in backup – so what? We’re still winning”

“Sunrise has only been at it for about three minutes – she has to do this at least ten or it’ll all snap back. We haven’t won yet” Speaker said, as he bobbed up and down in the air.

Silverclaws let out a frustrated and very angry cat noise, her half-cat warform making it sound oddly cute, like a yawning kitten: “Ok that does it – no more nice-claws!”

Cash looked like he was about to make some snide quip at the lunar, when she withdrew a dirty great soulsteel scythe from elsewhere just as the dull roar of thousands of zombies came rolling in from the north-east. Cash instead opted to give the lunar an impressed nod: “Nice, you got that one from the abyssal we killed, right?”

“Yup – and my elder promised me a moonsilver weapon one day if I ever slew one hundred things in one day – I think I’ll get that now” Silverclaws said, her paws tightening around the nasty looking dark scythe with eerie faces pushing their way out of the metal.

Shimmer found that rather impressive: “Neat, what did your mentor teach you for using a scythe?”

“He taught me this for the spear, but a scythe synergizes with this too – White Reaper style” Silverclaws said, as she reared up and floated the scythe before her in a posture that left none in doubt that someone was about to reap what they had sown.

The zombies came rushing, and before Silverclaws the entire first wave was cut down like grass. The rest of the circle – sans Sunrise who was busy doing her sorcerous thing, and Sullen Hoof who was likely still off somewhere running interference – joined in, stemming the tide of undead.

While holding off the zombies – which quite honestly wasn’t very difficult, especially with how Silverclaws seemed quite adept at mowing down scores of them using her giant scythe – then both Speaker and Fire Orchid both voiced worries that tying all of them up with zombies left them vulnerable to attacks form the rear. To this end Shimmer disengaged and watched the rest of the plaza, using her webbing to block off the other access points and quickly ‘decorating’ them with various bits and bobs, mainly so that anyone breaking through would make enough noise to easily be heard.

A few precious minutes passed – Sunrise’s spell worked its magic every second, spreading the bright hole in the shadowland further around the city – and the mountain of rotting flesh that was Juggernaut began to stir. With thunderous steps it started to hobble away from Thorns, keeping itself within the shadowland, while moving in a southern direction.

This was when the circle heard the sound of cheers, sporadic at first, but the whole city seemed to feel the elation as Juggernaut moved away – as if the very buildings breathed heavy sighs of relief, seeing the ancient Maker of Rubble leave. It lifted everyone’s spirits, making a lot more ponies stick their head out of their windows to see what was going on.

With everyone glowing either brightly with gold or silver from how much essence they had spent, it was pretty obvious to anyone looking that it wasn’t the dragonblooded who were undoing their misery, but instead it was the kind of anathema that their local immaculate preachers used to warn against. It certainly made a lot of ponies do some serious double-takes.

This lull, if constant though leisurely fighting with zombies could be called that, ended with the arrival of the great necromantic monstrosity that had ploughed through the city towards the plaza. It broke through the buildings to the north-east of the square – and it was pretty obvious that it was too much for Shimmer to stop on her own.

“Go, I can hold them!” Silverclaws called out, the many layers of silvery glow that surrounded her making any zombies that got too close slip and slide away from her, a strange effect of her grim martial arts, right up until she would focus the light into her scythe to whirl into the zombies and kill scores of them and clear some space around her.

Everyone else killed their last zombie and galloped towards the giant monster, trying to figure out how to stop the enormous thing from smashing into Sunrise. Shimmer seemed to be swooping around the rider of the great beast, forcing whoever was controlling the creature to focus more on her than on goading the monster forward.

“Go for the rear legs of it – make it stop moving!” Fire Orchid called out, just as Speaker flew past her on wings of golden fire.

With Gift attached to his left hoof and using its blades to dig into the impossibly thick leathery flesh of the monster, Speaker used Homage to slowly burn a hole in through the same strange multi-layered skin. It appeared as if the monster was layered with multiple thick hides sewn around its limbs, with each a layer of dead flesh armor appearing to feel no pain. That, combined with the thick metal armor plating that also covered much of its front made it into a grand living battering ram, one able to rear up and stomp on anything smaller than itself.

Of course, the great unliving siege engine hadn’t come alone: Behind it, once it cleared the buildings it had stomped and crushed its way through, surged another swarm of zombies.

This forced Cash to split off from the monster to keep the rest of the circle clear of zombies, chiefly via wrangling zombies up, around, over and tossing them back into half a dozen other zombies, smashing them all apart in doing so: “We are so boned in anything else joins this fight!”

Speaker wanted to agree, but he was also trying to make sense of the strange anatomy of the monster he was cutting into. The outer layers had clearly been but dead dry hides stretched over the beast, but he had reached a depth where it actually bled – which meant that the thing was somehow alive, despite his medical diagnostic charms saying otherwise. It was very weird… and Cash was shouting something.

Turning to see what was going on, Speaker was surprised to see fire, lightning, swirling razor rose petals and… ok when did a bunch of unicorns join the fight?

It seemed that a group of unicorns and several dozens of soldiers had joined the fight, holding the tide of zombies back, holding the line so that Cash could leap back onto the back of the monster and have a go at the abyssal controlling it.

“Hey, I know you!” Cash said gleefully, as he zig-zagged along the back of the giant monster, running in and out of cover of the massive steel spikes bolted onto the armor of the beast, artfully dodging bolts of black lightning shot at him by The Seven-Degreed Physician of Black Maladies, who looked none too pleased that his zombie escorts weren’t guarding him properly.

The dozen war ghosts that manifested tried to – but weakened by having to manifest in Creation, not in a shadowland – meant that Cash carved his way through them while whistling a most annoying little tune, one fortified and supplemented hilariously by a combination of charms that made it impossible for the Physician to focus on controlling the monster: “Gah, will you stop that!”

“How about I stop you instead?” Cash quipped, bucking the Physician with his Heaven Thunder Hammer technique, which sent the necromancer flying off into the side of a building, which he impacted hard, falling down onto the plaza and struggling to get up. Meanwhile Cash did the dance of the six-bladed blender on the ‘controls’ of the monster, which were basically just a bunch of stylishly made ivory rods stuck into an opening into the monster’s brain at the back of its head.

Fire Orchid was the first to notice that the monster no longer trying to move forward, letting her heave and wrestle it over on its side – she didn’t trust that some other abyssal might leap in and try to make the thing move again.

This forced Speaker to leap away to avoid being crushed, leaving Homage inside the beast – though he was able to recall it though elsewhere. The idea of having to dig it out of the toppled monstrosity made him shudder… but only briefly, because the battle wasn’t over yet.

Were the unicorns that had joined the fray remnants of the city’s original armed forces? Their crackling elemental auras alone were ripping zombies apart left and right, and they had several dozen soldiers fighting with them – but that… that wasn’t like the old livery of Thorns that Speaker remembered from the battle of Mishaka. Red livery?

They certainly didn’t look like they needed help.

Flying up to get an idea of how many zombies they still had to contend with, Speaker also saw how Juggernaut was miles away from the city – not quite on the horizon, but it was obvious that it had been moved well away from the hole in the shadowland. The mass of zombies also seemed to shrinking, inspiring Speaker to soar higher and look further afield to check on the status of the whole city.

As he ascended, he saw what appeared to be thousands of ghosts beyond the southern city wall, locked in by the hidden salt barrier that was made up of Sullen Hoof’s painted salt blocks. He could see the essence burning away from them, as the noonday sunlight scorched them and simply dissolved the weakest of the ghosts, as they wailed and cried out for their dark lord to save them. Oh, it was glorious.

Speaker also saw something he hadn’t seen before in the few days he had been in Thorns: From high above, he saw ponies in the street. He was far too high up to see faces, but he could see the weary movement patterns of the crowds gathering in the streets: They weren’t rushing anywhere – they were just… looking.

It occurred to Speaker that they were probably looking at him, shining with golden light, with wings of fire, which would be in very sharp contrast to the dark and stormy sky. Was that a bad thing? Sunrise had said that with the immaculates they had rescued from the prison, then it stood to reason that their faith had been thoroughly shaken – so seeing what their preachers used to call those marked by unforgivable sin, a shining golden anathema, saving them from their dark lord… well… oh this was going to be something for Sunrise and Cash to sort out.

Still, there was something Speaker felt he could do: Flying down to the old autocrat’s palace in the middle of the city, Speaker circled the place and flew close to the great black banners of the Mask of Winters, that his wings of fire lit them aflame. Once all of them were on fire, Speaker swooped around and rammed the grim and looming statues of the Mask that had been set up at nearly every street corner, smashing each of them with hooves wreathed in golden essence.

Finally returning to the plaza before the twilight amphitheatre, Speaker found that the circle appeared to be at a bit of a standoff, with the brightly coloured animas of the unicorns on one side, and the golden and silver-blue animas of his friends on the other… oh boy.

Flying closer, Speaker heard the angry shouts being traded back and forth, with Silverclaws in the tattered remains of her peacock-feather dress and with her soulsteel grimscythe, screaming at the unicorns: “Well if you are so bloody brilliant, how come it wasn’t you who got rid of the shadowland and forced the Mask out of Thorns?”

Of the unicorns numbers there were about two dozen. Half of them wore clothes just marginally better than rags, looking very much like locals, while the rest had armor on – and in the case of their leaders, some very impressive and highly decorated green jade armor. The unicorn in charge appeared to be an auburn-maned mare in a bright green suit of jadesteel, which was adorned with flowery motifs, including inlays of black jade for petals. She seemed quite cheesed off at Silverclaws.

Speaker, coming in on his golden wings and still shining brightly from all his essence use, was hard to miss as he landed next to his friends. He was about to ask if introductions had been made, when another of the unicorns – a stallion clad in bright red jadesteel armor, with a coat as black as coal, but his mane was not just red like fire, it looked as if it was on fire – he leapt forth and pointed at Speaker accusatorily, speaking in a very heavily accented rivertongue: “You! What are you doing here!?”

This seemingly random utterance completely derailed the shouting match between the auburn-maned mare and Silverclaws, as everyone looked at the unicorn stallion and Speaker.

Thinking quickly, Speaker just barely managed to recall that he had met and spoken to a very pureblooded realm unicorn stallion back at Ledaal Asina’s party in An Teng, but he couldn’t quite remember the stallion’s name: “I’m saving the city – what does it look like?”

Cash quickly slid up next to Speaker and very quietly demanded a quick recap. Drawing a deep breath to buy himself a few seconds to compile his story, Speaker said: “Met him at a party in An Tang, told him and everyone else there a story about how I was a Thorns-born medic who’d signed up with Lookshy to fight at Deep Rot – they ate it raw”

“Filthy anathema – not only have you defiled Ledaal Asina’s house with your presence, but now you’re here- oww!” the stallion began, just as another of the unicorns, and old looking white-coated stallion with a very long grey beard, had whacked the firey unicorn over the back of his head with the flat side of his large blue jadesteel daiklaive.

The old stallion admonished the fire-maned unicorn: “Cynis Denoted Flame! You saw what they did – how dare you question their integrity!?”

Oh right, the hostess of the party Speaker had been to, she had called the fiery unicorn ‘Denny’! Speaker perked up: “Denny, I might have twisted the truth a little when I told you my story – but all the rest of it was quite true – plus, Asina knew”

Denny’s eyes went wide and his mane seemed to extinguish itself in a display of his deflating spirit: “No… impossible”

Pushing Denny aside, the auburn-maned unicorn mare shoved her way forward to face Speaker, speaking in a notable but none the less understandable rivertongue: “Right, can we take this somewhere a little more civil without the audience?”

As if he had waited for an opportunity to move the argument to somewhere more civil, Cash quickly stepped up: “Yes – lets! I’ve been made to understand that the theatre right over here has some perfectly serviceable meeting rooms. Let’s go in there, so we can avoid riling up a riot”

Looking around, Speaker recognized that the crowd of civilians around them had a lot of angry faces – on both the side of the crowd standing behind the unicorns, and the crowd standing behind the circle.

With Cash leading the way, using some kind of charm to make the crowd part ways around them, everyone else quickly followed suit – though Speaker quickly noted that several dozen soldiers in bright red livery were following the unicorns… lovely.

“Orchid, who are these unicorns? They’re clearly not from around here?!” Speaker quietly asked as they walked inside the theatre, past frightened looking staff as Silverclaws shapeshifted back into pony form and used another charm to somehow restore her peacock feather dress.

Fire Orchid shrugged: “No clue, I think Silverclaws might know – but I can tell from their accent that they’re clearly from the blessed isle”

The theatre manager, a morose looking mare clad in black garbs as if fresh from a funeral, complete with sunken eyes and a pale coat, tried to object to the occupation of her biggest meeting room – but Denny was on her in the blink of an eye, ‘politely’ telling the mare that she could lodge her complaint with the Mask if he ever returns to the city.

In the meeting room nervous servants manoeuvred around the many soldiers standing behind the unicorns to serve refreshments. It was clear that the unicorns thought the soldiers as a way for them to project power, but it quickly became equally obvious to the unicorns that the ponies before them were not at all intimidated by their grand display, all the while Shimmer stayed outside to guard the place and keep Sunrise safe.

“So… how about a round of introductions?” Silverclaws said, sounding just a tad too cheerful, with her smile a bit too forced.

The unicorns clearly wanted to speak up first, but Cash spoke first up as his caste mark lit up: “Indeed, lets. I am Cash Charmer, Chosen of Celestia, the Most High. I am of the eclipse caste, and like my fellows here I am a Lord of Sunhill, trusted advisor to the King of Chung Do, friend of Lookshy, foe of the Guild and master of the Street of Swords district of Stygia in the Underworld”

Quite a few eyebrows were raised upon hearing Cash’s impressive array of titles, and so Cash continued to introduce the rest of the circle, artfully painting a grand picture of words of the circle’s many great deeds and accomplishments, though he did leave out certain sensitive elements – like their connections to heaven, what they had done in Denansdor, and several other things that unicorns from the realm probably hadn’t heard of. Sullen Hoof even popped in and joined the table just before Cash was done, allowing him to wrap up his grand tale of the lords of Sunhill by regaling about Sully’s adventures: “…of the Night Caste. The Lord Spymaster and Culinarian Supreme of Sunhill, Master of Orichalcum Chef style martial arts, blessed and anointed by Robed in Velvet, the god of fine dining”

The unicorns shared some interesting looks and whispered amongst themselves. Sullen Hoof, wearing his orichalcum mask and helmet that completely wrapped around his head, nodded: “Indeed, I command food and make my enemies kneel and beg for it in same way that you command troops and see your enemies kneel and beg for mercy”

“I didn’t know Sully speaks high realm?” Fire Orchid whispered to Speaker, who could only shrug.

The auburn-maned unicorn mare seemed impressed: “Very well. Our turn?”

Cash nodded, giving the table to the unicorn side of the table.

Pushing back her chair and standing up, the same unicorn made put a jade-shod hoof on the table: “My name is Tepet Roseblack, general and lord of the Vermillion legion” – which was instantly followed by her vermillion-clad troops lining the back walls of the meeting room letting out a very well-disciplined shout and cheer in the form of a “Oora!”.

The circle, not being terribly in tune with realm politics, had no clue if this meant that she was anything special. Fire Orchid did raise an eyebrow.

Roseblack continued: “To my right is my grandfather, Tepet Wind Dancer, retired general of the Tepet legions”

This made Fire Orchid look completely dumbfounded, same as Silverclaws. Cash instantly noticed that the two seemed to know of the pony, inquiring why he was special.

Silverclaws struggled to compose herself: “I… he’s THE Wind Dancer! Up until a couple of years ago he was the most famous and lauded general in the realm. He retired after the Bull of North butchered the Tepet legions at Futile Blood – that was his command”

Ah, a realm celebrity of sorts, with his granddaughter who was a new general?

Nodding, Roseblack nodded: “Indeed, so you’ll forgive him if his attitude towards golden anathema is a bit hostile”

“Yes, the Bull can be a bit tough to deal with, but Sunhill is on good terms with him. We trade a lot of salt coming from his territory” Cash said with a wide grin, to hammer home the notion that someone who defeated these high esteemed unicorns are friends to Sunhill. It wasn’t exactly a nice thing to say, but for a pissing match to see was the most powerful then it was a very unsubtle way of establishing dominance. Both Roseblack and Wind Dancer frowned at Cash, but held their tongue beyond that, at least until Cash motioned for Roseblack to resume her introductions.

Shaking off her disdain, Roseblack continued: “Right – and finally to my left is my good friend Cynis Denoted Flame”

Now, everyone had heard of house Cynis of the realm, the house that runs pretty much all of the brothels in the realm, the house that produces most of the drugs that the realm exports to its satrapys to keep their populations docile, the house where all its scions are infamous for being hedonists. The fire aspected stallion looked dead serious, and bore no signs of drug-use or anything like that.

“House Cynis? Interesting. Why would a house Cynis unicorn be helping a pair of house Tepet generals?” Silverclaws inquired, having clearly caught on to the strange mix of unicorns before them.

Denoted Flame looked to Roseblack who nodded and answered the question for him: “For the same reason that I’ve got unicorns from all the major houses under my command. I don’t discriminate, I reward skill and loyalty to the chain of command – and a lot of unicorns like that kind of governance, because we’re all tired of the ossified institutions and corruption rife in the realm”

Everyone on the unicorn side of the table nodded in agreement.

“Interesting – but you’re clearly not here with an invasion force big enough to liberate the city – so what are you doing here?” Fire Orchid inquired, having crunched the numbers of the soldiery that the unicorns had snuck into the city.

Roseblack nodded, her expression turning into one of grim realism: “I’m here because its where I figured I could do the most good. The vermillion legion got its marching orders and is in transit, and won’t arrive where it’s sent for quite a while still. I took a wing of my best to scout Thorns out, to plan for its liberation”

“…because your legion has been sent somewhere that puts it in striking distance of Thorns. Not bad” Sullen Hoof added, his profiling charms having clued him on what Roseblack hadn’t said out loud.

A lot of raised eyebrows came from that statement, but in the few seconds where everyone tried to feel out how to respond to that, if at all, a silver-blue messenger spell came racing through a cracked window. It announced its message quickly, in a hurried tone of Shimmer’s voice: “There’s an emissary from the Mask at the southern gate – wants to talk, can’t cross the salt lines I put up”

Chapter 51 A Kingmaker's Offer

The terrestrial hero stylist makes his soup flow like water, makes it crash like a mighty wave, and eats well.

…

The great existential terror struck the rest of the circle a few seconds after Shimmer had begun to howl and writhe – but they were able to put on their mental defence charms in time.

Sunrise flared her anima, and by its light they instantly recognized the ruined flooring and rotting timbers: They were back at the well of Udr!

Speaker quickly recalled his singing staff from elsewhere, and played up the stone around them to properly seal up the well. This greatly lessened the pull and aura of should-not-be, but it wasn’t perfect: “That won’t hold for long – we should completely demolish this accursed place and have it rebuilt to contain this thing”

With the well somewhat sealed, Shimmer was able to shake off the catatonic terror for long enough to follow along as everyone made their way out. It was a rough climb out, and in their absence, it seemed that other undead horrors made by the Dowager had roused. They were dispatched where possible, or simply struck down and had the tunnels or rooms around them collapsed upon them.

Upon the surface Sunrise once more tried to cast the spell that would seal the shadowland, and with the well at least temporarily sealed it was finally possible to wrap up the dark place.

“Say… where do you think the Deathlord here, the Dowager… where would she have ended up Lord Bright?” Shimmer wondered.

Cash quickly cut in before Speaker could answer, saying that she had arrived where he had ended up: “…but she didn’t arrive in a good state. She had clearly used most of her essence just keeping herself together during transit, and ghosts in that reality don’t last long… I just had to pin her down long enough that she basically evaporated in the sunlight”

Relieved that their journey to the Noss Fens had resulted in their goals accomplished, though greatly saddened that Fire Orchid had left them, the circle journeyed to the village they had previously visited. There they learned that they had only been gone for a few days – despite Sunrise having lived for many years in the desert, Fire Orchid having endured millennia in her reality as a living corpse, and then some… still, it was nice to know that Sunhill had not been without its lords for that long.

At the village Speaker, Cash and Sunrise all used their educational charms to train different groups of villagers in various skills, granting them basic wisdom on the topics of agriculture, administration and song and dance, granting them the foundational knowledge to build a proper society with everything from stable food supply, governance and culture. The former shadowland would soon regrow with wild plants and trees, but the villagers should be able to carve out some areas for small fields to grow crops. The thankful villagers promised to spread this new knowledge to the other villages, that they might all know that life was now worth living – and that the Dowager would haunt them no more.

Satisfied, the circle journeyed towards civilization once more, seeking out the nearest location to source a new yeddim – the one they had arrived on having fallen prey to jungle predators in their absence, for the villagers had known no means of keeping such a massive creature safe at night.

Conjuring a small cloud for flying on, and with Shimmer perched on his shoulder in the form of a seagull, Speaker saw the circle returned to Gossamer Stockade. Sullen Hoof guided Speaker on where to land, while Cash quickly spent enough money to get them a new yeddim to ride home on.

The ride home was quick, quiet and sombre. It was as if the impact – the loss – the truth that they would never see Fire Orchid again first truly struck them during that flight.

Arriving back home was met with muted fanfare – Speaker had messaged ahead ordering for things to remain quiet initially. The circle made a public statement that was first slated for release a few days later, when they had set things in order and made their report to the convention of deathlords.

The public announcement also ended up getting further delayed, as the circle made a rather surprising discovery when they got a status report from the Sunhill encampment: It came in the form of a grey-brown dog with a bamboo scroll tube on a harness that came in while the circle was in their war room, compiling their after-action report.

“Did Berry Petal train a dog to use the elevator controls? That’s actually impressive” Sunrise mused with a kind smile towards the dog.

That’s when the dog became moonsilver, and rearranged itself into the form of a pony – the grey and brown coated, short-cropped brown maned and green-eyed Berry Petal: “Not quite my lords, but boy do I have a story to tell you”

It turned out that in their absence, during a raid led by a deathknight where Berry Petal had led the defence, at the bleakest moment when Berry Petal was nearly killed, she had refused to give up. She had known that Fire Orchid would return, and she and her forces were still so grateful for Sunhill giving them a home that she had refused to give up on it.

That had been where the argent mare had granted her an exaltation, for her tenacity and refusal to die for what she cared for – which in turn helped her survive the encounter with the deathknight: “It did leave me with a couple of new scars, but I’ll bear those proudly”

The circle was impressed, but that was when Berry Petal shocked them again: “...I guess I was just fated to be Fire Orchid’s special somepony”

“You and Fire Orchid, were lovers?” Cash quickly asked in a cautious and polite tone, sensing an impending disaster.

Berry Petal eagerly nodded, Sunrise and Speaker spotting that the junior lunar’s ears weren’t perky and pony-like anymore… they were dog-like and actually flapped down the side of her head, her lunar tell: “Oh not just that – I am her lunar mate now!”

It only took a few seconds of Berry Petal looking at the circle and how their faces betrayed their dismay, sorrow and regret before she began to get antsy: “But… I can smell her on you! Her scent is fresh and unhurt!”

Sunrise wiped the tears from her eyes, her voice close to breaking: “And she was alive and well when we said our farewells. She chose to remain where she had ended up, after rescuing us and sending us home”

Berry Petal couldn’t understand, thinking that Fire Orchid was still in Creation – but Speaker tried to explain about the well of Udr. This explanation was cut very short, as a celestial messenger spirit arrived, looking exceedingly unhappy that it was in dirty, dusty and smelly creation.

Its message was simple enough: It was a message from Lytek – the god of exaltation, asking what had happened – for Fire Orchid’s exaltation had returned to his cupboard, and he had gleamed from it that she had somehow removed it from herself – which was impossible to begin with, and that it had passed through some very strange places to get to him. The spirit disappeared in a puff of lilac-scented purple smoke the instant it had spoken the message.

The newly minted lunar sank to the floor, the implications of the message making her head spin.

Shimmer approached Berry Petal, saying that she would help her – bring her to an elder who could train and tattoo her. Before going over to the elevator platform with Berry Petal, Shimmer turned to the rest of the circle: “Make sure that Sunhill doesn’t end up grieving like she is, or we’ll be in trouble”

The circle continued planning what was basically the funeral for Fire Orchid. She might be alive somewhere else, but with her exaltation released, she was effectively dead to the circle at that point – that would also be a much easier explanation to Sunhill’s population.

“I’ll message Shimmer and make sure that she and Berry Petal are on the level regarding this narrative – Sunrise, you can cook up a good eulogy” Cash Said, quickly running off.

Speaker and Sully looked at Sunrise who wiped her tears away again. It was a bit strange to see the zenith caste solar reacting like that, considering how stoic she had been previously – but it made perfect sense for her to be that sad, knowing how close Sunrise and Red had originally been, and how much Sunrise had hoped to rekindle that friendship with Fire Orchid.

“I guess I’ll have to…” Sunrise said, shaking her head slowly.

Speaker was about to put a friendly and reassuring hoof on her shoulder, when Sunrise quickly turned to him: “…but I will make sure that we don’t have to go through this again!”

Speaker and Sully were both a bit confused as Sunrise quickly stomped off, leaving them to their own tasks.

A few days later the circle broke the news to the general public of Sunhill, Cash and Shimmer flying to Lookshy to personally relay the story of Fire Orchid’s death to her mother. Using the vial of Fire Orchid’s blood, Cash had Shimmer assume Fire Orchid’s form so that she could read Fire Orchid’s goodbye message in her own voice.

Upon returning to Sunhill, Cash and Shimmer reported that Karal Linseed had taken the news well, and that she would arrive in a few days to attend the public funeral service.

The funeral saw Sunhill’s armed forces enrapt in sorrow, for in the short time since their welcome to Sunhill, then the former mercenary army had finally found a place to call home. Led by Sunrise, the best singers among them formed a mournful choir, singing a requiem not just for Fire Orchid, but to her exaltation, that it might find a new host quickly.

“It is with a heavy heart that I once more take up the mantle of lord militant of Sunhill” Speaker announced from the pulpit, using the Sunhill manse hearthstone to broadcast his voice across the city: “Fire Orchid was a better military leader at every turn – and she never backed down from a challenge, though she also had the wisdom to know when and where to draw her blade in anger – and when to talk it out”

The ponies of Sunhill listened on with heads bowed in reverence, Speaker continuing his speech: “As sad as this is, then we do have some good news – even though some of it is bitter sweet: Lieutenant Berry Petal exalted a week and a half ago, during her defence of the city against a raid led by a deathknight. The lords of Sunhill welcomes this newest addition to our exalted host, who is off right now getting trained. Another hopeful aside, is that with Fire Orchid’s death, her exaltation is freed up again – so to every hopeful soul of Sunhill, who aspires to greatness, know that there is hope for you and that Fire Orchid’s exaltation will reincarnate again!”

Sunrise took over for the rest of the funeral event, with Sullen Hoof chipping in for a variation of the Lookshyan tradition of having a bowl of devilishly spicy chili noodles – something Speaker and the Lookshyan delegation at the event greatly appreciated, Karal Linseed finding herself in tears while eating it – though whether that was for how good the food was, Sullen Hoof’s use of underworld grief-bee honey in the meal, or because she was in mourning over her daughter, was unknown. Fire Orchid’s still living siblings, a couple of unicorns, equally came to pay their respects – even though it was quite obvious that they were only there on their mother’s orders, not because they wanted to – showing that there were still Lookshyans who didn’t like Solar anathema in their midst.

Several weeks passed, the circle recovering from their ordeal with the dowager and the strange places they had gone to. Speaker found it difficult to focus on much of anything, disappointed in himself that their sojourn to the Nos Fens had been at the cost of Fire Orchid.

When he finally got around to trying to make himself useful, he looked into his past memories, meditating on what secrets of the first age his now quite refined essence could gleam. From this, he recalled a complicated charm, but none the less a very interesting one – one that would lend him divine transcendence… and while meditating on this alone in his workshop, he soon found himself able to perform artifice that quite simply were beyond what a mortal could do.

It was a strange realization – and he gladly reported it to the rest of the circle, impressing them with what he could do now:

“Honestly, this doesn’t look that impressive” Cash said, looking dubiously at the sheet of paper Speaker had wrought.

Sure, Speaker had ‘just’ started out with a hunk of fresh firewood, mashing it down with essence in front of the circle and turning it into the softest and whitest sheet of paper right in front of their eyes – but it was what he did with it afterwards… for with his divine transcendence of artifice, Speaker had been able to rediscover what he called the art of permanence.

Cash found it a lot more impressive, when Speaker dunked the sheet of paper in the pail of water a servant had brought, then the pail of mud, then the water again to rinse it off then finally floated the sheet over a set of lit candles to dry it off: “Try to look at the paper now my friend”

The circle stood wide-eyed as Speaker floated the sheet of paper around. Speaker said proudly that with the art of permanence now understood by him, then aging, erosion or wear shall no longer touch his works if he does not want it. Sullen Hoof found this quite interesting: “So you can make food that won’t spoil?”

“I haven’t tested it that way around – but maybe?”

Sunrise found this quite interesting, asking Speaker to teach her the essence patterns of this divine transcendence feat he had discerned. Speaker did so, Sunrise ultimately adapting it for meditation techniques, while Cash investigated the underworld for its latest gossip and drama – the remaining deathlords ready to shit themselves in fear that Sunhill might turn their attention on them – while Speaker and Sullen Hoof experimented with trying to cook food that couldn’t spoil.

It was while hoof-deep in a coconut and spicy pepper mix that Speaker and Sullen Hoof were one day interrupted by a messenger who came running, the young mare announcing that Cash was summoning the circle for a meeting.

Putting their cooking projects back into the winterbreath jars they were using to keep everything icy and fresh, Speaker and Sullen Hoof bid the rest of the kitchen staff to take care before leaving. Out in the streets of Sunhill, Speaker saw Sullen Hoof simply take aim towards the Sunhill manse and leap – jumping from a standstill all the way to an open window up atop of the pyramid, crossing the three quarters of a mile in no time at all.

Shaking his head, Speaker made his way to the hospital the usual way, walking at a leisurely pace. If it had been an emergency the messenger would have said so – and thus Speaker took his time, enjoying the walk through the floral-scented neighbourhoods, as the flower beds that lined the streets were blossoming in that most auspicious of months, resplendent wood. The streets were busy with business, and light-rail waggons hauling grain to the recently built essence-powered flour mills were zipping by overhead, the slight drizzle of wheat, barley and oats from them being an obvious indicator of how full they were. The local birds were making quick work of the grains that fell to the ground, chirping cheerily.

At the Sunhill manse, atop in the war room, Speaker was met by Cash, Sunrise, Sullen Hoof and… nobody else.

Sunrise was quick to pick up on Speaker’s sad look – she knew Speaker still missed Fire Orchid: “We all miss her… and with Shimmer still off helping train Berry Petal, then we’re on our own”

“Indeed – but I think this’ll cheer you up Speaker” Cash said, presenting a lacquered bamboo scroll tube.

Observing the scroll tube, Speaker recognized the magical seal and the design of the scroll. It was clearly Lookshyan, and the magic seal… that was keyed to him: “Who’s it from?”

“It’s from the general staff – this is an official message, not missive from a friend…” Cash said, noting that while it was addressed to all the lords of Sunhill, then its magic seal was essence-locked to Speaker, and breaking it would erase the message inside if not done by Speaker.

Carefully opening the scroll tube, Speaker floated the scroll inside out. It was indeed an official message from the general staff of Lookshy, a call for a war council with a trusted ally – namely the lords of Sunhill.

“Ok… who is Lookshy going to war with, and why does that concern us? Have they found a foe they fear going to war with?” Sunrise wondered out loud, expressing the sentiment of the rest of the circle.

The circle agreed that this question was worth answering, so a magical message was sent to Shimmer, informing her that the rest of the gang were heading to Lookshy for an audience and war council.

As the circle arrived in Lookshy, they first detoured to the district of trade. The circle found it quite abuzz with merchants talking about all things commerce – but Cash quickly found several merchants talking about the Sunhill light rail network, dreamily wondering how amazing it would be if the network was expanded to Lookshy… the circle had to reign Cash in from joining them – but it seemed that Cash was none the less satisfied to hear that word had indeed spread far and wide of what Sunhill had to offer, beyond its medical services – and that merchants from near and far were hungry for more.

Transferring to Lookshy’s internal light-rail network, the circle quickly made their way to the district of the legion, showed their summons and were escorted to the old first age bank that was used as the seventh legion’s headquarters.

Within those ancient halls the circle met the general staff, and once the friendly greetings were over, they were finally clued in on why they had been summoned. Taimyo Maheka Feldspar, leader of Lookshy’s third field force, presented the circle with a decoded message they had received via covert means: “It’s from one Tepet Roseblack – we’re aware that you know her from Thorns, and she is asking for both Lookshy and Sunhill to either form an alliance with her… or in exchange for a quite serious amount of jade and other favors… pacify Port Calin and whatever other parts of the north-eastern inland sea that we can handle”

“You sure she doesn’t want us to just conquer the realm for her while at it?” Speaker wondered out loud.

Karal Linseed, the Taimyo in charge of Lookshy’s first field force, shrugged: “She might as well – Lookshy moving on Port Calin could spark new war between the realm and the scavenger lands”

“So that’s why she wants Sunhill’s banner out in front? To avoid having the realm retaliate directly against Lookshy?” Cash surmised, seeing how this was a delicate manoeuvring of war, diplomacy and the art of avoiding negative consequences for one’s actions.

The general staff agreed, noting that since it was a known throne contender asking for this, then this was clearly part of some ploy to make a bid for the scarlet throne.

“How does relieving Port Calin from realm control help Roseblack?” Speaker wondered, knowing of Port Calin as a realm-controlled port city with some lands around it, but not much else.

Another unicorn on the general staff, an old stallion with the scars of a battlefield commander, explained that by having some ‘friendly’ allies take the place, Roseblack would be able to instigate no small amount of economic turmoil on the isle: “Port Calin is the hub for realm trade going to the river provinces. Officially imperial trading companies aren’t allowed to trade with us – their list of prohibited items and trade organizations is well over a hundred pages, but because of Greyfalls they have a loophole – a very profitable one at that”

Cash nodded: “Ah yes, the Greyfalls switcheroo. The realm sends trade goods to Greyfalls at the end of the lesser rock river, far to the east of Great Forks – since its ‘only’ a protectorate, and not a full on satrapy – then they’re free to trade with guild merchants and the likes. I know that a fair bit of the jewelry we’ve been making in Sunhill has been going there… and Port Calin is the realm-controlled port city where all those realm merchants swap their cargo from realm river ships to ocean-going merchant vessels… and since they arrive with realm-stamped crates full of goods, then that can be shipped straight to the imperial city of Canterlot and sold for ridiculous profits”

Straining himself, Speaker groaned: “…and Roseblack wanting us to capture Port Calin helps her how?”

“Because it’ll cut off that massive revenue stream – right until she probably asks us to release the place. If she can promise the Port Calin to Greyfalls trade routes reopened, that’ll be a massive bit of political leverage for her bid to the throne” Cash said, marvelling at how clever the plan was.

Karal Linseed found herself nodding along to Cash’s analysis: “That is exactly what our strategoi have been telling us – though you’re missing some key intelligence here: There are currently two house Sesus legions stationed at Port Calin, just itching to ship out to the imperial city and try to nab the throne… and right now, in Greyfalls, Nellens Rombulac is trying to mobilize three legions to send to the blessed isle just the same. None of those five legions would be friendly to Roseblack’s designs – but taking out the two Sesus legions, and leaving the three Nellens legions stranded in river ships, would equally greatly diminish those two houses abilities to oppose Roseblack’s bid for the throne”

“That’s hilarious. So, this would give Roseblack all kinds of advantages! A military advantage over those two houses, economic leverage for anyone who trades with via Greyfalls – meaning house Ragara mainly, and she can likely sell the promise of a liberation of Port Calin to the realm populace as a whole… that is amazing!” Cash said, sounding almost beside himself at how impressed he was.

Maheka Feldspar passed a document to the circle’s side of the table: “That’s why we have deliberated on this and found that we believe it a worthwhile scheme. Is Sunhill willing to commit to this?”

It didn’t take much for the circle to agree to this, for having met the Roseblack back at Thorns then she seemed to be a fairly reasonable, to which end supporting her bid for the throne seemed reasonable – but then the general staff revealed that there was a few more things to do first.

First up the circle was also being required to contact the Bull of North and talk him into moving on the northern realm holds of Charak, along with the other realm satrapies along the northern coast of the inland sea. This would purely be a diplomatic measure, not one requiring open battle.

“The message you sent said nothing of trying to get other Solar parties involved in this – what else haven’t you told us about?” Sullen Hoof inquired, having remained very quiet up until then.

The general staff shared uncomfortable looks. Cash instantly picked up that they were hiding something: “Spill”

“Right… look, Roseblack’s missive to us implied that she might arrange a full-on realm invasion of the east as her first act as empress” the unicorn stallion from earlier stated.

The circle took a few moments to digest that information, but Cash quickly figured out the plan: “Oh that’s clever – making Port Calin the lightning rod, giving us advance warning, and getting rid of all the armies her political enemies raised so they can’t be used against her… oh that is so clever”

Sunrise and Sullen Hoof both looked as if they needed a bit more explanation, while Speaker with his past as a military officer had understood the plan well enough to accept it. Cash quickly said that with the usual realm invasions there wouldn’t be more than a few weeks of advance warning, when Lookshy’s spies in the imperial city would pick up on a mass of ships leaving port towards Lookshy. With this kind of advance warning, probably up to a year’s worth of advance warning, then Lookshy and its allies would be able to mount a very potent defence to utterly destroy the invaders – which again would likely just serve Roseblack’s plans, as it would crush her political rivals.

“Alright… but are we ok with helping Roseblack to become the new empress? Will she be any better than her redness?” Sullen Hoof noted, sounding as if he wasn’t entirely convinced of her suitability, especially if her first official act would send thousands of her countrymen to their death.

Karal Linseed and the rest of the general seemed open to the idea: “Our own intelligence on Roseblack says that she is one of the better options. She has had a good track record of rooting out corruption and nepotism, something her redness instead seemed to encourage – assuming that she maintains that attitude when in power, then Lookshy is willing to covertly aid her. That she’s willing to send her enemies to their death or to a reputation-crushing defeat by giving us advanced warning, that is simply the mark of a smart leader”

“I guess Tepet Roseblack’s fame from ‘liberating’ Thorns has put her in a position where she can try to do more than just lead a single legion. I can respect that kind of ambition, especially because she saw her own family get savaged by the empress’s designs when she sent the Tepet legions to be destroyed by the Bull – still, these are some very high-level strategic moves. I would like to meet her in person and discuss her plans in detail” Sunrise said, eliciting some more nods from Sullen Hoof.

Speaker chimed in, adding that peace on the blessed isle would mean much less suffering for the common pony there: “Instead of being levied as serf soldiery, they can go back to their farms – that’s a good thing regardless of who is in charge”

“Don’t forget all the magical weapons we can loot from the defeated legions she’ll send over – hell, if we spread the light-rail network around a bit we can run circles around them. They’ll never know what happened to them… but I am all for meeting her first and getting the full story from the source. I assume that Lookshy has verified this message to make sure that it’s not someone setting Roseblack up here?” Cash added, clearly approaching the idea of a realm invasion from a logistics point of view.

The general staff found all of this agreeable – though who got to keep what of the realm’s magical weapons would of course depend on who got their hands on it first, plus the realm wasn’t shy of doing the same, fielding a fair bit of previously captured Lookshyan magical weaponry, which they of course would want back. It was the usual back and forth trade of war.

“Sure – but how about meeting Roseblack? Did the message you got have any information on how she can be contacted? I assume that she would want a reply to this request regardless” Sullen Hoof said, peering at the general staff members with his melty face.

As it so turned out, then the message had included instructions for how to send a reply – namely an address: The encampment of the Vermillion Legion in Cripple Creek, in north-eastern Harborhead up in the Summer mountains.

The general staff provided a magically sealed scroll tube, one identical to what had been given to the circle, but now set up so that Lookshy’s reply to Roseblack could only be opened by her.

“You should move quickly to go chat with her. As fun as it is to speculate on the realm’s succession war, then the truth of the matter is that the longer the houses go without oversight, the more likely they are to do something that will impact us. The Sesus legions have already taken over several smaller kingdoms in the south between Chiaroscuro and Paragon, trying their hooves at playing tax masters on the overland trade routes there. Nobody down there likes that, and who knows when a dynast with a house legion with will try something similar here” Karal Linseed cautioned, reminding the circle that the realm’s vast military might – when not controlled centrally – could still flail around and do a lot of damage before it was stopped.

With no further local business to attend, the lords of Sunhill thus returned to Sunhill and mounted up on a fresh yeddim, flying south-west with all due haste.

Passing Thorns was strange: The lands were visibly brighter, and while it was clear that many a field were still untended, then the nature there was healing. The city had even gotten its colors back, which was quite nice.

Flying past the lands around Thorns, the circle quickly came upon the summer mountains. Finding this Cripple Creek place was a little more difficult – and even with Cash making the yeddim ascend up high for a better vantage point, Sullen Hoof wasn’t able to spot the creek.

“We need more local information…” Cash grumped, as he began flying up and down along the mountain range.

Speaker perked up: “What about Admiral Sand? I’m sure he would have heard of this place”

“Didn’t you say he mostly active around the Varang city states? That would put him like a thousand miles to the south-west of here, at least” Sullen Hoof pondered, not seeing how Sand could be useful.

Cash quickly looked to Sunrise: “If he’s lording over all the outcastes here in the south, then someone under his rule is bound to know something – Sunrise, send him a message that we’re coming to visit”

Sunrise spun up a magical messenger spell, and Speaker tried to recall how the volcano manse that Sand had looked and where it was.

It turned out to be somewhat easy to find Sand, since flying along the western side of the summer mountains, the circle eventually came across what honestly looked like a small city next to a volcano. It seemed that with the magical water supply from the volcano manse, Sand had been able to set up a proper city for his people. It even seemed that the locals were busy mixing vulcanic ash into the sand with water, trying to fabricate dirt to turn into fields – cultivating the surrounding desert.

Coming in for a landing, the circle observed that the good admiral had had the foresight to set up a large square with a mix of black basalt and white limestone to mark a landing spot for guests flying in.

The jackals were quite impressed but also frightened with a yeddim flying in out of nowhere – though its golden glow made them instantly swap their fright for reverence. The circle was greeted as proper foreign lords visiting, and Speaker was quite happy to see that the jackals no longer wore rags – they were wearing proper clothes fit for living in the deep desert, and few of them appeared diseased or misshapen anymore.

Admiral Sand greeted them at the circle at the entrance to the volcano manse, which was now decorated more as a palace – not partially hidden as a covert lair.

“Cripple Creek? Oh, yes I know of it… I have led many raids of the caravans going to and from there – it has seen the wealth of my people grow many times, for the jade veins they mine there are rich. What do you seek there?” Admiral Sand said, his firetongue flowing and melodic.

Cash explained the cirle’s plight, that a legion general they knew was in need of their help, one stationed at Cripple Creek.

“Oh, I’m sure. The information I’ve gotten from that place is that it is a big gourd full of firedust waiting to light off. There are legions from at least three different houses there – and none of them can agree on anything… because the wealth of jade there is very much worth fighting for” Admiral Sand agreed, calling for servants to bring maps of the summer mountains.

Based on Sand’s maps then the location of the Cripple Creek territories was some six hundred miles east of Harborhead, well into the western foothills of the summer mountains – but not really up in the mountains. This explained why the circle hadn’t spotted it, for they hadn’t been looking in the right place.

“What exactly are they digging out of the ground there?” Sullen Hoof wondered, looking at the maps and the dots that also marked Jackal camps – both those hidden, and those meant to be visible.

With a deep chuckle, Admiral Sand explained: “Two years before her redness disappeared, there was a landslide there. A massive motherlode of jade was exposed in that part of the mountainside, and the local governor cleverly sent a request straight to the scarlet empress and was granted charter to oversee the mining operation. This has made him filthy rich, but since then legions from several other houses set up camp in and around the region, ostensibly to provide security… but it’s also because now with the empress gone, whoever ends up controlling the place will control an amount of wealth almost equal to the imperial treasury”

“There’s that much jade there?” Cash said with a raised eyebrow.

Sand shrugged: “I only know what runaways and crippled slaves tossed out told me – by the way Speaker, I’ve got some new patients in the Sand-Fire city hospital if you want to have a crack at them”

Cash frowned, his glare making Speaker return to his seat – him already halfway out the door towards the hospital: “First round of treatment was a freebie – we don’t give out that kind of services for repeat costumers”

With knowing and keen eyes, Admiral Sand politely negotiated Cash down using the fact that he had already provided the circle with very useful information – so repayment via medical services was only fair.

It was almost frightening for Speaker to see two eclipse caste solars cross verbal blades as they tussled with each other via words – yet when the meeting concluded everyone were all smiles, trade agreements and tentative plans to extend the light rail network far enough south to connect the territories Sand controlled.

It seemed that Sand had an ambitious plan to basically challenge the guild and build up a trade network in the south to end their oppressive economic warfare and monopolies. The circle was all for that, explaining their woes with the guild, to which Sand could only nod knowingly.

Chapter 2 Traveling by Air

The Tiger stylist waits for the soup to flee from his menacing offense. After a few minutes of the bowl of soup taking no action to retreat, he gets annoyed and smashes it to the ground with a claw strike, then laps it up.

…

Sanguine Lotus had her troops muster in the courtyard of the inn they had stayed at. Again, she was disturbed by the fact that none of the locals seemed to even care that foreign mercenaries had shown up on their doorstep. Of course, they had learned from that waitress at the tea house that the city was a bit like neighbouring Great Forks: It was apparently full of invisible magical elementals… and with such might at the beck and call of the lords of Sunhill, it was no wonder that the ponies there felt safe.

It certainly made Silly appear a lot less safe – the idea of a superior force that she couldn’t see or hear, it could strike her with lighting from the sky? No wonder she hadn’t seen any real city guard anywhere – and she wasn’t afraid of saying that out loud.

Marching to the city manse, the great golden pyramid, Silly stopped outside the main entrance. There were a lot of ponies coming and going, but it was clear that it was the hospital entrance… because the ponies going in where sickly looking, or lame, hobbling, many being carried or otherwise helped along by others. They apparently hadn’t seen that yesterday, having passed the manse on the other side on their way to the battlefield.

A column at the entrance, with text in every major language of Creation written on it, explained that this was indeed the main hospital entrance, with directions for an entrance for goods to be delivered, another for staff to enter and leave via, and finally one for ponies who were only there to meet with the lords of Sunhill and their administration.

Seeking out this entrance led Silly to the same lobby she had gone to earlier, to set up the meeting with Lord Bright. The secretaries there appeared to instantly recognize her: “Oh hi, Sanguine Lotus wasn’t it? The lords can see you now, but you can’t bring your coterie with you – we’ve had bad experience with letting in too many mercenaries at once”

“You’re not the first one thinking we’re unsubtle assassins” Silly noted dryly.

The two secretaries chuckled: “It’s not a safety issue – it’s the cleanup. Takes too long to get the blood out of the carpets”

Silly’s face said it all: That was not what Silly had expected to hear – but her troops suddenly looked rather happy not having to accompany her. Silly shot them a furious look as they waved her off, while she got into the ‘elevator’ room that the mare at the desk had directed her to.

The platform accelerated upwards smoothly, Silly bracing herself and jumping a bit as the platform stopped. A room that moved inside the mance? Well, she hadn’t seen any stairs…

From within his office, Lord Bright Machine Speaker put his hoof down from the gemstone around his neck. He didn’t need to spy on the mercenary captain anymore – she was at his door.

“Come in – we have been expecting you” He called out, his voice sounding at least as old as Silly’s.

Sanguine Lotus approached, turning the corner in her battle-worn but well-maintained armor. Silly had spent a good couple of hours the evening before polishing it and tightening a few straps.

Silly beheld the ponies before her, the vaunted lords of Sunhill. First was Lord Bright – his face known to Silly via due to its silhouette being stamped on every crate of Sunhill medical supplies she’d ever seen – and she’d seen a fair bit over the last few years ever since Sunhill appeared to corner the market on military medical supplies. Next was a mare in white robes with most of her face covered by its hood, and an exceptionally beautiful stallion in some absolutely heavenly embroidered silks, all three of them standing around a large and sturdy-looking wooden desk. These appeared to be the lords of… hold on.

“There’s supposed to be four of you” Silly said, looking at the three somewhat suspiciously, her eyes all over the place, remembering the description of the lords she’d overheard earlier in the city.

A fourth pony stepped out of the shadows behind Silly, tapping her briefly on the left shoulder before darting around her right: “She’s certainly perceptive… by mortal standards” – but when Silly turned to look the pony was gone!

Lord Bright nodded and sighed: “To think that they got to one of us… how low”

Silly wasn’t quite sure if she should feel insulted that they were speaking over her like that – but she was a bit curious: “I charge a lot more for being a test subject if you’re going to do weird shit to me”

The one dressed in amazing silks laughed heartly and approached Silly with a most disarming of charm: “Be at ease, you have nothing to fear and untold wealth to gain – we just need to be sure of something regarding your identity”

Silly wasn’t really sure what was going on – the well-dressed one looked to Lord Bright, who in turn nodded. Silly was about to ask for clarification, when the well-dressed one poked her with a hoof shod with a very pretty gem-set shoe that looked as if wrought of polished silver.

“Ok, I’m going to need all kinds of explanations here - or I’m out of here” Silly said as she stomped her steel-shod hoof, the others looked at her as if expecting something.

Seeing that nothing had happened, the well-dressed stallion spoke up: “I am terribly sorry – this is most rude of us. We haven’t even introduced ourselves. I am Cash Charmer – the Sunhill Master of Coin, this is Sunrise Glow – our high priestess, and you’ve already identified Bright Machine Speaker, our Lord-militant and Chief of Medicine. The joker who spooked you earlier is Sullen Hoof, our spy-master and master chef. The real question is, who you are”

What.

Silly looked at the three – the Sullen Hoof one was still nowhere to be seen again – looking at them as if they were all insane: “Look, I know the rumors says you are anathema and all that, and I’ve seen the kind of strange magic you wielded to defeat that army – but if you’re trying to do something weird to me, then I am so out of here”

Speaker nodded: “I understand – but we suspect that something has already been done to you. Tell me, have you felt anything weird since coming here? Any strange dreams last night?”

Silly’s expression said it all. How could they have known?

“Yes, on both accounts” said an unseen voice, the one called Sullen Hoof revealing himself again as a strange pony in a chef garb and a huge salakot rice-hat that obscure his face.

Ok this was just too much. Stomping both forehooves hard into the wooden floor with a loud bang, Silly shouted: “Now hold on a minute – I said explain this, not give me more cryptic nonsense!”

Removing her hood, revealing the face of a young mare so beautiful it would make the very gods jealous, Sunrise Glow spoke: “I am so deeply sorry, and I do apologize on behalf of my idiot peers here. Please, calm down and we will explain everything”

Silly felt her mood mellow out surprisingly quickly, but there was just something about how this young and absolutely stunning mare with her wild orange mane and white coat that could not be denied.

Seeing that their guest had calmed down, Cash Charmer spoke up: “Tell me, how much of your childhood do you remember? What was the name of your best friend when you grew up? The name of your first special some-pony?”

Silly was about to say something spiteful, when the hat-wearing Sullen Hoof pulled a huge sack full of silver dinars up from behind the desk. The coins spilled out on the desk… there was a small fortune there – the kind of money you use to hire not small bands of mercs, but entire armies!

Her motivation for letting these strange ponies play around with her thoroughly restored, Silly nodded: “Right… best friend when I grew up… first crush… easy enough”

The others watched, waited. Silly chuckled – these ponies were most certainly mad, but she could work with mad as long as it paid really well, and this sack of coin was all the incentive she needed. Now, best friend… first crush…

Seconds turned into minutes. One could see Sanguine Lotus strain herself mentally, an exercise that soon turned into desperation, then despair…

Sinking to the floor, Silly reached for her head: “What’s wrong me… what have you done to me!?”

“We haven’t done anything – someone else did. They robbed you of your past and implanted false memories, ones with lots of holes in it because they were in a hurry not to be found out. The good news is that we can help you” Speaker said, approaching Silly and reaching out a hoof as a symbolic gesture of aid.

Scooting away from the four, Silly shouted: “No! Get away from me! This place is messing with my head!”

Cash Charmer tried this time, approaching in a way that did make Silly feel a lot more at easy, but his words none the less terrified her: “This is a place of healing – your mind is wounded, but likely also made to fear being healed. Think for a moment, ignore your feelings. Why would you fear wanting your memories restored? You know yourself now that you are missing memories”

It was impossible to deny his logic… except of course for the simply conclusion that he was totally in on what had been done to her!

Silly got up and galloped away. She found a door, but didn’t even bother opening it – she smashed through it with her armored bulk, thundering down a hallway past half a dozen clerks, paperwork flying everywhere in her wake. Behind her she could hear the shouts of those four crazy lords of Sunhill. Oh no, they weren’t getting her that easy.

Leading a merry chase through the offices she was in, Silly finally found what appeared to be a window of sorts – it looked good enough for her: With a mighty jump and a steel-shod hoof out in front, she leapt through the window, it shattering with a loud crunch.

Hot on her tail, the rice-hat wearing pony came out behind her as they slid down the side of the pyramid – but at least it seemed that the others hadn’t jumped after her.

Silly twisted around, expertly righting herself and continuing her gallop as she reached the bottom of the pyramid – but this Sullen Hoof – he simply leapt from on high, landing on rooftops, and jumping from building to building, easily keeping pace with her.

Seeking ground where such aerial magic wouldn’t help, Silly slipped into an alley and ducked under a set of dense bushes, obscuring her position for anyone looking from on high. This seemed to work, right up until she found herself in a dead end – and a moment later Sullen Hoof landed in the alley, blocking the exit.

Still, not all was lost: The alley was dark, its shadow deep – so Silly hid… or would have, if Sullen Hoof’s arrival hadn’t bathed the alley in the bright golden light of an anathema!

“Stop bloody shining so much!” Silly shouted angrily, endlessly frustrated.

Tipping his hat up, revealing his piercing blue eyes… and horribly burned face… Sullen Hoof looked Silly straight in the eyes: “I’m not the one glowing here”

It was an absolutely soul-shattering realization. The light… it was coming from her… and it just wouldn’t stop. In fact, as she noticed it, it seemed to pulse and glow even brighter. That’s when Silly passed out from screaming so much that she forgot to breathe.

As Sanguine Lotus came to, she found herself on a strangely soft… something… yet the moment she became aware of it, whatever it was, it dropped her onto a much harder floor. The sudden shock of dropping down woke her up entirely, and she scrambled to get on her hooves.

Her armor was also gone – only the padding underneath her barding was still strapped to her. What was going on? She remembered… she remembered not remembering – and in trying to remember her foalhood once more, she came up blank. She wanted to scream, but the lords of Sunhill had appeared around her once more.

“Please, be calm – we can help you regain your lost memories” Sunrise Glow said, her voice empowered by subtle charms that lent power to words to force feelings of calm into all who heard them.

Cash Charmer, still dressed in his heavenly silks and looking like the envy of royalty everywhere, nodded: “You are not the first pony who came to us unwittingly. Part of you wants to be healed, even if the conscious part of you is afraid and wants to run away. You must discipline yourself and accept our help, help which we offer freely”

It was far too much to take in – but the dealbreaker, or rather the deal-maker, was when the hat-wearing lord with the melty face appeared, bearing a cake for Silly to eat and collect herself to. Before she had wanted to scream, but after sampling that most exquisite of pastry she wished to weep and pledge her undying fealty to the heavenly genius who had made that cake. All other worries, even her apparent amnesia, had been washed away and her mind singularly focused on the cake.

“Are you sure that was necessary – I mean… wow, you really got her good with that” Cash noted, looking at how completely dream-bound the mare before them was, drooling on the plate with her slice of cake.

Sullen Hoof, his mastery of Orichalcum Chef Style magical martial arts letting him perform culinary miracles on a daily basis, nodded grimly: “We just need to get her to the temple – once her mind is restored all will likely be forgiven. We can treat her new-found cake addiction later”

“Really, we should lead with cake in the future – much less running and broken windows” Speaker noted.

Silly, her mind wrapped in a magical stranglehold of creamy ecstasy that she had no hope of defeating, paid no mind as she was guided onto a beast of burden which then somehow flew up into the air at speeds that it had no businesses moving at, to a temple surrounded by jungle atop a cliffside promontory overlooking a river.

At this temple, its decorations and statues denoting it as a temple of fertility for expecting mares that sought to pray for a safe and healthy delivery, strange ponies with stars in their eyes attended to Silly, concurring with the lords of Sunhill that something had been done to her memories.

It was then that Sanguine Lotus was struck on her forehead with a solid and firm hoof, and in that infinite moment her entire life flashed before her eyes. She witnessed her entire life, from an upbringing in Lookshyan high society, the many salons and tutors, the hard military training, the decades of military service, the complete and crushing disappointment of seeing her siblings exalt as their horns came in, the desperate quest to prove herself to her mother via service to a city state that seemed to care less and less about her as it became more and more obvious that the dragons would never grace her – and then that fateful day when the changelings had come to her retirement home in the Lookshyan hinterlands, when she had taken her old sword from the wall and galloped into battle that she might fight one last time, that she might show the ponies around her that Karal Fire Orchid was truly worthy, that she could still lead by example, and that gods help her… if she had the power, she would show all of creation how to defend itself.

In that moment the heavens had heard her.

Golden fire had erupted from her, and holy light had taken her blade. The changelings around her saw their ruin smote, and had screeched as the lies that was their bodies had been rendered bare.

Of course, glowing with her golden light, she had known that she had to run – questions would be asked, her family would stand to lose face, and she could do so much good elsewhere… so she had run off, seeking other places to help, to teach how to fight, sough allies… and in that she had been ambushed.

Whoever it was, they had worn masks and great cloaks. There had been three of them – and they had done something… something sickening… something with demons… and ells? to her.

The end result was that she had forgotten. Forgotten herself, her new powers, her past, everything. The story of Sanguine Lotus had been told to her, a lie to make her not question herself or her skills, yet make her ignore her own powers, and prevent her from finding out or seeking help.

“No wonder she’d been able to work as a mercenary at her age – her exaltation had made her spry again, just like you Speaker” Someone said, a female voice, but not one of the lords of Sunhill.

It all made sense… eerily so. She had earned the trust and respect of her peers, earning a position of command – but never more than a lowly lieutenant, as their master had feared her authority and how much the troops had listened to her. Of course – that’s why she had been allowed to leave – because then she no longer threatened her leader’s position. Had she really been that popular among the troops? She had never realized that. How could she not have realized that?

Getting up on her hooves once more, Sanguine… no… Karal Fire Orchid, she looked around at the ponies around her. The strange ponies with stars in their eyes were gone, but the lords of Sunhill were there, and she knew them… oh how she knew them…

“It’s good to be home again… but there is something I need to do first” Fire Orchid said, looking at her peers, not with fear in her eyes, but a fearful kind of anticipation.

Returning to Sunhill – Fire Orchid was now keenly aware of how impossible it should be for a towering yeddim, a vast beast of burden that stood as tall as a three- or four-story building, to move at such unnatural speeds… or to race at such speeds up into the air, but as Cash Charmer put it, then he simply observed the ‘sometimes horses fly approach’. This somehow satisfied Fire Orchid, even if she couldn’t quite make sense of it. She got the feeling things would be a lot like that – answers that she felt were right, but didn’t quite understand yet.

The sun shone from on high as they approached the Sunhill manse, Fire Orchid trembling. This time she knew why she had felt uneasy near the place… for the soul of her last bearer, the previous keeper of her exaltation, had given her soul to defeat and pacify an impossible danger to Creation, the unison of which had been fashioned into the power source for the manse… and the last tattered remnants of that soul sought to properly greet the next bearer and heir to its workings.

To the other lords of Sunhill, and quite a few onlookers, seeing the very spirit of a hospital manifest and embrace this foreign pony in their midst, greeting her like an old friend, left no eyes without tears. The raw emotion emanating from the union, from the greeting and the hug, was undeniable… and Fire Orchid felt utterly overwhelmed, sinking to the ground as she wept, feeling the utter elation mixed with sorrow of having felt, no, having seen her own past self gaze into a glorious future and see herself stand resplendent once more.

Her mercenaries found the assembly and was quite confused, but before them Fire Orchid rose up and stood taller than ever – her mind, body and soul once more properly in sync – allowing her to tap powers that she had completely forgotten: “Take heart, my little ponies – you will never again be for want of coin, for now I stand before you as the fifth lord of Sunhill, and if you still wish to follow my commands, I will forge you into the finest elite fighting unit in all of creation, and the ponies here will salute you at every turn”

At first there were weary eyes among her troops, thinking their leader mad – but her earnestness shined though, seeing all of them bow to her once more.

“Right, glad we got that wrapped up – Speaker, please do the thing to unfuck the valley and have the orchards replanted. Sully, I’m going to need you to teach that cake recipe to some of our staff because I also ate a piece and I’m pretty sure you got me hooked too” Cash Charmer stated somewhat unceremoniously, wiping crumbs and icing from his mouth.

Silly… no… that wasn’t her name anymore. Never had been, even as a nickname. She was Karal Fire Orchid, of gens Karal of Lookshy, daughter of Karal Linseed, one of the highest-ranking military rulers of Lookshy. Oh, this was going to take some getting used to.

As everyone dispersed Sunrise helped both Cash and Fire Orchid shake their need for the addictive cake, noting that it was high time Cash learned of her personal addiction curing charm, and adding that Fire Orchid was going to face a harsh regiment of training to catch her up to the level of skill and ability that the rest of the circle possessed: “Our enemies are legion and grow stronger yet every day – this is the price of your rediscovered powers: You will now become a target, though you won’t be standing alone”

Yes, this would definitely take some getting used to.

Three days later the circle gathered at the Sunhill Manse once more, this time to bid farewell to Speaker as he had finally received a long-awaited word from Yu-Shan for where to seek out someone quite important to him.

“Hold on – word from heaven? We command elementals here, and speak with the gods now too?” Fire Orchid said incredulously, still being in the process of being briefed on everything.

Sunrise nodded from under her cloak hood: “We have many good friends in Yu-Shan – you will get to visit there in due time – but you will need to learn much more etiquette and occult lore if you do not wish to run afoul of the strange and contradictory laws of heaven”

Fire Orchid didn’t look as if she was entirely happy with that answer – not that she didn’t understand it – but she didn’t like the implications.

Cash in turn seemed more goal-focused for Speaker’s journey: “Did you store away the sea shells I got you? It’s their currency over there – not everywhere there accepts silver”

“I did. I also stored the other things we talked about, but come now friend – I’ve survived getting dropped into the western oceans before. Even made good friends last time” Speaker said, sounding very confident about his journey.

Fire Orchid had understood very little of this journey to the west that her fellow Lord was undertaking: “Lord Bright - this message you got from Yu-Shan… it’s related to your friend who died, right?”

Taking a brief but sharp breath, Speaker nodded: “Last Shimmer died a year ago, during the battle of Deep Rot – you had known her well back then. She has reincarnated, so I will seek to find her and bring her back here now that we know where to look. The challenge will be that while she’s reincarnated now, I’ll have to take the slow route to the west, to avoid detection by the realm… and there’s no telling what’ll happen to her in the meantime. I could arrive only to find that a Wyld Hunt killed her, or something similarly bad”

Cash mused for a second: “How long do you think it’ll take for you to get there?”

Looking at the large map of creation they had splayed out on the table, Speaker made a few quick calculations and recited his travel itinerary: “It all depends on the winds – but I should be able to clear the Blessed Isle after a few months or so of sailing, depending on how long we have to stay in each port. After that I can fly to Wavecrest and start scouring the Neck using my tracking charms. With any luck I’ll have her found a few months before calibration, then we’ll find the Denzik and use it to travel south around the realm holds and meet up with you in Lookshy again – I’ll message you when I know we’ll be there”

Cash Charmer appeared: “It’s a good start – but we all know that you’ll have to dodge bronze faction sidereals once you approach the isle and start flying around the west. There’s no telling how much trouble that’ll land you in”

“Not if I can help it” a chipper female voice spoke out, a young mare with a dark-brown coat and some seriously green eyes. Green eyes full of stars… now where had Fire Orchid seen that before?

A scroll was presented, and while the mare explained it being some kind of heavenly writ of solar mate-seeking, referring to some excessively obscure heavenly law that forbade any celestial agents, divinities, or spirits from interfering with a solar’s quest to find his lunar mate, then Fire Orchid just scratched her chin and found herself wondering who the mystery mare was, and whether she had met her before. Fire Orchid couldn’t remember meeting the mare at the temple where her memory had been restored – for such was the nature of the arcane fate of sidereals, to be forgotten by all, unless you worked as part of the heavenly bureaucracy, which the rest of the circle technically did as consultants and contractors to the convention of Deathlords, while Fire Orchid had yet to be brought back into that fold.

Speaker graciously accepted the scroll, folding it into elsewhere for safe keeping.

“And bring me back some recipes… and the spices we talked about while you’re in the south” Sullen Hoof said, appearing almost out of nowhere at the table with a shopping list of spices for Speaker to order when in the south.

Chuckling, Speaker looked to Sunrise who simply shrugged: “I have all what I need – just bring back our friend and come back unscathed”

Speaker couldn’t have asked for a better request. Sadly, it wasn’t the last thing Speaker had to do: A messenger came galloping with a letter. It was from his family in Lookshy.

“Another immigration request? The usual veiled demand to be made into advisors and viziers? How many times do we have to turn these leeches down? Speaker, you really need to tell them to stop with this, it’s embarrassing” Cash said, having snatched the letter and read it in an instant.

Fire Orchid didn’t know any of the bad blood between Speaker and his family, for even in her past life it had not been something she had been around to witness, so she didn’t quite understand the hubbub – but Speaker knew this, and so just shook his head: “They didn’t care about me when I basically retired in exile after mother’s death, after my own bother called me a liar for claiming to have heard her last will and testament before she died – but as a lord of Sunhill they want to move here and mooch off our wealth? Not happening. Messenger, take this back to the immigration office and have them put it in the reject pile. Tell them if they get more from these idiots, just reject them outright and not to bother any of us with requests for them anymore”

“Is his family that bad?” Fire Orchid wondered to Sunrise, as the messenger trotted off.

The priestess, Sunrise Glow, sighed deeply: “Speaker is the only one among us with still living family – and they treated him quite poorly when he was younger, to the point that he left them and his homeland to die of old age far from them. Now they simply lust for the wealth of Sunhill, thinking they can come here and draw on our wealth and power. We’ve had some minor run-ins with them, trying to move here un-invited and thinking they could act on Speaker’s behalf, trying to gain control of some of our industries. None of us are interested having them here. We prefer letting in immigrants who actually want to work and contribute, not just spend our money”

“Ha – like a general’s family thinking they can order the troops around, got it” Fire Orchid chuckled, having seen that kind of scenario play out more than once.

With that minor distraction over, the time finally came for Speaker and Cash Charmer to board a yeddim of all things, one of the slowest and likely most dull-witted of creatures in creation, to travel westward. Fire Orchid certainly didn’t see the logic in using such a beast to travel to Lookshy for the first leg of Speaker’s journey: “Are you shitting me?”

…she felt a tad silly when Cash pulled the reigns and somehow made the beast rocket into the sky, moving at a speed where her eyes could barely follow, only really seeing the golden con-trail that followed them.

“Come Sunrise, let’s see if we can get to the bottom of those cult fliers that we keep seeing snuck into the merchant wares coming into town” Sully said, leaving the yeddim stables with the young priestess, Fire Orchid remaining behind to look dumbfounded at the sky where the con-trail of the yeddim has disappeared.

A few hours and several hundred miles later, crossing into Lookshy airspace, the flying yeddim was interdicted by a Lookshyan skyreme – its bright blue and glowing stern of blue jade a bright light in the evening sky, almost as shiny as the trail of golden vapor that the yeddim left behind, which lit up the skyreme’s sails. From the skyreme a unicorn with a voice-enhancing talisman shouted for Cash and Speaker to identify themselves.

Speaker stood up on the howdah atop the yeddim, which was built with a big crystal windshield to protect the passenger from the fast onrush of air while traveling, and focused his essence inwards, making it burst forth through himself, through his very soul, flaring his anima to its iconic form for a few seconds.

The glorious shiny visage of a great golden gear erupted around Speaker as the very form of his soul became visible, three pairs of great wings wrought of golden soul-light spreading out from him within the great gear. The vision faded after a few seconds, leaving Speaker to simply glow softly in the evening sun.

The unicorn on the skyreme acknowledged the identification: “Good to see you again Lord Bright and Lord Charmer – we expected your arrival as per your message. Please land your yeddim on aviary dock wood-fourteen”

Speaker felt a strange little shudder, not in any bad way, but to be greeted in such an otherwise friendly and casual manner, brought back ancient memories of a time in the first age when he had ruled… nay… when he had built what would later become Lookshy from the bottom up. Of course, back then the city had a different name, and a very different look too… though as they descended to the many-tiered hollowed obelisk that was the grand aviary in the Old Town district in the very heart of Lookshy, Speaker did see that there were things afoot at the old buildings used by the Valkhawsen academy of sorcery. Was Lookshy really going to go through with his suggestion of tearing the place down to make room for raising the subterranean manse he had helped repair, to get it up to the surface?

“It’ll be a hell of an undertaking… I wonder how many elementals they’ll summon for it” Cash said, effortlessly guiding the flying yeddim onto the proper landing space in the aviary.

Shrugging, Speaker found his brows furrowed: “I’ll be honest – I have no idea. It’ll be the biggest public works since their reconstruction of the ports district. Isn’t that also where they’re building the new Valkhawsen campus?”

“It’s the only place where they had room – that’s the price of making the city a giant magical fortress – you run out of space really fast, and expanding the city walls is even more expensive…” Cash noted, speaking from hard-earned experience of having been Sunhill’s master of coin since its founding.

Speaker and Cash quickly parted ways, having different business to attend to. Speaker’s townhouse in Lookshy had been upgraded to a diplomatic residence and office, with Cash managing a lot of Sunhill’s trade from it – as well as managing imports from further away coming in via Lookshy, that either wanted to or was scheduled to end up in Sunhill. Sunhill’s continued beef with the Guild meant that there were guild bounties on merchant shipping going to Sunhill, something Fire Orchid had run across without even knowing it. Speaking of which…

“So… do make sure to tell her mother that we found Fire Orchid – but break it to her gently” Speaker said before heading off the Lookshy harbor.

Cash Charmer looked less than pleased of having to break that news as Speaker was out the door. Fire Orchid hadn’t wanted to come along to reconnect to her mother, needing time to reconcile being a solar and all: “You’re leaving that to… yes, yes you’re leaving that to me”

Making his way from his estate to the nearest light rail station, Speaker caught a quick ride to the harbor. Thanks to magical components and materials that Sunhill had sold Lookshy, mainly stuff that Speaker had made or taught others to make, Lookshy had been able to restore its internal light rail system, allowing for ponies and goods to flow through the city a lot more efficiently.

Well… the security checkpoints at the light rail systems were a pain – but so were all Lookshyan security checkpoints. Par for the course for keeping the city safe of course. Cash would have called it a needless waste of resources, Sunrise would have said it’s a paranoid bit of security theatre, but to Speaker he understood the necessity: With the re-introduction of the light rail system, a magical bomb, barrels full of animated skeletons waiting to leap out and attack, or something similar could be moved from the port district into the heart of the city very quickly once mounted into the light rail network – so everything had to be checked.

Thinking for a moment, it occurred to Speaker that he wasn’t an average run of the mill Lookshyan helot anymore – he wasn’t even a citizen anymore – he had the privileges of being a foreign monarch, and was on first name basis with most of Lookshy’s general staff. He’d only need to ask, and someone would have been sent to escort him through every checkpoint straight to the ship he was heading to.

Still, having grown up in Lookshy, it was difficult to kick such old habits. There was a strange comfort in standing in line and enjoying the system working as intended, even if the legionnaires checking his papers weren’t quite sure of how to address him due to his status and effective royalty.

Halfway to the harbour front, Speaker would swear that he could feel the fury and the swearing from across city as Cash Charmer had probably just informed Taimyo Karal Linseed that her long-lost daughter had been found… and that she was now a lord of Sunhill. All of gens Karal would likely suffer at least some loss of face for having a member become a solar. Officially Lookshy had no stance on solars – though it had a stance on Sunhill, and considered Sunhill a staunch ally and a primary medical service provider for wounded Lookshyan legionaries and vendor of rare magical crafting components. Indeed, Lookshy was Sunhill’s chief trade partner for such goods and services.

Speaker could only chuckle – it was a shame that he had to leave so soon really: Fire Orchid looked to have been around his age when she had exalted, and it would no doubt be great fun sharing stories from their time serving in Lookshy’s legions. He had to wonder which legion she had served in. He had served in the first field force, the elite forces, but Fire Orchid had likely been a low-ranking officer, so she could have served anywhere.

Thinking about Fire Orchid’s possible past kept Speaker’s mind occupied as he got aboard the merchant ship heading out of the city. Even with his writ of heavenly protection, he would still need to avoid detection by the realm… though how well their intelligence efforts were was a complete unknown to him – though he was traveling under a false identity.

As the ship set sail, Speaker struck up conversation with the captain. Thanks to a bit of sidereal trickery, Speaker appeared as a very non-descript pony to anyone who just casually looked at him, though the effect of that would wear off once Speaker got about a thousand miles or so away from Lookshy, where the limits of Sunhill’s sidereal allies’ sphere of influence reached.

It turned out that the captain of the ship did a regular trade route around the blessed isle: “I had a friend who visited the Denzik city ship once… told me of their route around the isle. I used to sail between Pangu and Port Callin, selling realm goods to guild merchants, but I could never arrive in time for the merchants I knew who’d give me good deals, just ones who’d give me shit deals”

“So, you started a bigger trade route instead?” Speaker inquired, looking out over the inland sea. There wasn’t another ship in sight, but Speaker knew that there were likely dozens of ships just over the horizon, as that part of the inland sea was known to be quite busy.

The captain adjusted her big fancy triangular hat, the latest in realm captain-fashion: “I called a few favors to set it up, even renamed my ship the Wing of Daana’d, but pretty much ya. I buy high quality steel spear-tips and arrowheads here in Lookshy, sell that at Wallport for bulk loads of wool and expensive furs, then its Chanos where I sell all that to the weavers and clothiers for a profit, pick up alchemical minerals they mine there, sail west and sell that at Heptagram. I don’t really pick up much stuff there, but there’s usually always someone paying for passage to Bright Obelisk, buy coal there…”

“Where do you sell coal? That doesn’t sound like something you can get much of a profit on unless you’re selling it back to the north” Speaker mused, having learned far more than he cared to about the fuel requirements of a city for things like heating and industry over the last year.

“No, we fill the hold with coal and take it Azure, up north in the Coral archipelago. They need it for making steel, and pay really well for it. Biggest challenge is dodging coral pirates going there, but I usually try to convoy with some part of the realm water fleet who patrol there regularly” The captain explained, sounding really happy about her trade route’s profitability.

The captain went on about all the cheap pirated goods she’d buy in Azure, where she’d then sail back to the blessed isle and sell the western goods for an even bigger profit. While Speaker could respect the business acumen, then the intricacies of such trading was endlessly boring to him. All he needed confirmed was that the ship was going to the west, and it was.

Somewhat clumsily excusing himself to the Captain, Speaker retreated to his cabin. It wasn’t big, but it had a door, a cot, and a small table. Retrieving an oversized doctor’s satchel form elsewhere, Speaker pulled out a large candle from it and put it on the table, along with a hoof-full of small red jade beads. Holding the beads tight in his hoof and focusing on the candle, its wick lit up as the magic of the red jade beads worked their fiery essence.

Taking a deep breath, Speaker settled into a meditative position on the cot.

He recalled the recent conversation he had enjoyed with Lytek, god of Exaltation, as the god had descended from on high in Yu-Shan to take into custody a captured deathknight – an abyssal exalted – that the circle had captured earlier. Speaker could only pity the deathknights, the dark mirror versions of solars, originally made from underworld-corrupted solar exaltations, especially the ones who didn’t come to Sunhill seeking aid in how to cleanse their exaltation and undo their dark state of being.

Still, Speaker recalled Lytek having been optimistic – perhaps a function of Lytek’s body being that of pure light, so having a bright mood came naturally to the god – for the god had insisted that he was working on cleansing abyssal exaltations manually once they had been removed from their hosts. Sure, the removal killed the host, but he made sure it was done in such a way that destroyed the host soul – instead of leaving it to be sucked back into the underworld for eternal torture at the mad whims of the Deathlords and the Neverborn masters.

This had brought Speaker hope – and he focused on that feeling. This had been part of the instructions that Lytek had given him, relating to a query Speaker had made quite a while ago: “You are of the twilight caste. Yours is the darkness before the dawn, the last sliver of hope holding out until the sun rises again. At this point in your spiritual development, you will need to focus on the fading light, the lone light in darkness. This will greatly accelerate your efforts to purify your essence, though why you feel the need for it is beyond me – at this point you’ve already taken down a deathlord… why would you need to be even more powerful?”

It was with a heavy heart that Speaker that explained his plight – a worthy one if there had ever been any, for back when he had first returned to Lookshy after having exalted himself Speaker had met with some old army buddies… of the sort who had given up their old age in exchange for magical power, sacrificing much of their line for their duty. Speaker had found a couple of buddies from his old unit, buddies who were suffering from the late stages of the supernatural aging that having worn those magical gemstone implants. He had sworn to them that if they could just hold on a few more years, then he would be able to give them back their youth.

Speaker could not remember having ever seen Lytek weep like that – at least not since the primordial war, before the dawn of the first age. And of course, getting to the point where he could master such a very much so impossible feat of turning back the clock wasn’t easy. Thus purifying his essence even more so was only the beginning… he would have to master charms that had all been forgotten since the first age, but he considered his personal quest: Too many ponies in creation suffered from things beyond their control, and were very much deserving of a second chance at life. Speaker wanted to be the one to give them that second lease on life, that they could help build a better future.

As far as anyone else on the ship was concerned, it mainly meant that Speaker spent most of his time in his cabin, only appearing for meals – something that quite a few of the other passengers also did, especially the ones who had absolutely no stomach for sailing the high seas, so he raised no suspicion in doing so.

The first leg of the journey, the trip to Wallport, took several weeks. Speaker had hoped to start his essence purification regiment during this time, and indeed he did – but it sadly wasn’t the only thing he experienced during that time… though not during his waking hours while he meditated.

It was during his dreams. They had started to become… strange. Not in any bad way, but as Speaker slept each night he had begun to dream of strange duels, fights against magical creatures and beings that seemed to always slip away from him. The worst part – depending on how one looked at things – was that he couldn’t always remember the dreams, and he knew from speaking with his sidereal allies that dreams were a known vector of attack among sidereals. Had he already been detected?

Was this some strange attack on his mind? Was it an attempt to blow his cover this early on his journey? He had no interest in finding out – but instead of trying to avoid the issue, he chose to face it head on, seeking to learn as much as possible from his foe, that he might ultimately outsmart it.

After a few days of fiddling around with this, stilling and purifying his essence during the day as he focused on the flicker of that one lone candle that he kept restoring using his repair charms, and learning strange nothings during the night, Speaker came to a strange form of enlightenment as he went to sleep once more.

He now knew that he was asleep. He had become self-aware and lucid while dreaming. This pleased him to absolutely no end, and he leapt about shouting in happiness and he danced from cloud to cloud over gem-studded sunsets in his dreamscape, attempting to taking control of his own dream and choosing what to dream of. His dreams became for more interesting after that: He was able to spend time reviewing old memories, dream up future projects, but now it also became clear to him that these dream-battles he had been having were… intrusions of some sort. He couldn’t tell from where, but while in his dreamland he couldn’t scry his physical surroundings with essence sight to track where the intrusion came from.

To this end Speaker focused his dreams on observing the essence patterns he could see while dreaming – the essence patterns of being in a dream-state. At meal-times during the day, when the ship’s half dozen passengers would be gathered on deck and be served simple meals of rice, beans, steamed sea-weed and whatever fish the sailors had been able to catch via tossing nets from the ship, Speaker snuck glances at his fellows to observe the essence patterns of being conscious.

It was a testament to Speaker’s mental discipline that he was able to work on his essence during the day, and then dream of strange essence experiments during the night – though a few days later again he awoke with a start during the night, as his dreamtime research bore fruit, sort of: He had found the way to fiddle with essence to wake someone up, evidently frightening his next-cabin neighbour quite a lot. Reversing the pattern, he put the screaming pony to blissful sleep until dawn.

A week later the captain warned the passengers during the mid-day meal that a storm had been sighted in their path – and it was unknown whether it would pass them by, or if they would be caught in it: “At the moment it seems very far off – our lookout up in the crow’s nest only spotted it just now on the horizon. I can’t even see it down here from the deck. Still, I am warning you all to tie down any lose objects in your cabins. Any oil lamps or candles are to packed away, because the last thing we need is a fire while being tossed around”

Speaker simply nodded. The other passengers were terrified – but he had survived worse.

Well, he felt that right until he went to sleep that night: The moment he ‘awoke’ in his dreamscape Speaker found himself ambushed by something.

Chapter 3 Hot On the Trail

The Righteous Devil stylist takes a long, long moment to glare at the soup, and finally pronounces it innocent. He saddles up and rides off into the sunset, looking for another town, and another souphouse.

…

Speaker awoke, feeling absolutely terrified. He had spent the entire night fighting for his life, the shapeless nightmare that fought him turning his dream around him into a thing of horrible unspeakable terror every time it struck – not wounding him, but wounding his dream! The strange thing was that he still felt refreshed from the night’s sleep – but it had simply been amazingly intense… and the feeling of dread faded very quickly. Indeed, upon reflection he realized that he had never been harmed physically in the dream. Strange. To think that with all his encounters with deathknights, that nightmares of them wouldn’t try to harm him directly… didn’t make sense.

Returning to his meditations on essence purification, Speaker took care that his candle couldn’t fall over before starting. A fire on a ship was a truly catastrophic event.

The next night Speaker fought another such strange running battle, fleeing through his dream as parts of it were struck and turned into nightmares. Feeling more than stubborn enough to refuse such nocturnal aggression, Speaker forced himself to wake up more than once, trying to quickly scan his cabin with essence to find some trace of… something… but there was nothing.

His dreams kept being attacked – and the oceanic storm drew closer – but a few days later Speaker awoke with a strange new realization: He had now seen the commandeering and alteration of his own dreams enough to do it himself. During the breakfast meal the captain warned: “We’ve been trying to sail around the storm – but we’ve never seen anything like this… it’s like a western storm has come to the inland sea, and it seems to be just growing and gobbling up ships that pass into it. I fear we may be in for a rough ride”

As annoying as having to break his cover to continue his trip via his own magical means, Speaker paid little heed to the captains worries. He had his meditations to attend, and his strange new night-time trick to experiment with. That night, as Speaker went to sleep he found that each time the nightmare creature corrupted his dream, he could strike it in turn and change it back! His fights with the creature were thus no longer fighting retreats away from corrupted dreamscape, but a more an even fight.

…but it was also cut short, as Speaker found himself tossed about in his cabin: The storm had caught the ship!

Emerging from his cabin onto the deck, he found the captain shouting desperate orders as driving rain reduced visible to nearly nothing. This was perfect cover.

With a charm that let him leap many times the normal height that a pony could jump, and from a standing position at that, Speaker quickly ascended to the crow’s nest of the ship. The main mast creaked and groaned, and the young mare up in the crow’s nest was absolutely terrified – not even paying attention to the sudden arrival of Speaker.

Taking pity on the little pony, Speaker considered what he had learned recently. With a gentle touch and a bit of essence, he rendered her asleep with sweet dreams, then secured her to the crows nest with some ropes – letting her ride out of the experience without fright. With nobody to see him do anything, Speaker withdrew two large half-sphere rubies from elsewhere and attached them to his shoulders, each the size of a large cherry. Leaping high into the air above the ship, he willed the gemstones to activate, wings of fire erupting from them. In the driving rain even something that bright was muffled and obscured – so none down on the ship saw him.

Using his essence sight, Speaker trailed the source of the rain until he found it: The god of the storm, surrounded by a churning court of water and wind elementals. To his relief it wasn’t the same storm-god he’d slapped around a few years ago in the west – would have been fitting though, for that god had seemed quite petty and prone to plans of revenge.

“Cease this storm at once!” Flying up in front of the mighty storm god Speaker called out in the ancient tongue of the gods, that known to scholars as Old Realm – its visage that of water and wind manifesting into a furious face that harshly gazed back the solar.

The god shot lighting at Speaker, but they did nothing: Speaker had learned how to survive the elements during his time in the Lookshyan special forces, and as a solar those skills had amplified to such a point that no force of nature could really hurt him, as he stood regal with his elemental emperor stance.

Returning fire by taking a swipe at the god’s elemental minions, Speaker used his dread charm that let him destroy spirits, gods and ghosts with deadly efficiency – and the dying screams of his underlings got the god’s attention: “You dare?”

“I do – now cease this storm or I will thin out your retinue to the point that you will be the laughingstock of every weather god in creation!” Speaker shouted back.

The god’s eyes crackled with thunder, and it seemed to move to swallow Speaker – but the solar simply flew up and punched the god on the forehead, using the exact same charm as on the lookout in the crow’s nest, though in a decidedly more forceful manner: The god was instantly put to sleep…

Around speaker dozens of elementals flew up to… thank him? What?

“He’s been so amazingly cranky lately after he got robbed – been venting his rage on all those poor ships… a good night’s sleep is exactly what he needed!” one elemental said.

Other elementals surrounded the god and somehow began moving it away, probably off to bed.

Speaker struggled not to laugh, flying back to the ship and sneaking aboard by landing in the ocean next to the ship, using his solar crafting charms to form a hatch in the hull, getting in via the hatch, then removing the hatch with his repair charm. Why sneak over a wall, when you could make a door?

Satisfied that the storm seemed to be quickly abating, Speaker returned to his cabin, not giving much thought to what might have been stolen from the storm god – that wasn’t his problem. The nightmare beast he usually battled was nowhere to be found in his dreams that night, allowing Speaker to dream lucidly but peacefully for once.

With the storm no longer an issue, the captain declared the next day that their trip to Wallport would continue once more at the regular pace, winds permitting. Speaker was pleased as punch. At night, he even began fighting back against the nightmare creature, no longer just undoing its changes to his dream, but also striking at it, trying to put it to sleep… or mess with its dreamlike nature. With the right commanding dream pattern of essence, Speaker found that he could momentarily make the nightmare creature… do things. It was as if it was a dream, and he was gaining control of it, even if only briefly, before it reasserted itself.

The culmination of these strange bouts came a few days before the ship arrived at Wallport, as Speaker tried a new variation to his dream-based battles: He tore at the creature, pulling the nightmare out of the nightmare creature… and then it wasn’t a nightmare creature anymore.

For the first time in quite a while, Speaker awoke not remember his dream – but he was certain that he remembered the new dream-pulling trick… he just couldn’t remember how it was that he knew it – nor did he remember the appearance of the being he had revealed once its nightmare form had been removed, for it had evidently not wanted to be known just yet.

At Wallport things on the ship changed, and changed quickly – the cargo hold was stuffed with crates of tightly packed wool, thick animal furs and ivory, but all of the other passengers also got off, and new ones came aboard: Immaculate monks, including several unicorns.

Immaculates… the last thing Speaker needed on the ship. Even worse, he knew that bronze faction sidereals often hid among immaculates, which left Speaker very much so on edge. A dozen of the light-blue robed ponies arrived on the ship, with quite a few deckhooves hauling their luggage on board.

Going below deck, Speaker sighed. He didn’t expect them holding an inquisition at sea, but those ponies… he would have to eat with them. Anything less would be extremely suspicious.

As the ship set off from Wallport, Speaker girded himself mentally. The previous passengers had all been merchants traveling with their goods, or others simply going north for personal business. A group of immaculate unicorns? That meant something was up.

Their first shared meal was breakfast the next day at sea. Speaker quickly noticed that the immaculates weren’t eating the same as everyone else – which made sense, since the immaculate vows required one becoming a vegetarian. Still, they were only served a single bowl of rice each… a meagre diet by any standard.

One of the unicorns said something in his direction, spotting Speaker sneaking glances at their bowls, his own bowl of rice and beans still half full.

This was Cash Charmer’s forte – or Sunrise, or Sullen Hoof. Speaker knew his own limitations, and social subtleties and manipulation to veil one’s own agenda and intentions were not one of them. Still, there were certain easy solutions to avoid any serious conversation, such as pretending that Speaker didn’t speak High Realm, the language of realm nobles and landed gentry. He tried to gesture and explain as much, without using words – as would be expected for a commoner or foreign pony.

The unicorns appeared to quickly catch on to this, resulting in them starting to quiz Speaker on what languages he did know – to which end it didn’t take long before one of them asked him in in heavily accented rivertongue: “Do you speak the merchant tongue?”

Not wanting to chance that they had a means of detecting lies, Speaker politely nodded. “I do”

“Excellent – now, what’s this business my brothers here tell me about you keep looking at our food?” the mare inquired, her mane shorn off completely just like the other monks.

Keeping his gaze down, Speaker simply explained that he used to work as a doctor, and knew that only eating rice for extended periods would lead to scurvy. The unicorns all chuckled at Speaker’s words, appearing not at all worried. The mare monk then explained: “We have our special rations that we eat before meditating – more than enough to keep us healthy until we reach the isle, but we thank you for your concern good pony”

While looking down, Speaker didn’t see the other unicorns roll their eyes at the mention of the blessed isle. He did hear quite a few of them groan.

“Oh, don’t mind them – they’re just upset we’ve all been called back to the isle” the mare explained, making Speaker peek up in curiosity.

Why would immaculate monks be recalled to the isle? That didn’t make sense. Speaker had to ask: “Called back to your houses? I thought monks were absolved from house politics like the succession crisis?”

Several of the unicorns chuckled at the mention of the ‘succession crisis’ – even though Cash Charmer had insisted that such was the polite term for the realm civil war. The mare certainly found it funny, though her expression quickly turned serious as she explained the situation: “No, we have been recalled to the Palace Sublime. It, and most of the Incas prefecture has fallen to the Peleps legions. Several bishops are coordinating a massing of monks, both mortal and unicorns, to take back control of the Cloister of Wisdom”

“Good heavens… if a house gained control of the Mouth of Peace too, that would mean the end of political neutrality for all immaculates” Speaker said, his quick strategic evaluation of the most likely outcome relating the monks sounding plausible to him.

The immaculates nodded as the mare translated what he had said. She replied: “None of us want that. Most of us took the razor to get out of house politics – I didn’t want to end up a brood mare for my house, or some sacrificial pawn in a game about power and prestige. And house V’Neef has the Mouth of peace held up in other parts of the Incas prefecture, while Peleps control the Palace Sublime – but that means that V’Neef and Peleps can just trade insults over who is really in command of the immaculates. We’re looking to liberate both. Only thing we know is that there are also monks massing on the Sweet Radiance islands on the southern side of the isle for some kind of big distraction”

And with that, Speaker no longer feared the monks on the ship: He pitied them. They were going ‘home’ not to fight in the civil war, but to liberate and defend their supposedly neutral faction: “I will pray for you. There are no doubt tens of thousands of innocent farmers on the isle who are being pressed into becoming levied soldiers, to fight for nobles who care nothing for the lives of their serfs. Making the Cloister and the Palace into sanctuaries for those who do not want to fight is something that must be done”

“Well said” the monk mare replied, sounding sad as she looked down at her bowl of rice.

After the meal, Speaker returned to his cabin and did as he had done many times already on the journey: He pulled out the necklace he had with a talisman, in which the hearthstone for the Sunhill manse was set. It had a special power: It let Speaker see and hear as if being back in Sunhill, as well as command the features of the manse, which aside from messing with the magical lighting and doors, also included the controls for the manse’s magical illusion systems. This let him manifest images of himself, which could even speak and be heard by others.

Using this, Speaker manifested an image of himself near his secretary and dictated a message for his fellow lords of Sunhill, giving them a status update with this new information on the realm civil war.

The following few weeks of sailing to get to the Blessed Isle were… interesting, sort of. Speaker recognized that the oceans became calmer, winds steadier as they got closer to the stabilizing influence of the pole of earth. During meals he found himself looking at the horizon, trying to spot land, only able to see the distant rise of the impossibly tall mount meru – but you could see that almost anywhere in Creation if you were on flat terrain.

It had been so many thousands of years since he had properly set hoof upon the Blessed Isle in a calm and orderly fashion. Not just flying above it at breakneck speed to reach the Imperial Mountain for various strange reasons – but to walk the verdant plains, see the horizon-to-horizon orchards, to see the ancient temples to Celestia… well… those temples were probably either gone or remade to be immaculate temples.

Still, they would be at their port of call for a few days for loading and unloading cargo – and at Wallport the Captain had said that Speaker was free to leave the ship until it was ready to set sail again. Cash Charmer had even taught Speaker the language of High Realm, the tongue of realm nobles, which was to help his cover story of being a Grey Falls scion looking for an old friend in the west, so Speaker figured he’d be able to speak to the locals – at least in the high-end businesses.

This, as it turned out, did not come to pass: Approaching the harbour inlet for the port city of Chanos, the ship came across a rather substantial fleet blockading the port. Speaker couldn’t recognize the flags and banners that the fleet had on display, but it reeked of one realm noble house messing with the hold of another. Lovely.

The captain was none too pleased to announce that this meant basically waiting until the siege lifted: “Put out the nets – we’ll need to start rationing our dry goods. There’s no telling how long this will last… I’ll try sending a boat out to negotiate our passage”

“Captain, can you tell what house this fleet is from?” Speaker asked as he stood by the deck-railings in the evening breeze, none too pleased with things having ground to a halt, only the lamps on the blockade ships and the light of braziers on shore visible in the evening darkness.

The captain shook her head, running a hoof through her mane: “Honestly, no idea – maybe in the morning we’ll be able to see their flags if the boat isn’t back. We could be here for weeks… months? Normally I’d just have us sail somewhere else, but all the buyers for my cargo are supposed to be in Chanos, so I cannot afford to go elsewhere. I’m sorry”

“Take heart ponies – we will resolve this” the monk mare said, all of the immaculate monks having assembled on the deck of the ship.

The black-horned unicorn among the monks, a water aspected stallion, spun water up next to the ship, while the blue-horned unicorn monk who was blessed by the dragon of air blew magical icy air that shaped the water into a simple boat of ice. The immaculates quickly got down into the boat, and the water aspected unicorn moved the water around them to propel the boat. They had even brought all their luggage with them. It certainly appeared that the monks were meaning business.

Speaker and the Captain shared a confused but impressed look together, as the ice boat vanished into the darkness.

A bit later a ship blew up. Then another one. Other ships converged on the exploded ships.

“Well, that’s one way to open up a blockade… hey that’s the monks coming back?” Speaker said, spying the ice boat (now showered in splinters) reappearing out of the darkness.

The captain quickly called for deckhands to fetch a rope-ladder, the monks quickly coming back aboard: “Captain, the blockade has been sufficiently disrupted to permit transit – set sails and go in with lights out”

Speaker quickly hurried down below deck and packed his things, stashing it all elsewhere – just in case things turned out badly.

Returning to the deck half an hour later, Speaker found the deck very quiet and very dark. The sails were out, and a quiet evening breeze was pushing the ship towards the distant shore.

Everyone held their breath. The ship wasn’t armed, and the monks weren’t enough to ward off a proper boarding attack – and Speaker still didn’t want to reveal himself… but he also really didn’t want to travel west on land while on the isle. There were simply too many immaculate-loyal spirits and godlings on the isle who would be able to sense his true nature and reveal him. Sailing past the isle was the best option by far…

Passing the burning remains of the two exploded ships revealed a third one that was sinking, also likely the work of the monks. It made Speaker wonder if they were trained in the celestial dragon styles – mainly because that would actually make them actually dangerous opponents if they found him out.

Halfway through the blockade Speaker and everyone else saw a flare rise into the sky. While it looked pretty, it also meant that the Wing of Daana’d was suddenly very visible. Oops.

Arrows and ballista bolts started flying at the ship in short order – other nearby ships raising anchor and giving pursuit. With no small amount of shouting, the captain prevented her sailors from panicking, making them run all over the place to check for damages and patch up leaks if and when they were hit.

Several large ballista bolts soon crashed into the side of the ship, two of them just at the waterline. Their hooked heads were nearly impossible to dislodge from the ship, leaving gaping holes for water to come in. A bucket chain was quickly set up to buy the ship more time as it raced to the safety of the harbour fortifications.

This of course made Speaker wonder how they were going to avoid being shot at by the troops protecting the port… but one of the unicorns leapt up into what was left of the crows nest, flashing their anima banner in a set of bright pulses.

A similar chain of light signals came from the harbor. Had the immaculates set up some kind of identification code?

Either way, the ships made it into the port and was moved up to an empty dry-dock, after which the immaculates bid their farewells. The ship’s cargo was also removed, and repairs began.

To Speaker’s absolute chagrin the captain reported that the Wings of Danaa’d would first be sea-worthy again in about a month or so – the caulking and waterproofing had to be redone around the repaired bits of hull, and that stuff had to dry and cure before it would seal up properly. Speaker had to wonder exactly what kind of nonsense that was – but then he realized that the kind of shipping he was used to seeing, was pretty much only for river-travel… so he accepted that things were simply done differently for ships made for the open seas.

Speaker was also told that he couldn’t stay on the ship while it was being fixed – so he carefully journeyed into the city. To his surprise Chanos reminded him a lot of Lookshy: It was built on a grid, with the ‘grid lines’ being intersecting walls that kept each city block isolated via guarded gates. The number of troops that marched around was… impressive… but he quickly found out why: House Ragara had a whole legion garrisoned in the city. Lovely. Probably meant that the blockading fleet was from another house.

Lovely.

Finding a money lender that accepted silver dinars (at an absolutely atrocious exchange rate), Speaker exchanged just enough money to imperial paper money to keep himself afloat for a month or so, and rented a room in the foreign quarter of the city – he wasn’t allowed to stay anywhere else. Sure, the buildings of the city were nice enough: There had to be some local sources for all that marble, and the impressively cut black slate roofs, but it was also so… soulless. Every building looked the same, and it was a bloody miracle that the whole deal didn’t conflict so much with the local essence flows that it wasn’t dangerous. Maybe local immaculate monks had strongarmed the local elementals in ensuring that.

Speaker also overheard locals talking that the city’s immaculate temple was only staffed by a handful of monks – everyone else had apparently left for… something? Well, that would reduce Speaker’s chance of being detected - hopefully.

Days quickly turned into weeks, the naval blockade remaining in play for quite a while, even after the Wing of Danaa’d was fixed. Quietly reporting his lack of progress back to his friends in Sunhill, Speaker in turn read reports laid out for him to see via the same remote viewing: Fire Orchid had been caught up with how the city was run, and introduced to the elementals that worked in the city. There had also been another attack on Sunhill, a barge with a hollowed-out hull turned out to have been full of war-ghosts. Sunrise had laid waste to them with her prayers and musical martial arts, destroying the ghosts in short order, especially when combined with her holy charms. After the battle, Fire Orchid had been trained in how to fight spirits and ghosts.

Safe that all was good back home, Speaker returned to his essence refinement meditations.

Not having paid any real attention to the naval blockade, or any other local gossip, Speaker was quite surprised one morning after breakfast, while meditating in his room, by the sound of distant explosions outside. Not long after, the sound of loud cheering from down in the street came soon after… and later that day a young messenger came knocking on Speaker’s door: “Sir, the Wing of Daana’d will set sail later this afternoon. The captain says that if you still wish to come along for the journey, you must return to the ship quickly”

Returning to the docks, Speaker looked out at where the blockade had been: Flying skyremes up above, their glowing blue jade keels keeping them aloft, were floating above the broken remains of dozens of ships. It seems that house Ragara finally managed to mobilize or free up part of its air-fleet to rain fire down over the blockade.

The Wing of Daana’d set off in short order, the captain looking very relieved to be away from Chanos. Being a traveling merchant during a succession war was not easy. There were also a number of new passengers aboard, all of them eager to get away from the fighting – even a few unicorns, though none of them were monks.

To Speaker’s chagrin this did result in the captain announcing that there would be several more stops. Great, more delays – but apparently there were a lot more roadblocks on the Blessed Isle, so getting around via ship was still the best option, and the captain was being paid accordingly.

It was almost three weeks later when the ship arrived at the island on which the Heptagram was located. Speaker kept a very low profile there, fearing that bound spirits and summoned demons would identify him. He did leave his heavenly scroll that announced his right of passage out in the open in his cabin, in case any dematerialized spirit passed through to check things. Speaker didn’t know if the scroll was ever read, but he did breathe a heavy sigh of relief when they sailed away from Heptagram. There were no new passengers from the college of sorcery.

From Heptagram the ship continued along the north coast of the Blessed Isle, making more stops than planned and only slowly making progress along the trade route.

With no monks aboard, only a random mix of other passengers, none of which stayed around for very long, Speaker spent his time meditating on his essence. Sometimes its rained, sometimes the stops at various coastal cities took longer than others – to Speaker it was all just the same easily ignorable distractions. His main issue was that his original time schedule of finding Shimmer before calibration looked increasingly unlikely.

One day, off the annoyingly aptly named Storm Coast, late in the evening after many days of slow travel due to dangerously high winds, Speaker had an epiphany of sorts – and it wasn’t a quiet one.

The captain had ordered the sails at half mast, fearing ripped sails from the strong winds coming from the north. Nobody wanted the ship tossed into the rocky blessed isle shore where it would be smashed to toothpicks – so progress was slow and very careful, with most of the sailors on edge, as the dim light of the changing moon and the faint stars was barely enough to make out the shoreline.

This darkness meant that once bright golden light started to seep up through the floorboards it was instantly spotted. At first a fire was suspected, resulting in several sailor ponies armed with buckets of water smashing the door to Speaker’s room.

They found no fire – but they tossed the water none the less, then the buckets, for they found Speaker glowing brightly. Anathema!

Speaker wasn’t quite sure why his anima wouldn’t quiet down – or why it had involuntarily flared up to begin with – but his cover was blown, that much was for sure. Quickly pushing the enraged sailors out of his cabin, Speaker slammed the door shut and waved a quick hoof over the busted hinges to the door. The hinges reassembled instantly and bent back into their proper shape, and a second crafting charm saw the wooden planks bend and join together, barricading the door quite thoroughly.

The loud knocking on the not quite any longer door told Speaker that the sailors outside weren’t about to let up – and news of his… condition… would no doubt spread across the ship in mere moments.

Sighing, Speaker turned his attention towards the wall opposite the door: The strong and thick wooden hull of the ship. With a deep breath, and a fair smidge of essence, Speaker had the hull planks cleave and reorder themselves. What had been a solid hull, was now a hull with a new large hatch.

Swinging the hatch open, Speaker beheld the dark sea outside. The ocean reflected the light of his anima, even more so as he softened reality by sheer force of will and began drawing in ambient essence to shape into existence a cloud that quickly spilled out of the hatch, illuminating the darkness with golden essence as it pooled and condensed.

Once the cloud had formed, despite the sailors trying to bash down his barricade, Speaker stepped off the ship onto his cloud. The expenditure of essence seemed to have calmed his soul, making his anime fade as he flew off on the cloud.

Using his hearthstone, Speaker reported the development to Sunhill: “I had hoped to be able to clear the blessed isle before flying off on my own – it’ll likely be a week or two until I clear the isle, and I fear if a realm sky-fleet or any sidereals manage to catch me, that I will be unable to flee to safety – if I fail to send daily updates please seek out Heath Rose to locate me, and then come to my rescue”

As Speaker flew until the wee hours on his cloud, another problem presented itself: The cloud would disappear if he fell asleep – and if there was one thing clouds were good for, it was being soft and comfortable!

During his planning of the journey, Speaker had of course found a solution to this issue: In a sack he had stashed elsewhere, he had a large wooden cork life-vest, that would let him float on the surface – but because he was still near the blessed isle, he risked being swept onto the shore, onto the rocks and cliffs… which would likely kill him, charms or not.

So… a solution? Fly closer to shore, find a small island or rocky outcropping to sleep on? But arriving via sorcerous flight would make every spirit in the area want to start asking questions – and every spirit court on the blessed isle was thoroughly under the thumb of the immaculates and the sidereals. Of course, with that celestial writ he had an out… maybe.

Yawning, Speaker had his cloud descend in a south-western direction. Nearing the shore, Speaker observed the small cliffs and islets that jutted out of the water near the coast, looking for something, anything, that wasn’t just fisherponies or washed-up sea-weed, using his spirit detection charm.

There! A water elemental directing the surf.

Flying down to the elemental, Speaker respectfully introduced himself: “Greetings oh warden of these waters. May the sun and the moon shine brightly on your waves five times five times”

The water elemental, a creature of living liquid with eyes of aquamarine and a rough form defined by flowing seaweed, looked up at Speaker and spoke in a way that could not be seen or heard by mortals: “It has been a very long time since anyone spoke to me with the old honorifics and salutations. What can I do for you sorcerer pony?”

“I seek a place to rest of the night, for these shores are not friendly to me, and I do not wish to fall asleep the bottom of the inland sea” Speaker said, never mind that he could survive sleeping underwater, but swimming back to the surface would probably take ages, and again the local water elementals might mess with him at the behest of the immaculates.

The water elemental flowed in a figure-eight path – an old gesture of thought – then it looked at Speaker again: “You have no horn, yet you fly on a cirrus skiff – the immaculates do not take kindly to the presence of god-blooded or enlightened mortals. No wonder you don’t want to land on the isle… but what makes you sure that the court I am beholden to would treat you any better?”

“I have my traveling papers – if you would simply lead me to your court” Speaker said confidently.

Thus, it came to be that the elemental guided a sleepy Speaker on his cloud to a sacred cove where the locals knew never to venture – the court of the Five-Fold Lord of the Coast of Storms.

Sure, the court itself was in the water – but it wasn’t submerged, which was nice. On a throne of eternally crashing waves that rose out of the water in a truly regal manner sat the god of the thousands of miles of coastline, who quickly became curious as the elemental who had brought Speaker spoke of Speaker’s use of old first age honorifics: “Interesting. Who are you, guest pony”

Flaring his caste mark – which elicited quite a few gasps from the court – Speaker stood and spoke up, using a bit of essence to give him the strength to speak diplomatically: “Oh resplendent Five-Fold Lord Havus of the Coast of Storms, how my eyes are bathed in honeyed waters at observing your heavenly visage. It is a great honor to stand before this magnificent court on this most auspicious of evenings. I am Bright Machine Speaker, Chosen of Celestia, Solar of the Twilight Caste”

One could have heard a pin drop – right up until a unicorn mare, her mane shorn, her monk robes blue, came storming out from behind a group of sandy earth elementals: “Anathema! Havus, have your elementals seize this scum!”

Speaker quickly saw the god’s weary gaze swap from him to the unicorn – oh of course there had to be an immaculate representative at such an important elemental court. Still, he had his writ and so presented the scroll to the first elemental that approached him: “Five-fold water god Havus, I have with me a heavenly writ that forbids you and your court from acting against me!”

The elemental quickly read the scroll, its polished sandstone eyes going wide. Handing the scroll back to Speaker, it nodded to Havus. The water god made an imperious gesture, its elementals halting their approach towards Speaker: “I am sorry Monk Jade Scripture, but this Solar has a heavenly blessing I cannot violate without risking my own divinity. This protection extends to all spirits under my court. If you wish to see this pony apprehended, you will have to do so yourself”

The monk looked very displeased – more so at the prospect of having to get her own hooves dirty: “We will have words Havus – your position in the perfected hierarchy and your festival calendar can always be revised”

It was plainly obvious for all who could see the god, that it was by no means pleased of having its festivals threatened – gods lived by their worship, so threatening that was no small matter. To this end Speaker felt pity for the god, for he had not intended on seeing his host harmed for letting him sleep there: “Show some respect monk, you’re speaking to a god. If you think I must be struck down, do you own dirty work”

Oh, the look she gave Speaker. A second later she charged him, galloping towards Speaker with her horn blazing with a baleful aura of razor ice. A water aspected unicorn, of course.

Speaker braced himself with his magical shielding charms, a golden shell enveloping him as he made no move to parry or dodge the monk’s elementally enhanced strike… and that was all that the monk got to do, as she was swarmed by elementals and torn asunder.

It was an easy to overlook clause in the writ, but gods and spirits who provided aid to a questing solar were obliged to protect the solar when in their domain. Havus gave Speaker a pleased look: “I can’t tell you how long I have looked for an excuse to rid this court of that unicorn spy. Thank you, kind solar, for giving me the opportunity to do so”

“No problem – I just hope you and your court won’t suffer for this” Speaker said, bowing his head.

The god seemed in good spirits about the prospect of fallout from the monk’s death – his water elementals were already washing away any evidence of the murder, and he seemed certain that he could, completely honestly, state that the monk ran afoul a heavenly edict that he had to enforce: “The immaculates know that there are risks attached to being an observer at spirit courts”

Speaker didn’t object – he had recalled the at times strange brutality and lethality of divine law from the first age. The water-bed of ‘ocean velvet’ he was given to sleep on was just as amazing, though many of the spirits and lesser godlings were quite curious to speak with Speaker, seeing as he was a solar. Many of them remembered the times of glory in the first age when solars had ruled creation, and just as many wished for those times to return, arguing that the dragonblooded and the sidereals made for poor taskmasters who polluted their waters and did silly things like flush their sewage into streams that ran in their ocean, instead of using first age disposal and recycling techniques. Speaker of course agreed, and told wonderous tales of the sewage disposal system he had made in Sunhill, pleasing the water elementals to no end.

Next day Speaker flew west the on a new sorcerous cloud, at great speed.

Chapter 4 Unearthed

The Single Point Shining Into The Void stylist picks up his spoon from the napkin and manages to spoon the entire bowl of soup into his mouth in a single motion.

…

Seeing a lot of ships down at sea level, tiny dots down on the water considering his altitude, Speaker tried to figure out exactly how far west he had come. He knew from the maps he had read that he had a bit under two-thousand miles from the westernmost tip of the Blessed Isle before he reached the massive archipelago known as The Neck.

…and since he didn’t know exactly how fast he was going, he didn’t know how long it would take to get there.

Still, Speaker chose to tough it out – and for this he was rewarded: Flying through the night, Speaker saw the horizon fill with islands not that many hours after dawn the next day. Sure, he could only keep his eyes open by force of his essence at that point, but now he could land safely.

Activating the charm he knew – oh that charm… Shimmer had been so upset when he had learned it during her last incarnation, and Speaker had promised never to use it other than to find her in situations like this. A strong shiver ran down his back, all the way down Speaker’s tail as he sensed her general direction and distance to him: “By the bright one… she’s close”

Suddenly feeling very awake again, Speaker flew close to the nearest islands and scanned them essence sight for any sign of life or civilization. He knew that most of the islands in the neck were uninhabited, but he also knew from Shimmer’s own stories that her exaltation had a funny habit of always reincarnating as a kind of western tribal in the neck.

There! Speaker spotted a cobalt-blue flare of essence. Flying closer, Speaker saw… the smouldering remains of a sea-side village of what had once been a lot of small wooden sea-weed or palm frond thatched huts. Oh no.

Flying down, Speaker used his investigation charms to instantly get a read of the area – and it wasn’t pretty: The strange bite and claw-marks spoke of western changelings, and the remains of quite a few shattered changeling husks littered the sand at the beach. Torn nets and wrecked dug-out canoes were everywhere.

The only thing Speaker couldn’t find were surviving ponies. Had the changelings made off with everyone? Has Shimmer’s reincarnation been slain just before his arrival?

Tears in his eyes, as he read the desperate story that battle-damaged oars and broken harpoons told, Speaker walked through the village. The smouldering remains of huts were evenly spaced, with room for canoes and nets for everyone. This had been a fishing village, not unlike the countless thousands that dotted the untold rivers of the east.

With essence sight Speaker observed a subtle but simple essence flow of the village – it all pointed towards the one hut that hadn’t… no wait, there were burn marks on it, but it had been repaired. Oh, and behind it were almost two hundred freshly dug graves in the sand.

Solemnly making the celestial sign of endings towards the graves, Speaker hoped that the dead rested easy in this part of creation – he didn’t want to have to deal with hundreds of angry ghosts.

Turning away from the graveyard, Speaker beheld the remains of the village again: Where was Shimmer? With his charm he could feel her – she was close… very close…

Oh, how he felt stupid. Of course! She wouldn’t be a pony – and Speaker knew from Shimmer what her animal totem usually always was. He should be looking for seagulls!

It figured that she would stand watch over the remains of her village as a bird – it was easier to do that way. Still, Speaker checked the repaired hut first. The smell inside was… less than promising, but that turned out to be fish hung to dry inside the hut. Judging from the arrays of crude charms and talismans then it had been the hut of the village shaman: “I guess her exaltation really likes to repeat that theme… taking another shaman again, really?”

Exiting the hut, Speaker found himself standing before a seagull. Looking closely, for he knew what to look for – looking for the unique tell of a lunar, some not quite natural feature on the critter – Speaker saw the telltale purple feathers in the seagull’s plumage that wouldn’t normally be there.

He didn’t need essence sight to confirm that it was her. Oh, how elated he felt – he wanted to cry… he wanted to hug her – but as he approached the seagull, it simply flew up and perched on the shaman hut.

Thinking for a moment, Speaker considered the situation. Shimmer had told him that lunars had to learn special charms to understand intelligent speech while in the form of animals – and another charm to speak to other ponies while animals… and it made some level of sense that she didn’t know either as a freshly exalted lunar. It was here that another aspect of Speaker’s thorough preparation paid off. Months before leaving, knowing that he would likely have to engage with someone in animal form who couldn’t speak, Speaker had gotten Sunrise to teach him a simple but profound charm: The ability to speak to animals. He had also gotten Cash Charmer to teach him sea-tongue, the most common language of the west. Of course, being a tribal there was a chance that she didn’t speak any civilized language, but that was chance he was willing to take:

“I am Bright Machine Speaker, Lord of Sunhill – you know me. What do you call yourself? I knew your last incarnation as Last Shimmer”

The seagull was difficult to read – it turned its head a bit and just kept looking at him.

Right, time to signal in a slightly less subtle manner. Speaker flared his anima, displaying the light of a celestially augmented soul: A swirling burst of golden fire and light formed into the rotating image of a golden gear, from which three pairs of beautiful feathered golden wings unfurled. If that didn’t get her attention, then he’d have to double check to see if that bird really was Shimmer or not.

“That’s quite enough!” said a roaring voice in sea-tongue coming from the surf.

What?

Turning, as his anima began to fade, Speaker saw a very… lunar… sight: A pony covered in bright almost glowing moonsilver tattoos, flanked by a squad of broad-shouldered biped beast-ponies that appeared to have far quite a lot of aquatic mutations, including heads that were less pony and far more shark, with very noticeable blue-gray shark fins poking out of their backs. The beast-ponies wore beautifully made articulated armor that didn’t quite appear to be made of metal, yet Speaker got the distinct impression that most normal attacks would just bounce off them. First age materials for sure.

“I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?” Speaker wondered in his reply, looking at the procession marching up from the water towards him. The beast-ponies had their… oh ya, those were magical shock-pikes, lighting shooting spears, lowered at him.

The lunar struck Speaker as quite old – he could feel the potency of his protean essence, while that of the Shimmer-bird was barely detectable – though he was sure the essence he had seen while flying was not from this new unknown lunar.

Without appearing to have received any kind of commands what so ever – not even the subtlest of nods – the beast-pony troops fanned out and surrounded Speaker, the lunar simply saying: “You are to leave”

Well, at least that confirmed that this new lunar spoke sea-tongue, that was nice. Of course, the request itself was rather silly: “No. I’m here for my lunar mate, and I’m quite sure I’ve found her. I have no plans of leaving without her. My name is Bright Machine Speaker by the way”

“You will have to make new and disappointing plans, Bright one” the lunar stated firmly, his voice strangely undeniable.

Luckily Speaker knew how to recognize mind control charms – and thus quickly brought up his own defensive charm, rendering him quite immune to such tricks: “I will do no such thing. I swore an oath to Shimmer before she died, that I would come find her and bring her home to her friends. I intend to honor that. You have no right to make me an oathbreaker – I don’t even know who you are”

Speaker carefully observed the lunar’s reaction, clearly remembering what Shimmer had told him about how much value lunar’s tended to put on oaths and the importance of keeping them. The lunar ‘rippled’ slightly, clearly some manner of subtle shapeshifting taking place, but it wasn’t clear what he had done: “Of course you would have…”

The lunar’s displeasure was clear to see – though Speaker could not pick up the more subtle inflections and micro-expressions that accompanied it. That the lunar wasn’t telling him his name really annoyed Speaker: “What can I say? I’m a nice pony – I promised to bring her back. I might not have carved a ring in my flesh to mark the oath like she would have, but I swore it to her none the less”

The seagull flew down from the shaman hut and melted into a pool of moonsilver that began to reshape itself into a pony. A few seconds later Speaker was struck by how uncannily Shimmer looked like… well… Shimmer. She had the same grey coat, the same purple dreadlocked mane. Even her eyes were the same shade of deep blue. Was it an effect of her exaltation that had changed her? Was it a shapeshifting trick? Why wasn’t she talking to him…

“Shimmer…” Speaker said, taking a tentative step towards her.

Looking at Speaker, Shimmer didn’t react – though she didn’t recoil in horror or anything negative either. What was going on?

“What have you done to her?” Speaker said, his voice clearly communicating his rising anger.

The beast-pony shark creatures around Speaker looked somewhat worried at Speaker’s raised voice, and the lunar himself actually took a single step backwards. His voice too sounded a tad less confident as Speaker glared at him: “I… I have sworn her to serve me during her training. Lunars do not have the advantage solars have by starting out knowing all you need to know. I am simply training her as she once did me. Right now, she is under orders not to speak to you, and I know that she would very much like to, but I cannot release her until her training is done”

“She doesn’t have her tattoos yet” Speaker said, not thinking much of the lunar’s explanation. Not allowing her to talk to him? What a load of road apples.

It was difficult for Speaker to tell if the lunar’s expression was sad or angry – but he did recognize that the lunar was running out of excuses. Of course, that didn’t mean that the lunar had any intention of releasing Shimmer from whatever strange bonds he had on her. With a brief but deep sigh, as the surf washed around his hooves in the sand, the lunar replied: “Once her training is done, she will be free to do as she wishes – whether that’s staying here, going with you, or anything else”

Speaker nodded, listening as the lunar elaborated:

“She has to finish her training and earn her tattoos – plus she had stated to me that the first thing she wants to do once trained is to free her people”

Throwing a quick glance towards the graveyard: “Her people look’s dead”

It turned out that there were others. As the lunar explained, then Shimmer’s tribe had been attacked by slavers from Coral who had taken most of the able-bodied ponies of the tripe, leaving only the sick and the elderly: “This was a little over five months ago. It was while fighting the slavers that she exalted, running away and hiding the tribe’s foals in the jungles on this island. She helped rebuild, then I came and took her away. Changelings then attacked a few days ago, wiping out the rest. She came here to bury them, finished last night before the crabs would come with the tide”

Ok… so Shimmer’s exaltation hadn’t come about exactly like her last one. Interesting: “Right, so I can speed this up if I go free her tribe?”

The lunar briefly looked to Shimmer, who nodded eagerly with a big smile: “That will be acceptable – we will continue her training in the waters around this island. Once her tribe returns, we will know that you have done as promised”

“…right… uhm, where are they?”

The directions Speaker got were rudimentary, but serviceable. With that, the lunar bid Speaker leave. Drawing in essence from their surroundings, Speakers shaped the sorcerous spell that formed into his magical cloud. Before mounting the cloud, Speaker looked to Shimmer: “I cannot put into words how happy I am to see you again Last Shimmer. Stay safe – I will be back soon”

It struck Speaker that he didn’t actually know if the name she went by was Last Shimmer for this incarnation – but she had told him that she had used that name many times before, so it stood to reason. She certainly looked happy, her face brightening up as she waved at him while he mounted his cloud and flew off.

Once they were out of sight, Speaker sighed deeply. That had not been how he had planned on things going… but then again, as he thought it through, he did recall Shimmer having talked about how elder lunars trained fledgeling lunars. It gave them far better odds for survival, and usually set them up with a network of peers and maybe even friends.

Recalling how lost and alone he had felt when he had exalted, Speaker couldn’t help but feel a little envious. Sure, he had exalted along with Cash Charmer, but neither of them had really known what to do, knowing only that they were hunted by those who wished to kill anathema.

Lost in thought, Speaker barely even noticed as he began to nod off – sleep catching up to him as his body finally reminded him that he hadn’t slept for a very long time, the surprise and excitement of having found Shimmer having finally worn off.

This meant that his cloud evaporated into whiffs of essence and water vapor – and Speaker falling to the ocean.

It was a sleeping pony that impacted the water – Speaker slipping into the waves like a diving fisher-bird, barely making any kind of splash, as he unconsciously assumed his elemental immunity charm.

This did not go unnoticed, local water elementals spotting the magical pony sinking into the depths but not dying – such a strange abnormality… it had to be reported.

Speaker woke up a while later, in complete darkness. Flaring his caste mark, the light from the symbol of a setting sun in a golden circle – a ‘blind smiley face’ in common vulgar parlance – he looked around and wondered how he had ended up in a… wooden room?

Feeling around for a moment, Speaker quickly concluded that the room was moving side to side – he was on a ship. Listening carefully, he heard no steps or sounds outside his room – none of the usual hustle and bustle sounds of a ship with a full crew, of which he had heard plenty while on the Wing of Wing of Daana’d.

“Hello?” he called out, not really shouting, but feeling weirded out by how desolate the place felt.

Getting up from his cot, opening the wooden door and stepping out into the ship, Speaker found it… abandoned? There were no other ponies going about. This made no sense. Was it a ghost ship?

Quickly looking around with essence sight, Speaker found that the ship itself was magical – no doubt about it. He saw traces of moonsilver in the wood that made up the ship, and essence markers of blue and black jade within the walls. How very strange… but he saw no ghosts or spirits.

Finally getting up on deck, Speaker found a single pony who appeared to have been waiting for him.

“You’re finally awake – took you long enough” the mare with the short-cropped mouse-brown mane stated, her black and blue-stripped garb standing in stark contrast to muted wooden colors of the ship. There was something familiar about her.

Speaker squinted at the mare, the light from the dawning sun quite strong in his eyes as he had briefly gotten used to being in the relative darkness of the lower decks: “I… don’t I know you?”

“It certainly would have been a lot easier if you didn’t – would have been even easier if you didn’t have that bloody writ with you. No wonder Siakal refused to even touch you” the mare said, getting up and sauntering over towards Speaker.

As his eyes adjusted to the light, Speaker recognized the stars in her eyes and the azure headband she wore: “Iron Siaka – what are you doing here? And better yet, what exactly am I doing here?”

The sidereal frowned at Speaker, crossing her hooves as she leaned against the portside railings: “I fished you out of the water, after ‘talking’ half a dozen sharks out of not eating you. Your turn”

Noticing that Iron Siaka’s large blue maul had several fresh shark teeth imbedded in it, Speaker raised an eyebrow: “Talking them out of it? Must have been an interesting exchange of words – but thank you”

“No problem – but do tell me how far you are in your quest to find your lunar mate. The faster you’re out of here, the faster you’re not my problem”

Speaker explained that he had sort of found her – but that her training by elder lunars wasn’t done yet – so he was on a quest to wrap up her business here in the west. Iron Siaka nodded, noting that then the wording of celestial writ was still covering him: “…but the moment you do get her back, you will need to leave, quickly”

Agreeing, noting that he had little interest in western issues: “I can help a lot more ponies in the east, so that’s where I want to get back to. By the way, can you help me get to where this group of slaves are kept?”

As Speaker explained where he had to go, Iron Siaka quickly cut to the chase and divined the exact location of the slaves – an extinct volcanic island north of Wavecrest. Once they had nailed that down, she pulled out a scroll and an ink-well. Speaker laughed as he saw the sidereal scream and shout at the scroll, the ink darting out of the well and splashing onto the scroll to form some rather interesting looking old realm calligraphy: “Alright, once I pop this, you’ll get a temporary fate rewrite as a marooned pony destined to be picked up by slavers and sold to that specific island’s slave operation – you should get there very quickly”

“Thank you. If you’re ever in the scavenger lands, feel free to come by Sunhill – I’ll have Sully cook you dinner” Speaker said, packing his clothes away into elsewhere, as wearing eastern garb wouldn’t fit his new temporary cover story.

Iron Siaka dropped Speaker off at a small island not far from Wavecrest, activating the heavenly prayer scroll she had produced earlier just before leaving. Speaker didn’t feel any different, but as far local reality was concerned, a lot of things had actually changed: Speaker no longer appeared to have the glorious solar destiny – or potential for one. Instead, he was but a mere mortal earth pony, destined to be enslaved and sold and worked to death in the iron mines of the Five-Fang Island.

Retrieving his hearthstone amulet, Speaker reported his progress to Sunhill. He was certain that Cash and Sully found the idea of him having to play a naked marooned pony… again, would be funny. At least this time, with Iron Siaka’s fate alteration, he wouldn’t have to wait very long.

This of course did not mean that Speaker simply wanted to wait. Exploring the island quickly revealed an abandoned – or at least un-manned – depot full of cargo. None it was all that dusty, and some of the scuffmarks on the floor from the crates looked reasonably fresh. Probably something used by smugglers, or as a pirate cache for stolen goods.

At least the place had reasonably pleasant beds to sleep in, and a fair bit of dried foodstuffs.

The next day Speaker collected a very large amount of seaweed, leaving it to dry in the sun. A quick prayer to the local weather gods ensured that it wouldn’t rain for a while, and so a few days later the seaweed was dry enough to burn. Collecting it all, Speaker set up several large bonfires on the beaches around the island. Lighting them in sequence, he made sure that the still moist seaweed sent huge plumes of smoke high into the sky, one after the other, so that any passing ships would have the best odds of seeing it.

Just after lighting the third bonfire, Speaker saw sails on the horizon. A short while later the ship came close to the island, deploying a rowboat to come to shore.

“Alright, time to play my role” Speaker thought to himself, approaching the half dozen ponies in the rowboat as they got close enough to wade to shore.

Galloping out to meet the ponies, Speaker greeted them warmly in his heavily accented sea-tongue: “Hi! Oh, I am so happy to see you – I was marooned here a week ago. Can you help me?”

The ponies from the boat exchanged looks, not really saying anything. The pony in charge, a gruff looking mare, finally nodded – and they all drew clubs, knives and picked up their oars as weapons: “Not sure if you’ll call it help – but you’re coming with us, that’s for sure”

And thus, Speaker was enslaved, put in chains, and brought out to the slave-ship where he was briefly interrogated – where it seemed that the slavers bought Speaker’s story: “I’m telling you – it was that bastard realm captain. She was pissed that I didn’t pray to their idiot dragons enough”

The slavers didn’t seem to care much about why Speaker had been on the island. They chiefly wanted to know who Speaker was, to which end he simply said that he was an old and retired army medic from the east, out looking for an old friend. It was fairly obvious that the slavers wanted to know if Speaker was worth ransoming – which Speaker convinced them that he wasn’t, since he had no family to speak of nor any wealth back home – resulting in them just tossing him in with the rest of their live cargo.

The cargo-hold of the slave ship had the most unholy of foul stench. With how everyone were chained down, there was no room for anyone to go toilet anywhere, so everyone just sat in their own filth. Many were sick from a mix of malnutrition, bed-sores, infections from several weeks of sleeping in piss and shit. Speaker learned that the slavers did seem to check for anyone dead about once a day – usually before the one daily meal was given.

“So… how did you end up here? You don’t sound like you’re from these islands. Coral?” a tribal pony slave who could speak sea-tongue, who was next to him, asked, after Speaker had done his best without using essence to drain and clean the pony’s wounds.

Shaking his head, Speaker spun his yarn once more. He knew from his own experience that he wasn’t really that good a liar – not any worse than your average mortal, but by no means better than regular ponies either. It had to be the magical fate that Iron Siaka had spun that convinced everyone.

Being the stubborn git that he was, Speaker managed to talk the slavers into suppling the slave hold with buckets of ocean water to wash themselves in – if for nothing else, then so fewer of them would die, so the slavers had more product to sell. That he had to appeal to their greed was sad enough – but at least his efforts meant that only three other slaves died before they were unloaded at their new home: Five-Fang Island and its merciless iron mines.

Seeing daylight for the first time in over a week was hard enough, trudging along the docks among a few armed and armored pony guards that watched them like hawks. The island itself seemed pretty normal, for an island formed around an extinct volcano: It looked like the volcano had exploded and collapsed completely at some point, with the island having grown up around the rich and fertile volcanic soil. Speaker’s chain gang was marched past several plantations, until they reached the iron mines in the mountain foothills. Enroute, it struck Speaker a bit odd that there seemed to be very few guards. Perhaps the place operated on the idea that a chain-gang of slaves wouldn’t be able to run away very effectively… plus it looked like the whole island was under control of whoever ran the place, so there truly was nowhere to run, unless you wanted to feed the sharks that circled the island.

As they were herded into what looked like an area where large crates of cargo were being loaded onto slave-pulled wagons – iron ore? Iron bars? Steel? – a pony who appeared oddly well dressed for how dirty the mine was, stepped up in front of the twelve rows of chain-gangs and addressed them, loudly, in a sea-tongue that came with an accent Speaker recognized from Chanos on the Blessed Isle: “I am Overseer Pushed Pencils. I have been informed that there are enough of you that speak sea-tongue that you can actually be given direct orders for once. You will be shown to the bunkhouses, there you will find a place to sleep. Tomorrow you will be taken to the mines. You will not get anything to eat, if you did not produce six bushels of iron ore the previous day. The same rule will apply to tomorrow, so I suggest you work quickly unless you like going hungry for the rest of your stay here. Any attempts to escape or cause trouble will result in you being fed to your minders”

Speaker looked around in confusion. With the chain-gangs they were somewhere around two hundred ponies in chains – and there was a total of six armed guards. Being fed to the minders? It seemed logical that this overseer was referring to something else… but what? The sharks?

This was quickly revealed, as one of the guards struck the hard rocky ground with the steel-capped end of his polearm, the sharp and loud sound ringing out in the massive courtyard…

A few seconds passed, then they appeared out of thin air.

With rippling muscle and bright red fur, a crown of horn growing around their brow, standing twice the height of a pony and almost three times the width of one. Bloodhounds. Erymanthoi demons. No wonder they didn’t need that many pony guards for the place… if there were dematerialized demons all over the place.

Oh, this didn’t change anything – Iron Siaka had said that Speaker’s altered fate would help obscure his essence as long as it held up. Of course, she had also said that it would revert to his normal fate the moment he started using enough essence to flare his anima. To this end Speaker began planning how to either take control of the place, or at least free the slaves, as the chain-gangs were herded to the bunkhouses by the guards and the massive blood red demon who kept looking at them all hungrily.

At the bunkhouse Speaker was met by a wall of misery. From the groans of overworked slaves, to the stench of infected wounds and disease. This was clearly not a place where slaves were treated very well – or where slaves were expected to last very long.

To Speaker’s surprise their chains were taken off at the bunkhouse – of course, now that they had been told that there were demons about, the implied threat did wonders to keep almost everyone in line.

Almost everyone.

A young tribal mare, looking battered and bruised from the rough ocean voyage and lack of proper food, made a run for it the instant her chains were off. The guards just laughed.

She made it roughly fifteen yards before she floated up in the air, squirming as an unseen force lifted her up in the air. The bloodhound that materialized with her locked in a massive clawed paw, gave her a single hungry and happy look – then it bit her screaming head off and went about drinking every last drop of blood in her, to the point that it even wrung out her corpse as if it was a dish-rag, to get the last few drops.

“That’s what’ll happen to the rest of you if you run – now go sleep. Tomorrow, you work!” one of the guards called out, the other guards laughing.

Everyone quickly distributed themselves among the bunkhouses – too frightened to speak initially. When choosing a place to sleep, it struck Speaker that he didn’t really know what Shimmer’s tribe had been called: “I guess I’ll have to ask…”

Speaker’s first challenge was finding tribal slaves that could speak sea-tongue, or at least had someone still alive among them who could speak it. By the time he poked his head into the third bunkhouse, he spotted the ‘friend’ he had helped on the slave ship – and it turned out that he had spoken with the ponies in that bunkhouse already, to get a feel for who was there and how bad the work was: “Good to see you again medicine-pony. There are many in here who could use your help”

“And I will gladly help them – but I also need your help: I need to find ponies from a specific tribe who were brought here. They lived on an island with a crescent cove, with a circle of five palms growing on the beach in the middle of their village”

The skinny stallion thought for a moment: “The five-palm tribe… I have heard some of the ponies over in the corner over there pray to a five-palm god”

“Thank you. The ponies who need medical attention, if you could gather them up, I’ll look at them once I’ve spoken to the five-palm ponies”

The five-palm tribals were apparently scattered over three of the bunkhouses, but Speaker was able to learn that most of them were still alive – apparently there had been recent a cave-in that had killed most of the slaves before that, which was why the island was taking in so many new slaves at the moment. Speaker had to wonder if Iron Siaka’s fate alteration had caused that, as a method to get slavers to come by him and bring him to the island. Beyond that, the three five-palm tribals he spoke to were quite happy to hear that Last Shimmer were alive – to Speaker’s surprise they all knew the name, confirming Shimmer’s name. Apparently, she had been their shaman’s apprentice… another similarity to her last incarnation.

With all that somewhat cleared up, Speaker turned to the sick and injured ponies that had been assembled. While examining them, Speaker figured that he would have to get to the other bunkhouses to speak to all of the five-palm ponies… but then again, none of the ponies there wanted to stick around. His compassion bid him to rescue every single one of them.

The question was how. While carefully examining a badly sprained and swollen hoof, Speaker wondered whether he should simply try to sneak all the slaves away – or pick a fight with the demons and take control of the place. Considering the number of slaves on the island, then getting all of them away to safety simply wouldn’t be possible without being noticed. This left conquest as the only viable option – and whoever ran the place probably wasn’t going to release the slaves if he asked nicely.

Chapter 5 Struck Down

The Heaven's Ladder stylist insists on eating his soup with a ladder rather than a spoon. Somehow, this works.

…

The next morning, as the armed guards came into the bunkhouse ringing brass bells to wake everyone up at the crack of dawn, Speaker decided that he needed more information. Using a simple little charm, he was able to see the demons that paced the perimeter of the bunkhouses. None of them were walking close to the bunkhouses… which was good – though another aspect of the charm he had used meant that he would touch or bump into immaterial spirits and demons, so he had walk carefully when passing through the demon cordon, even more so to avoid looking suspicious.

“Keep up old pony!” one of the guards shouted, cracking a whip over Speaker.

As they were being marched to the mine entrances, Speaker overheard the more senior slaves explain how things worked to the new arrivals: Apparently that bushel thing about food was very true… but it wasn’t something you were rewarded for individually. The way Speaker understood it, then if there were one hundred slaves, then they had to bring out six hundred bushels of iron ore. If only half that were made, then only the first half of the ponies who got to the food stations would be fed. It was a collective punishment, with the slowest and weakest suffering the most.

Considering the poor condition of just the ponies in his bunkhouse, Speaker had to wonder how the place was able to remain profitable while wearing out and starving its slaves so much. The slaves bought had to be quite cheap for that kind of attrition to make sense.

Speaker also saw that the demons weren’t going into the mine – neither did the guards – but then again, you had to come out to get food and water… still, it meant that he could speak freely with the slaves inside the mine.

This of course turned out to be rather difficult – everyone was working hard, or squabbling over who got to work on the best veins, to pay attention to some bearded fool of a newcomer trying to address them.

Annoyed with the lack of attention – for Speaker didn’t know the charms that Sunrise or Cash had learned long ago to command such – Speaker chose to use his charms to observe the mine first: He quickly saw the flow of ore veins in the earth essence, and through that spotted where huge sections of ore vein had been missed. Second later Speaker charged that section of mining gallery wall, striking it with not a crafting charm, but one of martial intent.

In the first age solars had struck down the demonic palaces of the primordials, and so with his
pillar-breaking blow, he brought down all of the rock and the iron ore before him.

All the slaves in the mine heard the rumble, and all those near Speaker rushed in to dig out anyone caught in what they thought had been another cave in. What they found was Speaker standing on a giant pile of iron ore, enough to carry the food quota for all of them for weeks. Of course, Speaker was also glowing with a golden light, as he addressed them: “Listen to me ponies. I can free you all, if you let me help you. I can heal you of your hurts and diseases if you accept my guidance. I can see your cruel masters punished if you rally behind me – and I will see you returned to your homes if you follow me”

Many of the ponies in earshot bowed before Speaker, signalling their submission or consent – it was difficult to tell – but some stood uncertain, and one of those spoke up. The mare looked haggard and worn, her pelt scuffed and her hooves chipped: “Who are you? Hell, what are you? They have demons out there that eat you!”

Speaker nodded at the mare: “I am Bright Machine Speaker. The immaculates would call me an evil pony, but they would also call anyone who tries to free slaves owned by realm nobles evil – and they would call you fools for aspiring to freedom. That is who I am: I am a pony with powers granted to by the gods, and demons are no hindrance for me. I can shatter them as easily as I struck down this wall”

It had been a bit of a gamble – but Speaker had hoped that appealing to the mare’s likely wish for freedom, and pointing out how immaculate scripture said that slaves should simply submit to their unicorn lords and pray that they reincarnated into a better life in their next incarnation, would make her think less about him being what they would likely call solar anathema.

The mare looked to the ponies around her. Most seemed game, looking to Speaker eagerly. She still seemed hesitant. Jumping down from his pile of iron ore, Speaker spoke to her directly: “If you fear for your spirit, know that I will not ask any of you to pray to anything you don’t already worship. I came here to free the five-palm tribe, but now I will free all of you. I do this with no reward in mind other than knowing that it had to be done”

“What is your plan then? The ore you have found here, it’ll mean we won’t have to work in here other than haul this stuff out” the mare asked, still sounding apprehensive, but she was nodding along.

Relieved that he didn’t have to deal with any hostile holdouts for the time being, Speaker asked that word be spread. He said he would find more ore so that there would be enough for all the slaves – and he would dig out more of the gallery to make room for everyone: “Once we can gather everyone up, I’ll use my powers to teach you all to fight – not to fight the demons, I will handle those things, but so that you can match the guards outside. This will take time, but if we do this properly then we should be ready to rebel and take back the island in a few weeks”

The mare shook her head at Speaker – but she had already seen him do one impossible thing… so why not a couple others?

It was thus that word quietly spread throughout the tunnels of the mine. More and more slaves came to the mining gallery, while others went outside to fetch baskets so that the iron ore could be hauled out. The entire quota was met a fair bit before noon, all of the slaves cheering at Speaker once the basket-haulers came back from the outside to call for everyone else to put their tools down.

In the now vastly expanded gallery, it having been excavated into the form of a large underground amphitheatre, Speaker addressed the slaves. Of the very few ponies who weren’t convinced by the sudden appearance of a huge theatre inside the mine, or by the ore quota having already been reached, Speaker convinced the last few doubters by seeking out the most ill and injured slaves and instantly healing them before everyone’s eyes. Curing the lame and even regrowing the lost teeth of a pony who appeared to have been badly beaten in the mouth earlier, Speaker turned to the final pony of the three slaves with the worst health among the lot. This slave in particular appeared to have some very ugly infections in his eyes that was quickly turning him blind and quite sickly – the nature of the infections appearing quite strange to Speaker, for he couldn’t figure out how the slave had ended up like that: “How did this happen?”

“I… I insulted the overseer. I was brought before the unicorn that rules this island, and she… they did… did things to me…” the pony said, breaking into uncontrollable sobs and tears as the memories of the horrors that the poor wretch had been subjected to. Speaker cleared up the stallion’s eyes, washed away the sickness and flushed his system of infection. The crying continued, but quickly turned into tears of joy.

All of the slaves cheered for Speaker, but this last pony had given Speaker an idea: “So if you insult the overseer, you get taken to the pony in charge around here?”

Indeed – but he would only show up in the ore quota wasn’t met, to instruct the guards at the food tents to stop distributing meals. This gave Speaker a fun little idea, allowing him to spend the rest of the day instructing the slaves in basic martial fighting techniques using his educational charms.

The next day all of the slaves filed into the mines once more, and ore was brought out quickly – but the quota was not met… by exactly one bushel. One pony would not get to eat.

Come noon, when all the slaves gathered at the food tents for the thin poi or gruel they were usually served, the overseer Pushed Pencils stood ready with an abacus, counting the bowls of gruel poured out. Speaker had arranged that he would come last, and sure enough Pushed Pencils stood ready after the pony before Speaker had gotten her bowl: “None for you – the quota was not met”

Now, the overseer had expected Speaker to be sad – to be upset – not… smiling? Advancing on him? The overseer quickly cried for the guards to attend him, but with a flurry of martial finesse Speaker had the spears of the guards yanked from them and broken.

“Demons! Do you job! Kill this one!” the overseer howled, stumbling backwards.

Three bloodhounds materialized amidst the slaves, roughly shoving ponies out of their way as they lumbered towards Speaker.

“Demons, have your senses been dulled? Do you not feel it? Do you wish for the release of death that much?” Speaker said calmly, in old realm – the ancient language of gods and demons alike.

The bloodhounds stopped in their tracks. As brutish as they were, then none of them were stupid – and being magical in nature gave them many powers, including a greatly heightened awareness of their surroundings, though having been enslaved to guard slaves had likely made them ignore that sense for quite a while.

The overseer looked ready to piss himself in terror as he saw the bloodhounds start to back away from Speaker: “What… what are you?”

“I want to see your master. Take me to her, you pitiful worm” Speaker said, standing defiantly before the overseer.

Some very weary armed guards escorted Speaker to a mansion a few miles from the iron mines. It was not far from the plantations and… palm groves? Were they farming coconuts? How silly.

At the mansion the guards handed Speaker over to a master of ceremonies and a more well-dressed house guard. Speaker could only smirk as the guards didn’t tell the house guards anything – because now he was their problem.

The house guards and the master of ceremonies considered Speaker’s good mood to simply be defiance and rebelliousness – things to be crushed. To this end the MC ordered Speaker taken to ‘the pole’ out back and whipped twenty times before he was to be brought before the mistress.

Speaker had not expected a whipping – but figured that if he used his least shielding charm, then he would be able to tough out the blows without actually getting more than a few scratches.

At the eponymous pole, around which Speaker saw blackened stains on the coble from many a blood stains, a burly and masked stallion stood ready with a very nasty-looking whip: “Another one? Tie him up so we can get this over with”

Speaker knew well enough that a good master of the whip could strip flesh with every blow – and this stallion had the look of a seasoned torturer. Of course, once the whipping began and Speaker’s shield charm supernaturally toughened his skin like that of the most durable oak, all the solar ended up with were superficial scratches and bruises. Sure, the whipping hurt, but it didn’t really injure him.

The torturer was livid, looking at his whip as if it was the tool which was to blame – Speaker relieved that none of the guards present, nor the torturer, had figured out what he had been doing – but twenty licks of the lash had been given as ordered, even if no blood had been drawn.

Speaker was hauled back to the mansion, where the master of ceremonies at first accused the guards of not having gotten Speaker whipped: “He’s not even bleeding! What is the meaning of this!?”

“I think whoever sold you those whips got you good. Haven’t felt that nice since a whore tickled my jimmies with a feather, and by whore, I of course mean you mother” Speaker said with a wide smirk, staring the well-dressed stallion right in his eyes.

The master of ceremonies tried to remain stone-faced, but sneer did creep over his face: “The mistress will see that defiance taken out of you”

Home guards-ponies escorted Speaker to the third floor of the mansion, to a grand library with an impressively polished stone floor. Aside from the rows and rows of books, Speaker quickly spotted the huge summoning circle carved into the stone floor in the middle of the library. So, this was where they got the demons from…

The master of ceremonies stomped a firm hoof onto the stone floor, the noise ringing out across the quiet library. He then spoke in high realm: “Announcing: A troublesome slave severely in need of discipline”

Right – these realm jokers were often big sticklers of that kind of protocol. Being announced before the lord and whatnot. In Sunhill, Sunrise and Cash had instituted far more sensible and less pompous protocols, often to the great annoyance of visiting nobles. Ponies would greet you in the streets, especially for Speaker when he would go about his business in the hospital, while realm ponies like this… they would probably consider even being seen by commoners, serfs and slaves as some kind of social faux pas or insult.

There was a rustle in the far end of the library, scrolls and books being dropped. A minute or so later a very richly dressed unicorn mare with an off-white coat and matching coloured horn came forth. She bore the telltale signs of pure breeding, that of strong dragonblood, typical of being a realm-born noble: Her eyes were slitted like that of a dragon – plus she had that upper eyelid fold like many ponies from the west and the blessed isle, and Speaker could see bits of her coat around her neck covered with scales. Finally, there was her black mane: It had that unique blessed isle native look – smooth hair that hung flatly down around her head and neck, no curls or greater structure to it. She was a pony of noble birth from the blessed isle without a doubt.

The mare addressed her master of ceremonies, speaking in high realm as her MC had: “What has this one done? He doesn’t look like the usual sand-crawlers you drag up here”

“According to Pushed Pencils he broke three spears and gravely insulted his authority, defying your will in front of everyone” the master of ceremonies stated, reading off a scroll.

Speaker couldn’t help but smirk at the report not mentioning what he had done to the demons – actually, with that in mind, Speaker activated his spirit-sensing/interaction charm, to see if there were any demons hidden in the library. There didn’t appear to, though Speaker did see the oily vapours of perronele demons coming off the unicorn… so she had living armor demons bonded to herself.

The unicorn mare’s white horn flared, as did her eyes, as she closely inspected Speaker: “When did he arrive?”

“He arrived on yesterday’s shipment – according to the captain he was marooned on some random island they passed on the way here” the master of ceremonies noted, checking his scrolls once more.

Speaker recognized a keen intellect behind the eyes of the unicorn, her gaze intense – but he knew that unicorns didn’t have the ability to naturally learn any kind of essence sight. They needed magical equipment for that – essence-sensitive lenses or other such equipment – so whatever she was looking for, it couldn’t possibly reveal that he was a solar.

“What tongues does he speak? If he could explain to the slavers that he was marooned that means he could speak sea-tongue” she stated, turning away from Speaker as if she had lost all interest in him.

“Normally I speak river-tongue, but I am also quite fluent in old-realm, and I was taught high-realm in case of just this kind of encounters – and sea-tongue of course” Speaker replied in high realm, before the MC got a word in edgewise.

Both the unicorn and the MC quickly turned to look at Speaker with shock, who maintained his confident appearance. The unicorn quickly seized Speaker in her floating grip with her essence, her horn ablaze, as she pushed him up against a bookcase: “Who sent you? Are you a spy?”

“If I was a spy, why would I attract this much attention to myself? No, I simply came for your slaves – I don’t like slavery. Release all your slaves and I’ll be on my way” Speaker plainly stated, not sounding concerned at all that the earth-aspected unicorn had him by his neck.

Like the rumbling of great stones, then earth aspected unicorns were known to be slow to anger – but Speaker was in no doubt that he was pushing all kinds of buttons on the dragonblooded mare. He felt her essence tighten around his neck, shards of stone and crystal materializing where her essence condensed – producing a cloud of razor-sharp rock.

“You will still your tongue – or what comes out of your mouth next will be your last words!” she shouted, pressing her razor crystals up to Speaker’s neck… but he wasn’t bleeding?

Speaker knew that cranking up his personal shield charms would reveal him sooner or later – but this was just a fine time as any other: “Speaking as a fellow scholar, then you are welcome to test that assertion – but I doubt you will like the results”

Having spent much of his free-time sparing with his fellow solars back in Sunhill, Speaker had spent a lot of time honing his shield charms – the odd guild assassin, or deathknight, who would sneak in and try to kill them all had also sped things along, to the point that any foe striking at him would see him sheathed in righteousness – the golden shell around him as difficult to punch through as the heaviest of plate armor. The unicorn quickly realized this, dropping Speaker in shock as her normally quite deadly stone razors bounced off Speaker as if they were nothing: “Anathema!”

“Oh please. You’re the one keeping hundreds of ponies slaves, working them to death and ordering them starved when they don’t work hard enough – if there is anyone here who is the personification of evil here, it’s you” Speaker said, advancing on the mare.

Stumbling backwards, the mare looked at Speaker with terror in her eyes. With her horn blazing, she blasted Speaker with her elemental powers, hurling large chunks of instantly-forming stone and sharp crystal at him – but it all just bounced off his shield charm.

“Yield. I didn’t come here to kill you – but I will make sure that you cannot hurt anyone else, if you don’t cooperate” Speaker said as he put one hoof before another, making for a slow but purposeful advance.

“Demons! Protect your mistress!” she cried out, but Speaker had already checked – there had been no dematerialized demons waiting in the shadows in the library.

…he hadn’t counted on the ones that had been hiding within the bookshelves, materializing as they leapt clear of the shelves. The bloodhounds, huge and looming, snarled menacingly at Speaker and swung at him, but as he had demonstrated at the latest battle for Sunhill – and at quite a few other occasions prior to that – then fear was a purely optional thing for him, thanks to the charms he knew to render him fearless. Speaker didn’t miss a beat as he weaved and dodged, moving to deal devastating blows to each – both blows enhanced with special solar charms designed to slaying magical beings such as spirits, demons, gods or… originally… primordials.

The supernaturally thick hides of the bloodhounds did nothing against Speaker’s blows, their very beings disintegrating before his might.

“Even I can hear your perroneles screaming in your ear – they know what’s coming. One is begging for you to banish it back to malfeas, the other is begging you to get up and run away. Which will you choose?”

Back at the iron mine the slaves were finishing their mid-day meal and starting to wonder what happened to Speaker. The explosion from the mansion in the distance caught everyone by surprise.

Seeing the unicorn that ostensibly ruled the island come flying from the explosion at the mansion, her screaming all the way until she ate dirt in the staging area in front of the iron mines, left a lot of ponies – and quite a few demons – a bit confused at what had just happened.

Speaker came bounding after her, his monkey-leap technique lending his hops, skips and jumps supernatural distance and height. He couldn’t quite move as quickly as the unicorn he had beat the crap out of – but he was there before the dust had settled in the crater she had made: “My good ponies – I give you, your mistress, the great and powerful Lady Tourmaline Blossom of the great house Peleps. I do believe she has something to tell us all”

Hauling the bleeding and broken form of the unicorn mare up, that she might behold her slaves and her frightened guards, Speaker held Lady Tourmaline Blossom up for all to see: “Talk, or you get another round you heartless wretch!”

“Ok.. ok…” the unicorn mare croaked, her voice all kinds of messed up – though it was hard to tell if it was from the broken teeth, the fat lips, the messed-up nose, or the blows to her chest. At least she was polite enough to speak in sea-tongue – or perhaps just sufficiently afraid of Speaker’s fury: “All the pony slaves… they’re free – go!”

With a stern gaze, Speaker ‘politely’ suggested that the armed guards who had born witness scatter across the island and spread the good news. Once they were gone, Speaker observed the dematerialized demons around them. They didn’t exactly look happy their mistress was being turned inside out, but they seemed more than clever enough to know that they didn’t have to engage unless explicitly ordered to. Speaker in turn ordered the demons to gather into one spot: “Over there, and reveal yourselves – you know what will happen next”

Shrieks of shock and fear from the slaves rang out all over, as dozens of bloodhounds and a few other demons appeared, clustering around the spot that Speaker had pointed out. They didn’t look happy about being bossed around by a new master, but Speaker knew quite well that there was only one thing that demons truly respected: Power – chiefly spiritual power – and as a solar, especially one had recently refined his essence, then his power was far greater than any of them.

“What are you going to do to them?” one of the slaves asked Speaker, as he watched the demons arrive over the course of an hour.

Drawing a deep breath, Speaker kept his gaze on the demons: “I will do, this”

It was one of three basic bits of sorcery that Speaker had learned at that point – and he had in fact learned this particular spell from Shimmer: The way of banishment of lesser demons. Using his essence to illustrate a circle around the demons, he invoked the ancient Treaty of Limbs, the surrender pact that all of the demon lords who had survived the primordial war and found themselves in eternal captivity had signed. The final part of the spell was the mudra of victory over the primordials, Speaker standing tall on his hind-legs with his forelimbs spread out to the side in a mark of spiritual dominance. The demons all sneered at the display as their forms erupted into emerald-green flame, returned to the accursed demon realm – for the knew that against a powerful solar, banishment was the merciful option.

With only a small garrison of woefully outnumbered guards, taking control of the rest of the island took very little time. At the port two cargo ships were seized for the slaves to sail themselves home. The thoroughly defeated and humiliated Lady Tourmaline Blossom was left with her guards, amidst her servants who had all gathered around their lady’s mansion, desperately trying to fend off any angry slaves that had come to vent their anger before leaving on the ships, and even that they weren’t really capable of.

It took a few days, but once all the slaves had set sail, Speaker standing at the docks with a dirty great smile on his face, the solar breathed a sigh of relief.

“Are you quite done yet anathema?” came the voice of a mare behind him.

Turning to look, Speaker saw Lady Tourmaline Blossom. She still looked like shit. Her fat lips and other bruises were long gone, thanks to her own exalted healing factor, but her mane was a mess, and she was clad in rags barely better than what most of the slaves had been dressed in. Oh right, the slaves had looted the mansion for everything of value and made off with all of it on their ships.

“The name is Bright Machine Speaker – you’d do well to remember that”

Blossom spat on the ground before Speaker: “You’ve ruined me, you’ve taken away my slaves, my demons – killing me would be a mercy at this point. You can’t do anything more me”

Shaking his head, Speaker looked at the traces of burn-marks around Blossom’s neck where he had banished the living armor demon that had been bonded to her. The emerald fire had scorched her, which had left her weakened and easy for Speaker to toss around: “Your wealth was built by starving and crushing the souls of others. You will get no sympathy from me. If you want your wealth restored, go summon some demons to work your mines… see how long until they rebel and how gentle they are about that”

She did not appear to like hearing that – but also appeared wise enough to know that she wouldn’t win a fight with Speaker, no matter her hatred of him.

His work done, Speaker summoned essence from the air, the water and the ground, forming it into his magical cloud and flying off.

As he flew back to five-palm island, Speaker quickly caught up with the ship with the five-palm tribe. There were other ponies on board as well, slaves taken from other tribes that lived on islands near where the five-palm ponies had their territory. Landing on the ship, Speaker was greeted warmly.

Enroute to five-palm island, Speaker taught the tribal ponies on the ship basic agricultural and construction techniques. He figured they would be able to better exploit their own islands, and build proper piers for the ship they had taken. Considering that the tribe had previously only had experience with using canoes, then they had to learn to how make the infrastructure needed to support such bigger ships. It was also while teaching these charms that Speaker had an at first strange, but later quite welcome epiphany regarding his education charms – but that was quickly overshadowed as the tribal ponies started talking gods and worship.

What happened was that the few five-palm ponies who knew sea-tongue spoke extensively with Speaker – as did the other tribals – for they had grown to respect his power and wisdom, and wished to know where he had gotten it all from. This ultimately resulted in them starting to discuss whether to start praying to Speaker’s god, to Celestia, instead of whatever native gods they had previous thrown their lot in with. Of course, without their shaman present, then they couldn’t agree on that topic. Of course, they were happy to learn that Shimmer had survived back home, so they figured that such a decision could be made when they returned…

Right – about that… Speaker tried to explain that Shimmer had gain powers not unlike himself, powers bonded to him, meaning that she likely wouldn’t stay: “You’ll need a new shaman – but I’m sure she’ll help set you up with one”

This left the five-leaf ponies in a lot of debate, because being a tribal shaman was no small position of power and responsibility – plus it took many years to be trained up to become one.

Upon arrival at the right island there was much joy, though it was quickly tempered when the five-palm ponies found the graves of their kin. Speaker went looking for Shimmer, wondering where the other lunar had taken her.

The tribals quickly recovered some of their canoes and went about fishing and foraging for food, trying to rebuild their lives and homes, while Speaker scanned the village with essence sight to spot any trail of lunar essence.

It took three days before Shimmer and the other lunar showed up, appearing out the waves one as they walked onto the beach. The tribals were quite frightened, seeing the beast-pony troops that came along with them – typical fright against mutants, a normal reaction – but they also recognized Shimmer.

“Impressive. You work very fast” the elder lunar said, Shimmer remaining silent – though her eyes never left Speaker.

Having spent a while preparing for the encounter – and conferring with Cash Charmer back in Sunhill – Speaker cut to the chase: “Indeed. Now before we continue, I’m going to need to know your name”

“You can call me Grey Fin” the elder lunar said without missing a beat.

His lie-detection charm on, Speaker frowned: “Your real name…”

The elder lunar made a less than pleased expression, remaining silent for a moment. Speaker in turn approached Shimmer: “If he’s not going to play ball, I can at least welcome you back to my circle”

The magical spears of the half-shark beast-ponies sparked as they locked together to block Speaker from getting close to Shimmer. The elder lunar had raised a hoof: “No”

“You can say that – but I am a solar, and she is my lunar mate. You have no right to keep us apart. I have fought a Deathlord to a standstill, and slain more deathknights than I care to count. You want to provoke a fight here? Go ahead, but know that your odds are not good and that I have three other solars at home who will bring down heavenly fury on you, even if you stop me!” Speaker stated, having grown more than a little angry at these pointless games now that he had fulfilled his end of the bargain.

The beast-ponies certainly didn’t look enthused, Speaker’s animal flaring up so that the golden fire of passionate soul burned around him. The elder lunar, to his credit, didn’t flinch: “Her training isn’t finished. You can come and make your offer to her when she’s done”

“I can finish her training – I am a very good teacher. I even let my students talk”

The two kept looking each other in the eyes. This was a pissing match, a contest to see who flinched first. They got right up in each other’s face, not really saying anything to each other, but subtly flexing and trying to psych out the other.

The elder lunar’s features rippled, him shapeshifting in an instant into a massive beast-pony creature that was equal parts squid and pony, but the thrice the size of a pony. His eyes were huge and swirling, almost hypnotic – even his own troops averted their eyes – and all of the tribal ponies ran off screaming.

Speaker stood resolute. He knew the essence patterns of fears, and thus controlled his own fully. In knowing this pattern of fear, he also knew how to project it onto others: “No, now yield”

With but three words spoken plainly, the elder lunar’s tentacles curled up and became wrinkly. The giant monster stumbled backwards, its eyes wide. With a voice that rattled the very souls of all who heard it – all except Speaker – the monster trembled: “Truly… I think I underestimated you”

Having been the one to flinch, the lunar dissolved into moonsilver and shrank back into a normal pony. Speaker just stood still, eyes still locked on the lunar, waiting for a proper answer.

Bowing his head, the elder lunar breathed deeply: “I am known as Sage of the Depth – and ultimately all Shimmer needs to finish her training is her formal introduction to the Silver Pact and for her to receive her tattoos. You can come along for that. If she wants, she’s all yours after that”

With a sharp breath, Shimmer appeared as if she was suddenly about to say something – both Sage and Speaker turning to look at her, but she caught herself and simply smiled widely. Instead of saying anything, she leapt at Speaker, hugging him tightly.

Once they had hugged it out, Speaker was instructed to follow the two, and to gird himself for they were going into the wyld.

Speaker kept apace easily on his magical cloud, Shimmer flying next to him as a seagull, while Sage swam at great speeds down in the water, guiding the two.

To Speaker’s surprise they didn’t have to fly for very many hours before things started to change. The water that the sage swam through became thicker, waves locking into place like stiffening jello. Soon the Sage strode along the ground in his massive beast-pony form, the cobalt-blue glow from his limbs clearly showing the charms he was using essence to gallop so very fast.

In turn, the air became thick and moist, making it difficult to breathe for a brief moment, but then Speaker activated his chaos-repelling pattern, enforcing the reality of creation around him. The air cleared up instantly, and beneath him Sage dropped into fluid water once more, instantly switching to swimming once more.

Looking back, Speaker could only see rainbow clouds obscuring the horizon. There were truly in the wyld…

“Solar, end your stabilizer charm. We are close to the waypoint, your charm would harm it” Sage called out, launching himself out of the water.

Speaker did as request, allowing Sage to land on the ‘solid’ water as he came down.

A moment later they transitioned into a new waypoint in the wyld, a new strange biome where it appeared that they were on an island… but it was all a lie – Speaker could tell: It was made of wyld energies tied together with stolen dream-stuff, gossamer harvested from ponies. To this end it made sense to end his chaos-repelling pattern, for it might terminate whatever strange magic had been used to craft this wyld hideout.

Landing next to the Sage, Speaker breathed deeply and noted that the ambient wyld energies of the places were almost non-existent: “Impressive – do you have a reality engine here to maintain this place?”

The sage chuckled: “No, nothing so advanced – though I have heard of lunars with hideouts deeper in the wyld maintained by first age wonders like that. No, we have some captive changelings we force to maintain the place under pain of iron. Now, welcome to The Western Dam, from which a thousand streams spring, where we hold back the tide”

Chapter 6 Moontouched

The Black Claw stylist swallows a spoonful of soup before blowing on it, and makes a great display of how his tongue has been burnt. The hearts of everyone in attendance go in sympathy out to the Black Claw stylist, and they curse the wicked soup that would scorch so fair a tongue!

…

Of all the things that Speaker had seen, of all the things he could remember from the first age, then this “Western Dam” was a completely new experience: The ground was… solid, sort of, but it was like walking over a pontoon bridge, or the Denzik city ship, as if everything was floating a little bit, but at the same time there was grass and other strange wyld-wrought plants growing, jiggling, moving, as if the whole place was a fever-dream of an island made real.

It was a refuge and safe meeting place for lunars operating in the west, or operating in the western wyld – though it looked… very barebones. Literally: A lot of totems and decorations wrought of strange bones were strewn about the place, a few structures even appearing built by massive bones from gigantic oceanic monsters, or perhaps giant changeling monsters, with hides or rough-spun fabric or sailcloth stretched over them. Everything looked very crude, very hastily set up – but at the same time nothing looked to be that expensive to leave behind.

And then there were the ponies. Four of five dozen of them, milling about the place. Some, where sitting around bonfires, others were cleaning fish they had caught, others appeared to be wrangling captive changelings. A few were wrestling each other with some cheering them on, others were singing – the whole place had a cheerful campground vibe to it, that reminded Speaker of his youth with the Lookshyan boyscouts, when out camping in the eastern jungles.

“Sage of the Depth, you came – I take it that your trainee is ready for her markings?” An elderly-looking mare with bright, almost glowing, moonsilver tattoos, said in sea-tongue as she approached Sage, Speaker and Shimmer.

Changing back into a pony, Sage threw Shimmer a brief glance, then turned to the mare: “Oh I’m sure I could teach her more – but she’s ready to fly the coop, especially now that her solar showed up”

“You… no…” the mare began slowly, looking first at Shimmer, then at Speaker with eyes turning wide.

Speaker couldn’t tell if the mare was afraid, or if it was a positive reaction. The mare approached him, a brief glance with essence sight telling him that her essence was at least as potent as that of Sage, both of them more powerful than himself. Sizing Speaker up, the mare sniffed at him… wrinkling her nose: “You smell of the everfree forest, easterner”

“I am born of Lookshy, but I am one of the lords of a city state that goes by Sunhill, which is north of Great Forks, further east from Lookshy. Last Shimmer was instrumental in building Sunhill to what it is today, so there’s a lordship waiting for her there if she wants it” Speaker stated.

Sage left Speaker and Shimmer with the other lunar, trotting off. The old mare looked at Speaker with a distrusting glare: “You would do wisely to watch your step and stay quiet – there will be others here who will not want solars here”

“I have no intention of sticking around – when can Shimmer be ready to travel?”

“I will have the inks rendered soon enough. Consider carefully whether you actually attend the marking ceremony – you may have to fight for the right to be there” the old crone said, sounding eerily pleased with her words, as if she was hoping to see a fight.

Speaker acknowledged that he had understood the crone’s warning: “Very well – by the way, what do I call you?”

“I go by Five Horns, but you will call me Elder Horns, of the Crossroads Society. I am the keeper of this den”

Satisfied, Speaker suddenly found himself being pulled silently on by Shimmer towards a large bonfire surrounded by dozens of ponies. Elder Horns waved them off, shaking her head.

“Finally – can you speak to me now?” Speaker wondered.

Shimmer instantly stopped tugging Speaker towards the bonfire, turning to him and shaking her head. Speaker sighed: “Right, then we should find Sage and have him release you from that oath of silence – though I do find it impressive that you’re sticking to it this well. The Shimmer I knew would have found it very difficult to stay quiet like this”

The mare made a very frustrated expression, clearly communicating agreement with Speaker’s assessment. She then looked around, even sniffed the air, and began hauling Speaker in a different direction.

Seeking out the Sage, the two tracked him to a small hut guarded by half-shark beast-ponies. Approaching the hut, the beast-ponies crossed their magical spears to bar the two entry.

Stepping up in front of them, Shimmer… didn’t say a word? Yet Speaker got the distinct impression that a conversation was being had. The unseen and unheard back and forth continued for a few minutes, until the guards pulled back their spears and allowed Shimmer – not Speaker – entry.

Shooting Speaker an apologetic look before heading inside, Shimmer disappeared behind the pelt that covered the doorway. Speaker wondered how these shark-ponies talked. Could they even vocalize? He hadn’t heard them say anything: “Care to fill me on what she said?”

The two shark-ponies exchanged glances and more unsaid words, then shook their heads at Speaker, leaving him high and dry.

Annoyed, but not wanting to cause a scene as it might complicate his situation with Shimmer and her tattoo ceremony, Speaker looked around for something else to pass time with. Sitting down, he checked in with Sunhill to give another status update, and check-up the medical wards. The doctors that helmed the medical wards were thankful for the advice and instructions on the few complicated cases that had come in since Speaker’s last check-in.

His last consultation was cut short when Speaker felt someone poking him. Snapping his perception back to his own body, Speaker looked up at the… pony with a large amount of cat features? Forelimbs with paws instead of hooves, his head had cat-like features, tail was a large furred sausage, but there was still a cutie-mark, and hind-limbs had hooves and the lunar was covered in moonsilver tattoos: “You there?”

“Yes? Can I help you?” Speaker inquired, feeling a tad annoyed that his medical consultation had been disrupted.

The cat-lunar bounced back a bit: “Oh, it talks… who are you? You’re new here – who did you come here with?”

Briefly considering his options, Speaker was torn on whether to simply flash his caste mark to introduce himself, or to say who and what he was: “Does it matter?”

“It does” the cat-lunar said, smiling with a mouth that was far wider than that of a normal pony… and had much sharper teeth – and a single claw extended from his paw to pick those teeth: “…we get sidereal spies trying to sneak in here fairly often. Have to check all new faces, and sometimes even the old faces – maybe peel off your eyes to see if there are stars hidden behind them”

Ah, operational security. This was a problem that Speaker knew well, with all the guild spies and deathlord spies that routinely try to sneak into Sunhill: “Right – and how do I know you’re not one?”

The cat-lunar paused for a moment, then he smirked and twirled around himself quizzically: “Oh… how DO I know I’m not a sidereal spy?”

Speaker chuckled as the cat-lunar wandered off talking to himself. A tap on his shoulder made him turn: It was shimmer.

“Can you finally talk now?” Speaker asked, it occurring to him that he didn’t really know how her voice would sound.

Shimmer looked timid. There was a nod, but at the same time she suddenly seemed strangely shy compared to how eager she had been earlier. Still, she had the same blue eyes, the same purple dreadlocked mane, the same grey coat. This was Shimmer, no doubt about it.

“Sage of Depth said it was ok for me to talk… I just… I don’t know what to say” Last Shimmer finally said, her voice young and vigorous, but at the same time her voice was a bit deeper than the Shimmer Speaker remembered. It was close enough though.

This time it was Speaker’s turn to embrace Shimmer, hugging her dearly: “Last time I heard your voice, you were dying… I can’t tell you how good it is to hear you alive and well again”

Since he was hugging Shimmer, Speaker couldn’t see the very distraught and weirded out expression Shimmer was making in response to that statement: “Ok…”

“Oh, so you vouch for this stranger?” the cat-lunar said, having appeared out of nowhere once more.

Letting go from the hug, Speaker turning to look at the cat-lunar… but he wasn’t there. Shimmer in turn had been able to track the lunar, looking down underneath them where a leopard-looking large cat had snuggled up: “Yes – he is my solar mate. Now go bother someone else”

The leopard-pony slinked off, leaving Speaker and Shimmer to awkwardly look at each other.

“So…” Speaker began, but Shimmer sighed to interrupt him: “I spent three weeks crying after burying everyone – and then Sage came and trained me… I’m grateful that I can talk again, but with you here now… I need some time to process this. I’m sorry milord”

Smiling, Speaker nodded: “I understand – I remember how tumultuous it was to exalt. I’ve only been a solar for a few years myself… and unlike you here, I had no-pony to help train me or guide me”

Shimmer shook her head: “Yes milord… they keep telling me I should be grateful…”

“You don’t sound sure?” Speaker commented, looking around the camp for something more positive to talk about.

Shimmer scratched the ground, making an expression that Fred couldn’t quite nail down. It was a subtle mix of disgust and distrust: “Sage has some very… strong ideas… about how things should be done. Kept trying to talk me into staying here, saying that it would be bad if I go with you – that I’ll just get killed again – but I just feel… ugh… I’m sorry Lord Bright – I’m not good at this yet”

“Have you spoken with any other lunars about this?”

“Couldn’t – Sage had me promise to not vocalize… I had to learn to talk squid and shark, and nobody here but Sage and his soldiers speaks that – but we can do that now Lord Bright!” Shimmer said, the tone of voice telling a subtle story of harsh training and an unforgiving teacher.

Thus, the two walked among the ponies of the ‘Western Dam’, talking to other ponies. Speaker saw a lot of ponies suffering from wyld mutations, and Shimmer explained that the great western dam was a refuge for ponies who had been cast out from their own, for having been mutated by the wyld: “Sometimes fisherponies drift into a patch of wyld-tainted water, or they’ll catch a fish that swam through it and whoever eats it ends up mutated… and they’re the lucky ones who aren’t just murdered by their own tribes or villages, or eaten if they turn into a fish – it’s horrible Lord Bright”

Speaker recalled of the old Shimmer having told of similar stories, of fisher-ponies getting caught in wyld-storms and turning into fish or seals that their own tribes-ponies would later hunt and eat. Shimmer said that stories like that were often told to foals and fillies in the west to teach them why staying away from the wyld was so important.

“I can heal mutations – maybe we could organize something here, to help them?” Speaker suggested.

Shimmer thought about it for a moment: “Sage and Horns both told you that there are lunars here who won’t like having a solar around. I like your idea Lord Bright, but we’d have to get Horn’s blessings”

“Then let’s find her”

The den-mother, venerable elder Great Horns, was found directing mutant ponies around for setting up… something. Seating arrangements, strangely coloured and oddly brittle wyld-seaweed for building up a fireplace and clearing the ground by rolling the grass back as if it was a carpet.

“Last Shimmer – showing your friend around?” Elder Horns mused.

Nodding, Shimmer asked about the mutant refugees: “Speaker can heal them… but he’ll probably start flaring up if he does that. Who do you think will complain to you about that?”

“Nobody” Elder Horns said knowingly.

Shimmer squinted: “What? But you said earlier to Lord Bright…”

“Yes – now think young one, why would anyone complain to me? No, what would they do instead?” Elder Horns asked, clearly challenging Shimmer to puzzle out the answer on her own.

Speaker figured out the answer instantly, though he held his tongue: Elder Horns was clearly insinuating that the lunars would go straight to using force against him – not simply bellyaching about his presence. It took Shimmer a few tries, but she figured it out eventually, though she wasn’t happy about it: “But you’re the den-mother here – you can say Lord Bright’s allowed to stay here”

“Why would I do that? He’s not involved with any project that anyone here is working on – and he hasn’t been subtle about wanting to go home once you’re ready to leave – if he gets kicked out early, it’s no skin off my back” Elder Horns noted while pulling various strange jars out of elsewhere and arranging them in a circle around her.

Shimmer was about to get angry and say something stupid, but Speaker put a calming hoof on her shoulder: “Don’t – just confirm that she won’t object to me healing the mutants here”

Elder Horns simply nodded: “You two go right ahead and heal those who want it – just be ready to face the music when Three Tails or Scale Tooth catches wind of you”

Leaving Elder Horns to her business, the duo headed to the largest group of mutants they could spot. The mutants appeared to be singing around a large fireplace where dried mutant plants were burning. The fire had strange colors, of the sort you only found in the wyld, with colors that didn’t truly exist.

With a few discreet inquiries, word quickly spread that a magical healer had visited the dam, one who claimed that he could undo mutations. Speaker’s charms worked flawlessly, his order-affirming blow striking at the chaotic energies that had tainted the ponies who sought out his treatment. It was a bit messy, as tentacles, scales and other growths were shed, while internal mutations were similarly excreted from one end or the other, often at high pressure. Despite the harrowing experience for his patients, then they were all smiles once Speaker was done – quite a few of them crying with joy, now that they could return to their families and tribes.

Speaker in turn found the experience delightfully rewarding. With but a glance he could intuit all that was wrong with the mutants, from physical mutations to wyld-induced mental issues or the dreaded wyld-addictions which were known to lead ponies to keep seeking out the wyld, until they mutated so much that they entirely stopped being ponies.

Word quickly spread throughout the refuge, and even elder Horns came by to nod approvingly as Speaker laid his hooves on puss-leaking mutant boils, the horrible afflictions fading away as golden light washed over them.

That was when the ground shook. And again. And again. The impossibly heavy hoof-stomps were impossible to ignore as the oddly lean and wiry looking lunar mare approached: “Shiver me timbers… what is this nonsense?”

The no-longer-mutant ponies tried explaining the situation, but were all swept aside by an elongated limb from the approaching lunar: “What grog-brain thought it was a good idea to invite a bloody solar in here?”

Shimmer got up in front of the lunar: “Sage of the Depths led him here, and he is my solar mate – so back off!”

The wiry lunar smirked and looked down at Shimmer – despite being at the same height as her. A silvery ripple ran along his length: “Stand aside young-blood”

“Scale Tooth, back off!” Shimmer said, appearing surprisingly brave despite knowing full well that she was hopelessly outclassed by the looming lunar elder.

Scale Tooth looked at Shimmer, his eyes a baleful pale glow: “Prancing around with borrowed courage… how pathetic. Stand aside young blood, or you’ll get hurt”

Finally, Speaker spoke up, not turning to look at Scale Tooth, but addressing him none the less: “Touch her and you will have to answer to me. Chose the wiser option. I have fought a deathlord to a standstill”

The elder lunar switched his attention from Shimmer to Speaker: “You dare threaten me?”

“Yes – and as Shimmer pointed out, then if you have issue with my presence and who led me here, then take it up with Sage of the Depths who saw fit to guide me here, or me directly” Speaker said quickly and succinctly, knowing from conversations with the old Shimmer that many martially inclined lunars only respected courage and might, so he opted to present a fearless front.

Scale Tooth took a deep breath through his nose in Speaker’s direction: “You stink of sidereal essence”

“I have a lot of friends, some sidereals – some of them even owe me favours. Bite me” Speaker retorted, well aware that such a taunt might be taken as a form of encouragement to start a fight.

The lunar appeared wise enough to recognize the taunting dismissal for what it was. The way he wrinkled his nose at Speaker in disgust certainly spoke volumes – but the most telling response was how Scale Tooth began to swell…

With protean power, as befit a chosen of Luna – the goddess of the moon of many shapes, Speaker and Shimmer both saw Scale Tooth swell into a gigantic crab monster. Its massive shell appeared thick and replete with spikes, and its eye-stalks homed in on Speaker with deadly intent – and its gigantic claw made a lazy swipe, more to intimidate than to actually hit and hurt anyone.

The mutants and other ponies who had come to Speaker for healing ran for their lives, while Speaker and Shimmer stood firm. The half-crab monster howled, foaming at its mouth. “Be gone solar, sidereal friend. You are not welcome here!”

Shimmer looked up at the gigantic beast, the crab-monster easily being the size of a small ocean-faring ship: “Lord Bright… how do we do this?”

“Like this” Speaker said calmly, rushing towards the crab with amazing speed. Even with the finest of predatory charms, Scale Tooth couldn’t keep up, allowing Speaker to get under the lunar and wrangle his legs. Tripping the giant lunar, the massive creature barely managed to tip over and touch the ground before Speaker managed to buck him high into the sky.

Shimmer looked on in amazement: “What the… how?”

“Hoof the daystar style is very good at grapples and throws… even more so with large targets” Speaker said, catching his breath as the crab monster flew up.

Now, as most ponies would recognize that what goes up has to come down. Speaker disagreed, using a strangely subtle martial arts charm to make sure that once Scale Tooth reached the peak of his flight… that he stayed there.

Doing a double-take, Shimmer couldn’t quite understand why the giant crab wasn’t coming down: “Why… why isn’t he falling?”

“Because I like floating targets – they’re easier to hit” Speaker noted, calling upon his magical weapons from the extra-spacial realm of elsewhere. The golden disc phased into reality, attached to Speaker’s right forehoof. A second golden disc, one featuring a large hole in the middle, phased into being on Speaker’s left forehoof.

Flinging both discs at Scale Tooth, Speaker applied the linear flight principle he knew so well – making Scale Tooth fly high into the sky as both discs banked and struck the giant crab with their flat sides, imparting great force upon the floating lunar, but not really harming it. This continued for a good half minute, the discs smacking the giant crab around up in the air, like foals playing with a ball.

When the giant crab vomited, spraying sick everywhere from on high, Speaker finally let Scale Tooth drop, crashing into the ground with a grand plume of water and dirt flying everywhere from the muddy crater.

Walking up to the giant crab, Speaker asked: “Do you yield?”

Its eye-stalks barely able to stand still, still spinning around from how the crab had bounced around up in the air, Scale Tooth was barely able to string words together: “You… you dirty rotten…”

Holding one of his golden discs up to one of the eye-stalks, Speaker had the disc deploy a ring of golden razor hooks around its edge, the razors quickly spinning into action with a puff of steam from the disc: “I defeated you without hurting you. Accept that, or I can defeat you by also hurting you”

Struggling to get up, clearly still dizzy, the giant crab made strange angry crab noises. Silver-blue light glowed from its joints and exposed soft parts like its mouth and eye-stalks: “This isn’t over!”

“Very well – just remember, you chose this” Speaker shouted, spinning around and launching his bladed disc at the giant crab in rapid succession, the disc zipping back to his hoof faster than the eye could see, allowing him to throw it repeatedly as if he had multiple identical discs.

Scale Tooth laughed as the spinning-bladed disc scraped at his shell and claw: “So that’s why you tried to trick me with your flying tricks – you can’t actually hurt me with that thing. My shell is the thickest there! Realm ballista bolts do nothing to me!”

Shimmer had retreated away from the fighting, having realized long ago that she had absolutely no chance at influencing the outcome of the bout. She looked on with amazement as Speaker lit up, bright golden soul-fire burning around him as his anima roared into view: Three pairs of beautiful golden wings unfolded around him, centred on a glyph-covered golden gear that spun around him. It felt so very familiar to her. It felt right. It felt safe.

What had he done to flare his anima that much?

With a trick of the hoof Speaker tucked his bladed disc away into elsewhere, instead retrieving the other disc he had, the one with a big hole in the middle of the disc. This disc didn’t deploy blades around its outer edge: With a strange magical sound it instead of lit up with an edge of bright golden light, and once more Speaker spun to fling the disc with great momentum at Scale Tooth who wasn’t quite done chuckling.

But this was different. Scale Tooth’s roar showed that much: As the disc struck and burned deep grooves into the crab shell and zipping back to Speaker’s hoof, only to be flung again, other ethereal copies of the disc sprung out of Speaker’s anima and cut into the same groove in the armor, deepening them greatly. Scale Tooth raised his massive claws to defend and parry the discs and their magical copies, but they simply cut into the shell segments that covered the claws… over and over, and with each time the disc hit, so came two more phantom discs that melted just as much shell away.

Before Scale Tooth had any idea of what was going on, much of his oh so grand crab shell had been cut away, leaving large sections of his soft innards completely exposed.

The giant Lunar could not do much to recover other than use healing charms to close up what few wounds the shell-cutting had inflicted on him as the compromised shell greatly hindered his range of motion, with Speaker leaping up on the giant crab and holding his glowing disc’s edge up to an expose section of Scale Tooth’s innards. Bending back an eye-stalk so that the crab could see what he was threatening to do, Speaker spoke once more: “Yield, or this inside goes of you – and once inside, it will not make it stop until you are dead”

Foaming briefly at his mouth, Scale Tooth roared in impotent frustration – but as the roar abated the crab spoke: “I yield…”

Jumping down from the crab, Speaker found himself approached by other lunars that congratulated him on his cunning and clever use of exotic martial arts. Elder Horns was among them: “…and you barely even spilt his blood. How will he ever live this humiliation down?”

“That sounds like his problem, not mine” Speaker noted, very satisfied that he had been able to win quickly and efficiently.

Elder Horns shook her head: “I’m sure he’ll vent his fury on some more realm shipping once he leaves. Now, I have gathered my inks for Last Shimmer’s tattoos. Bring her to where we spoke earlier”

At the ceremonial circle, many a pony – quite a few of the ones Speaker had treated for mutations – along with various lunars, even a surly Scale Tooth in pony form, sat and observed as Elder Five Horns shapeshifted a hoof into a clawed hand, dipping a very long claw into a clay jar of glowing moonsilver ink: “Last Shimmer. Your training is complete, is this true?”

Shimmer, sitting in front of Elder Horns, bowed her head: “Yes, Elder Horns”

“Good. Now, to those present, those who have witnessed and overseen her training, has her mettle been tested?” the elder asked out.

There was a brief murmur among the ponies present, after which another lunar spoke up: “Last Shimmer exalted during a changeling raid, slaying dozens and even fending off a changeling noble with no real training or combat experience. I first caught up with that attack once she had routed them”

Elder Horns nodded, using her claws to trace the swirling patterns of moonsilver into Shimmer’s coat: “What of her succor?”

Speaker briefly wondered exactly what was meant by that strange and archaic term, but that was when Sage of Depths spoke up: “Last Shimmer agreed to a complicated and debilitating oath, as part of my training to her. She was not allowed to speak any words of a common tongue under any condition until released from the oath, and she impressed me by never once failing to uphold her promise. Similarly, while still under that oath, she even managed to impress her solar mate”

Tracing more strange tattoo scribbles onto Shimmer’s hide, Elder Horns nodded as she asked once more: “Good good, a trustworthy lunar will always make a good name for herself. Now, her glory was without a doubt tested during the changeling attack – but has that been tested additionally?”

Once more Speaker had to wonder exactly what was meant by that term, but here Scale Tooth spoke up in a solemn tone: “She faced me down, even when I challenged her solar mate for his right to be here – I used my most potent charms of intimidation, but she didn’t even flinch, buying her mate time to figure out a clever way to defeat me”

“Clever – a pony who both thinks before she acts and thinks ahead. What of her cunning?” Elder Horns said, running both sets of silvery hoof-claws over Shimmer’s hide to impart more tattoos.

Speaker saw how Shimmer shivered, how her teeth were gritted – he figured that the tattoo process probably hurt quite a lot, especially when done with such crude implements. At least he didn’t need to think too deeply about what cunning meant.

Sage of the Depths told of a story where he had challenged Shimmer to throw a fleet of realm slave ships off course, where she had used her charms to swim up under them and alter the shape of their rudders every night, making it impossible for them to navigate or even stay in formation, allowing them to be picked off one by one, their cargo freed: “They never saw her, heard her, nor suspected of what she did. They all thought it was the evil winds of a storm mother, making them throw many expensive offerings over board in vain, all of which we netted and used to fund worth causes”

Elder Horns smiled: “A clever little trick – well done. Finally, what of her wisdom?”

Here Sage of Depths spoke of how well Shimmer had taken to sorcery, how she had banished six swimming demons holding up a Lintha barge, and how she had taken to the elder tongue, reading sunken scripture on the bottom of the sea. Speaker didn’t get the context for this, but this somehow elicited gasps from some of the other lunars. Even Elder Horns looked up, appearing impressed: “She took on six of the ‘sour swimmers’ at once with a banishment ritual? Oh, that does it… Shimmer joins the no-moon caste once more!”

The lunars present cheered as Elder Horns traced the last bits of tattoo onto Shimmer, after which she made a series of strange arcane gestures that Speaker recognized as the old realm mudras for truth, duty and creation. The mudras manifested as moonlight glyphs which swirled around Shimmer and then seeped into her tattoos, which shifted and changed. Speaker couldn’t recognize any old realm symbols revealing themselves in the tattoos, but it did make him wonder if one could read the tattoos somehow.

“Now arise Last Shimmer, chosen of Luna of the No Moon caste! Protect creation and bring honor to the silver pact!” Elder Horns pronounced, Shimmer’s anima erupting in a beautiful silvery crashing of waves and a swirl of glowing white feathers.

Chapter 7 Gifts and Rewards

The Crane stylist waits for the soup to make the first move, passing the time by idly discussing philosophy with his meal. After a few hours, everyone else is done and ready to go, but the Crane stylist has found the soup to have a rather charming and insightful personality.

…

The celebrations in Shimmer’s name were… arguably modest. It was a party at a hastily made camp, not a party at a luxurious palace or manse. Still, good times were had and Shimmer were given gifts to help her on her way, though it was via the uniquely bloody tradition of Lunars:

Elder Horns tore flesh from her own body, moulding it into a glowing sphere of essence-infused meat that she offered to Shimmer: “It will digest slowly and imbue you with sorcerous knowledge, use it well”

Another lunar offered up a small chest of silver bars, the chest thoroughly encrusted with dried remains of deep ocean plant and animal-life, hinting of its origins. Other gifts were offered, such as small trinkets and talismans, items imbued by powers by western spirits that could be traded with other spirit courts for favours or protection. Most of the gifts bore the hallmarks of things that could be made on the go, or acquired quickly from others, or torn from the carcasses of slain sea-monsters – but they were all useful.

Then it came for Sage of the Depths to grant Shimmer her gift: “You were true to your oath. I have trained many lunars, and very few managed to do that as well as you. I also owe you several favors from your past life, which add to this: Imbued with the spirit of a willing squid spirit, may it keep you safe and strike at your enemies at every turn”

It got eerily quiet as Sage drew the object forth from elsewhere. It looked… alive? A small silvery squid. Speaker recognized it when he looked at it with essence sight: “Good heavens… a quicksilver aegis talisman – that is not something you see everyday”

Shimmer looked at the thing and accepted it with trembling hooves: “I… I don’t know what to say”

“For many great contributions to Luthe in your past life, and dutiful service in this life. Leviathan also sends his regards” Sage said, eliciting even more hushed gasps and murmurs among the surrounding lunars.

Speaker frowned: This didn’t quite add up to the stories that Shimmer had told him during her past life. She had spoken of Luthe as a bad place, a place she had begged Speaker to avoid. Had she served Luthe at some point? There was something missing here… but that would have to wait for later.

Sage instructed Shimmer to stroke the hoof-sized silver squid talisman, and to name it. As she did so, naming it Deep Wave, it opened its black jade eyes and sprouted eight tentacles, slipping onto Shimmer’s right fore-leg like a living bracer: “It will answer your commands, keep your vigil at all times, become your shield, blade, spear or detach to be a simple servant. If struck enough – and it is impressively tough – it will go dormant and require repair though”

“I… thank you” Shimmer said, tears in her eyes.

Speaker looked around – and he saw other ponies whispering and nodding. It seemed that he wasn’t the only one finding such an impressive shapeshifting weapon. Now, Speaker didn’t have the same sensory-enhancing charms that Sullen Hoof knew, but he knew how to listen… and he heard some of the less careful whispers: “So the rumors were true – they really were lovers before she left for the east last time around…”

Ah, there we go – mystery solved. Oh well, time to present his gift.

Elder Horns was about to announce the gift-giving ceremony over, when Speaker stepped forth. Elder Horns nodded and gestured for him to approach, Shimmer looking up from her new magical weapon/pet/magical servant.

“I didn’t know that I was meant to bring gifts – but I do have something… something I got the last time I saw… the last you. I wasn’t really sure what she meant with it, but now I think see what her idea was” Speaker said, feeling strangely proud as he sat down and began to recall the item in question from elsewhere.

Everyone else waited patiently as the gift slowly translated into creation. It was difficult to see what it was, right up until it dropped into Speaker’s lap, still bloody and squishy.

The scent was unmistakable. The uproar deafening.

“What is the meaning of this!?!” Elder Horns roared, her voice bestial and her mouth suddenly full of fangs.

Sage of the Depths actually stepped in between Speaker and Shimmer: “Keep that away from her!”

Ok, social faux pass? Speaker held the old Shimmer’s heart, a heart she had torn from her own body as her last act before dying while hopelessly trapped in a doomed underworld manse: “Now hold on! She gave this to me freely, and instructed me to give it to her heir!”

“Oh sure, you want us to believe that she committed suicide for you? Just how brainwashed did you have her?” Scale Tooth said angrily, shell plating already forming around his body and encasing his forehooves like new crab claws.

Surrounded, Speaker wasn’t really sure if he should raise his shield charms – or try to talk it out. That was when Shimmer stomped her hooves: “Stop it! Do you all really think that Lord Bright would be stupid enough to show up with… whatever that is… if it was sourced under such bad circumstances? Bloody think for a moment!”

Such an impassioned call for reason did seem to calm everyone – at least a little bit. Elder Horns stomped over to Speaker and beheld the still warm heart, it still slick with blood from its ‘donor’. With a quick swipe she bought a bit of that blood to her mouth. Speaker noticed that everyone else had gone very quiet as she somehow tested the blood, tasting it.

Elder Horns gave Speaker a most confounded look, as her eyes began to fill with tears: “She put so much into this…”

Shimmer came up to Speaker, looking at the massive heart he was floating in the air. It was almost half the size of a pony’s head… definitely not the heart of a normal pony – but when she got close: “That’s… that’s my scent!”

Well, that was one word for it. Elder Horns stood aside, no longer objecting: “Very few lunars get to meet their past selves like this… but I’m not sure if it should be called an honor or a curse…”

Speaker hadn’t thought that the heart had any kind of message in it, having instead figured that it was something that would grant power, or knowledge, or access to the shapes that old Shimmer had been able to shapeshift into… not meeting on- self – then again, they did seem to have a lot of blood-bound powers, so… perhaps?

Shimmer accepted the heart, but looked at it with great trepidation, her eyes wide. The scent of her own blood from the heart frightened her in a way she had never tried before. Sage of the Depths came up to her: “You… may want to be careful when you consume that. You risk having your old self replace you. You’ll still be Last Shimmer, for you both bore that name, but you’ll be her… not you. Strengthen your mind and essence before you do this”

Nodding, Shimmer folded the heart into elsewhere. With the bloody organ out of sight, everyone seemed to breathe a sigh of relief – with quite a lot of ponies curious at Elder Horns, for she had tasted the heart-blood and had thus gleamed its secrets.

This signalled the end of the ‘official’ festivities, and many of the ponies began to disperse, returning towards Creations or starting to pack the camp up. Shimmer said her goodbyes to her new peers while Speaker summoned a magical cloud for them to fly off on.

Leaving, Speaker activated his chaos-repelling charm, allowing for very swift return to the stability of Creation. During this flight Shimmer thanked Speaker for the heart, and asked that they fly to her tribe: “…I need to say goodbye to them too, if it’s ok with you Lord Bright”

“Of course. We’ll be there before sundown”

“Thanks… this is still so new to me Lord Bright. Being exalted, suddenly being able to do all kinds of things, Sage training me and teaching me sorcery. I thought I had lost everyone I knew, and then you showed up one day, Sage sends you off, and then in no time almost everyone the slavers took comes back with a stolen realm cargo ship? I’m just trying to keep up” Shimmer mused, finally able to give voice her stress, anxieties and mixed emotions.

Speaker understood the experience well. He still remembered when he had exalted, the confusion, the lack of understanding: “It gets better over time, and while we travel to Sunhill I can train you myself – I know some very powerful educational charms… no eating anyone’s flesh required”

Arriving at the five-palm tribe’s island, Speaker landed and Shimmer quickly found herself embraced by her kin. The tearful reunion turning into an impromptu party, and celebrations were had, the tribe thanking Speaker for freeing them from slavery, and for Shimmer for her defence of the village. This culminated with a ceremony where Shimmer selected a new shaman for the tribe, and even used her lunar charms to commune with the local ocean spirits, negotiating new and much better terms for her tribe, which would likely lead the tribe to great prosperity, especially with their new ship.

The next morning, as Speaker woke up in the hut he’d been assigned to sleep in, he got up and found Shimmer sitting at the sea shore, gazing over the ocean and the waves washing up on the sandy beach. She was stroking Deep Wave, which seemed to alert her to Speaker’s approach – this let her ask with turning her head: “Lord Bright, will I ever get to see them again?”

“Your tribe? That’s your choice. Your exaltation gives you a compulsion to go with me, but you’re not bound by it. You still have a choice – and you can equally choose to come visit them. Mind you, with a little luck, you can live to be many thousands of years old. Come then, the descendants of this tribe might not know you as one of their own, but as a legendary heavenly guardian who guided them to greatness from a time of great need” Speaker mused, reflecting on how his own perspective had changed after just a few years of being a solar.

Shimmer got up and turned to look at the village: “Guide them to greatness… you make it sound simple”

“It starts out simple, but it depends on what you would like for them to become. I would teach them to write, so they can start to record their own history, write down their songs and their rituals, so the death of a shaman doesn’t mean losing everything. It makes it a lot easier not having to remember everything yourself. It gives them time to specialize more, so the tribe can grow and become something more than subsistence fisherponies” Speaker noted, having more than once spoken with Sunrise and Cash about similar plans of action for dealing with various jungle tribes in the east.

With a deep breath, Shimmer pondered what Speaker had said, looking at what her ponies were doing: “They’re gathering driftwood for new buildings… better huts – is that your doing Lord Bright?”

“Probably. I taught them better wood-working techniques while we were on the ship back to the island, after I freed them. It was mainly so they could maintain the ship, but the same lessons can be used to build better huts that can withstand storms and keep insects out, plus they can build better boats on their own now. That’s another way they’ll grow” Speaker said, feeling proud that his little lesson was already being used so well.

Without hesitation Shimmer asked Speaker to teach them how to read and write. Speaker did as asked, teaching those of the tribe who could speak seatongue how to write the language as well, using his magical educational charm. They would in time be able to teach the rest of the tribe. The lesson also included a quick primer on the use of local octopus ink and how to make bamboo scrolls.

Thankful, Shimmer bid farewell with her tribe and promised to visit them again. The duo flew off on a cloud, their bellies full of fish and coconut, heading south-east towards Wacecrest.

Out over the ocean, nothing but water around them as far as the eye could see, Shimmer asked why they weren’t flying straight east? Speaker explained that now that the two of them were reunited, then the heavenly protection he had enjoyed was no more, and that going over the blessed isle would be a death sentence: “We’ll need to move through neutral territory. We’ll go to Abalone, find out where the Denzik is. I have friends on the city-ship, we’ll go there, and from them to An-Teng. From there we’ll cross the fire mountains, and then fly along the southern coast all the way to the summer mountains – from there we’ll just fly straight home. I have a map if you want to see”

Shimmer was quiet for a moment, then she said: “Going to that lunar meet was the furthest I’ve ever been from home. Sage never even took me to Luthe where he’s from – always told me it would be best if I didn’t come there. You’re talking about going all across creation like its nothing…”

“For the exalted, it is nothing. By the way, the training you got from the sage, did that include teaching you a warform?” Speaker wondered.

Shimmer said that she had learned a beast-pony transformation technique: “…but Sage said I had much to learn in developing it”

“Fair enough – you can show me when we’ve found somewhere to sleep tonight. I’m curious what features it’ll have. Oh, and did you learn to hide your tattoos? When we’re in Wavecrest and An-Teng we’ll have to pose as normal ponies”

“I can do that – but won’t others still think it’s weird if we just show up on Wavecrest?” Shimmer wondered, not sounding terribly sure if she could pose as anything other than a tribal pony.

Speaker explained that she didn’t have to pose as anything else: “I’ll pretend to be an unexalted scion of a lesser realm noble house on some private journey, with you as my servant or slave. That shouldn’t look out of place – and we won’t be staying long. We just have to find out where the Denzik is, then we can fly off again”

Following the scattering of islands that led to the giant volcanic isle of Wavecrest, the duo had to stop for the night once before they could reach their goal. Speaker used his crafting charms to quickly and efficiently build a simple but very nice hut just off the beach, while Shimmer sent Deep Wave out in the ocean in the form of a squid, it returning shortly with a large fish they cooked over an open fire.

“Lord Bright, is this how it’s going to be now, flying around, going on adventure, sleeping in really nice huts?” Shimmer wondered, as she took a zip from her coconut.

Speaker shrugged: “Sometimes. Sometimes adventure comes to you – that’s one of the prices of being a lord of a city state. We have plenty of enemies already, and they know to target the ponies who live there to get to us”

“Tell me Lord Bright, do you have your own songs at this Sunhill place?”

Nodding, Speaker tried to recall one such song, but really that was Sunrise and Cash’s forte, not his. The best he could do was a nursery rhyme he had heard at the Sunhill manse in a foal’s ward. It was a slightly silly song, about waiting for the sun to rise if you were afraid of the dark.

Shimmer was asleep by the time Speaker finished, making him smile: “Welcome back Shimmer”

…but before Speaker fell asleep, he heard her making noises, tossing around on her mat of woven palm leaves. He had seen such behaviour plenty of times: Shimmer was clearly having a bad dream.

Speaker smiled. He could actually fix that now.

He wouldn’t have been able to do anything more than counsel Shimmer before he had started this journey, but now? With his new dream-based powers? First, he gathered up sticks, spiderweb, melted sand into clear glass and plucked a few hairs from his mane, fashioning a dream catcher. It was so intuitive to make a vessel that could contain a dream… and with a swift movement of the hoof and essence, Speaker pulled the nightmare from Shimmer into the dreamcatcher. Shimmer’s twitching instantly calmed down, her sleeping becoming restful again.

The next morning Speaker wondered if he should tell Shimmer what he had done. It wasn’t until they were flying again that he managed to broach the subject, showing the dream catcher to Shimmer.

She seemed to instantly sense that the dreamcatcher contained something bad: “You… Lord Bright you put my nightmare in this?”

“Pretty much”

“And that won’t hurt me, will it Lord Bright?”

“Not a single dream. If I did to you repeatedly, you’d wake up in the morning as tired as when you went to sleep – but you had a normal dream afterwards, I checked” Speaker mused, not having had anywhere near enough practical experience using his new powers to fully describe what they could do.

Shimmer accepted that information, putting the dreamcatcher away into elsewhere: “Alright, then maybe we can find a use for my bad dream later on”

“I could put it in someone else – maybe it’d be a good distraction” Speaker pondered, just as he saw the impossible to miss smoke from a volcano in the horizon.

The kingdom of Wavecrest was the single largest island in the west, along with the second and third largest ones – none of them were all that big by the standards of eastern territories, but it was the best the west had to offer. From up in the air the duo could clearly see the volcanoes that dotted the massive islands, keeping them fertile with their ash and even slightly growing the size of the islands every year, at the cost of scorching and burning many a plantation each time they erupted.

The challenge at that point was to get to Abalone, the capital of Wavecrest. According to the map that Cash had gotten Speaker, then it was set on the eastern coast of the largest of the three islands, which was the one furthest to the south of the three. It was thus that Speaker guided his cloud to fly them south. It was Shimmer who suggested that if they were supposed to pass for unexalted ponies, then they should land on a beach with no ponies in sight and walk to the nearest village or town: “Flying in would be a bit… obvious, if that makes sense to you, Lord Bright?”

Agreeing, Speaker said that he’d have to hide away his uniform and a few other things, while also retrieving his money from elsewhere. This resulted in them finding a beach and Speaker once more stripping down, Shimmer taking his old uniform and jewel pinions to put into elsewhere, while he finished getting his solid purse full of silver and cowries from elsewhere.

“Whoa… that is a lot of money” Shimmer said, her eyes wide as Speaker checked the content of the big purse.

Shrugging, Speaker said that it was one of the perks of being a lord: “Taxes – plus remember, I’m supposed to be a rich but unexalted son of a lesser noble house from Grey Falls – I came prepared for this”

“Yes, but what’s the name of the house Lord Bright?”

“I… hadn’t thought about that. What sounds like a generic noble house from Grey Falls to you?”

Speaker didn’t notice the surprised expression Shimmer made as they walked down the beach, but after having a bit of a ponder, she said: “I don’t know any places in the east Lord Bright… but this Gray Falls place, have you been there?”

“No, not really – I just know that it’s a realm satrapy, but I don’t remember who’s the satrap or what house controls it. I should probably call home and ask about that. Could you give me my hearthstone amulet?”

A quick question sent back to Sunhill later, and Speaker had gotten a quick summary. House Nellens controlled the territory, with one Nellens Rombulac as the wood aspected satrap currently in charge: “Oh, and Cash suggests we say I’m not really from a lesser house, but since Gray Falls is a place where criminal and exiled unicorns get sent from the realm, so I can just say I’m the son of an exiled house Mnemon unicorn who lives there”

“Is that a lesser house Lord Bright?”

“No, it’s one of the big ones – a house founded by the Scarlet Empress’s firstborn. They’re big in education and sorcery, helps explain why I’m so well educated”

A few hours of pleasant walk down the beach got the duo to a small town where Speaker started spending money like it was going out of fashion: Spinning a yarn about the two having been on a private yacht that had been taken by pirates, and how they had jumped overboard to escape with naught but his money pouch and their lives, Speaker bought new clothes and a chariot, as well as hiring two local strong stallions to pull the chariot to the next village in the direction of Abalone.

“Honourable one, the road directly to Abalone is dangerous. Beyond the next village the jungles are wild and monsters and feral tribals roam” one of the two stallions said as they were strapping into the chariot.

Speaker shrugged and gave Shimmer a knowing look: “That’s my problem, not yours – just bring us there”

Shimmer smirked, but was equally distracted by the sights of the massive island. It was so huge! After a short while she couldn’t even see the sea anymore. The orderly plantations, the ponies working in tiered rice fields, to Shimmer it was such an alien landscape: So unnatural, yet so bountiful and full of life.

Their breath ragged and stamina spent, the two locals who had pulled the chariot were quite surprised and happy when Speaker simply gave them the chariot once they had arrived: “I have no need of this anymore – we’ll walk from here”

“Ok, your death Honourable one. The roads are good, but it’s a ten-day walk – I hope you know how to find food and water” one of the two new grateful chariot-owners said.

Shimmer perked up: “That’s what the good lord brought me for. Don’t you worry”

With an accent that clearly revealed her background as that of a tribal, or at least former tribal, the two locals didn’t question Shimmer’s confidence or survival skills, leaving the duo their own fate. Speaker and Shimmer in turn shopped around at the jungle village they had been dropped off at, buying some supplies and saddlebags to keep them in, and then walked off into the jungles in an east-ward direction, along a lone road that didn’t look all that well-maintained.

Once out of sight of the village, and having passed the last of the outermost lumber operations, Shimmer asked exactly what Speaker’s plan was in Abalone.

“Well, I don’t think we’ll be staying there for long – we just need to find out if the Denzik has left for An-Teng yet. It all depends on whether they’re staying for calibration or leaving early” Speaker said, enjoying the sound of birds singing in the jungle canopies.

Shimmer perked an eyebrow: “Calibration was last week. That was the whole point of the lunar get-together. They hadn’t met up just for me Lord Bright”

Speaker stopped right in his tracks: “Wait what? But it was weeks until calibration when I came back to five-palms with the rest of the tribe”

“It was when we walked into the wyld Lord Bright. Sage moved us in both space and time, so we arrived after the main festivities at the western dam were over – he doesn’t like being part of stuff like that” Shimmer said, talking as if it was the most obvious of facts.

It didn’t surprise Speaker that the lunars had many tricks for moving about in the wyld – but to manipulate not just your physical destination, but your destination in time? That was… no, he remembered lunars having done similar things in the first age, slowing time around them while in the wyld, so that time in creation passed faster. It wasn’t time-travel per say, it was more akin to walking a long path to reach a destination.

“Ok… that probably means that the Denzik has left already. No need to do this slowly anymore” Speaker said, conjuring a cloud for them to fly on.

Flying south-east, Speaker had the cloud gain in altitude so that the cloud became very difficult to spot from down on the ground, even more so because it just looked like a normal small cloud when seen from underneath. Several hours later Wavecrest was a shrinking dot on the horizon, while another dot on the horizon was growing bigger and bigger…

“That… wow… that is a LOT of ships Lord Bright” Shimmer said, looking at the massive armada of ships and barges that made up the Denzik city ship. Hundreds, no – thousands of ships, lashed together with strong ropes like a blanket of timber and sails covering a massive patch of ocean.

Speaker guided the cloud down to land on the ship brightly marked for flying visitors and travellers to land or depart from, a guide and a translator quickly approaching the two to establish communications.

“I speak the sea and trade tongue, and I am known to Denzik Hala. You can tell her that Bright Machine Speaker is visiting, and that I brought a friend”

Shimmer observed how the two Denzik ponies suddenly became very happy and chatty – they clearly knew Speaker, or had at least heard of him. She had heard stories of the great city-ship back in her tribe’s village, of a great fleet of merchants who lived on the sea all year around. It certainly looked and smelled the part.

A pony soon arrived, and to Shimmer the mare looked like the silliest thing she’d ever seen. Heavily laden with jewellery and perfumes, and oddly flimsy cloth outfit that seemed to flutter in even the slightest breeze. Shimmer didn’t know what silk was, and had never seen golden jewellery nor ever made the connection between wearing shiny metals and wealth, for such had never been available in her tribe.

“Speaker, good to see you – what brings you to the city-ship?” Denzik Hala inquired, her southern accent thick but easy to understand.

Speaker made polite small-talk, while Shimmer kept observing the merchant queen. She could see from the sway in Hala’s hips that the mare had given birth more than once, and it was clear to Shimmer that she had very keen eyes, especially with how she was subtly visually inspecting everything Speaker was wearing.

“And who’s your friend? She reminds me of that other mare who had come along when you were waiting to be picked up by Cash Charmer, but she looks… more grown up, but with less scars?” Hala asked, giving Shimmer a curious smile that made the lunar want to creep into cover behind Speaker.

“It’s a long story – but she is in effect the same pony, reincarnated once more. I came here to bring her back home east” Speaker explained.

Hala took the explanation in strides, even though she did briefly make a confused expression.

They all ended up on the Teak-and-Cotton barge, where a nice tea house operated out of an artfully remodelled cargo hold. Shimmer listened on curiously as Hala and Speaker spoke like old friends, Hala talking about how useful the one hundred elementals that Speaker had somehow gotten the Denzik had been, and how much money they had been able to earn by being able to move about much faster, and thus spend more time at each stop along their annual route, or even add more stops.

“It is tradition here on the Denzik that principal parties to business ventures get dividends – but I understand that you have no need for money, seeing as you are now the lord of your own lands in the east” Hala said, sipping from her exquisite realm china.

Speaker raised an eyebrow at the merchant queen: “You want to pay me for the elementals? With what exactly?”

“Well, that’s the thing. I understand that Sunhill is doing a brisk trade in gems, fine furniture and very high-quality steel products. You’re making bank basically – so paying you in silver won’t be worth much to you… and with the realm civil war ramping up it’s become increasingly difficult for us to trade in certain products” Hala noted, looking in a way that reminded Speaker eerily of Cash Charmer.

It turned out that the Denzik had on its last time in the inland sea scuttled a barge full of ‘forbidden goods’ – things they simply could not afford being caught with for the time being. Things like bits of broken orichalcum and moonsilver artifacts, armor and weapons, things they would usually sell to shady collectors, but now each realm house that had a navy would routinely waylay the Denzik and inspect every cargo hold, crack open every crate, all on the hunt for weapons and magical things that other realm houses might have wanted, confiscating everything they find. This had already cost the Denzik a fortune in lost inventory, so the rest had been hidden carefully: It had all been sunk in the inland sea.

“I figure, if we make an official deal with Sunhill to recover ‘lost inventory’ from the sunken barge and safekeep it until we can pick it up, perhaps you can even make some of it work, or make use it in the meantime. You might even feel tempted to buy some of it from us” Hala said, sounding so shrewd one felt the urge to check if the silver in one’s purse wasn’t disappearing into puffs of smoke.

Looking at Shimmer, Speaker asked: “How good are you at swimming down to great depths? And pulling sunken treasure up?”

That had most definitely not been what Shimmer had expected them to end up talking about. Then again, she hadn’t really had any expectations… but diving for sunken treasure? Sure: “Oh Lord Bright, I think I have a few ideas – but Sage always told me never to go for really deep dives alone. There are things in the depths that do not care whether you’re a dead fish sinking to the bottom, or a pony diving”

“I can come along – the elements stopped being an issue to me a long time ago” Speaker said in a reassuring tone, then turning to Denzik Hala: “I think I can accept that deal. Should we have a barge or something like that to carry it home, or will a single yeddim be enough?”

“With the flying yeddim your friends have, I think a single one should suffice. Now, to celebrate our partnership!” Hala said with a smirk, calling for servants to bring in food and drink.

As they feasted, Speaker kept seeing Shimmer trying to hold back her tears. This was clearly the very best food she had ever tasted, not the comparatively crude tribal fare she had been used to. Spices Shimmer had clearly never heard of, fruits and sweet-meats from across creation, and some of the finest rice from the realm. It was really good food, though Speaker found it easy to maintain his composure: The culinary genius of Sullen Hoof back home was without equal, a peerless paragon in the cooking arts. Still, it was very good fare being served up, as befit of someone of Denzik Hala’s wealth.

The next morning Speaker and Shimmer inspected the elementals that served the Denzik, Speaker regaling his lunar mate of the story of how he had been bucked so hard he’d flown all across Creation during a fight in Nexus, landed in the western ocean, raised an island from the deep and then been found by the Denzik: “…and then a storm god showed up, and I smacked her around until she submitted to my terms”

“Wait, Lord Bright… You fought and won against a storm mother? She would have had her legion of elementals destroy you with lightning” Shimmer said incredulously.

Speaker shrugged: “Like I said yesterday: Elemental immunity charms. Fire, waters both shallow and deep, storm winds or avalanches, none of it hurts me – not even their lightning”

“Is that the power of the solar exalted Lord Bright?”

“It’s part of it – I was already very good at survival techniques because of my military service. I served in Lookshy’s special forces. Lots of crawling around in mud and eating bugs, but when I exalted, I became supernaturally good at surviving harsh conditions” Speaker noted, watching as a dozen air elementals above them maintained a constant wind to move the Denzik along at twice the speed it normally moved, while water elementals below maintained a clam sea to minimize the strain the massive ropes that connected the thousands of barges and ships that made up the Denzik.

After the party, Speaker and Shimmer were given nice quarters to stay in for their stay. There another friend popped in, the unicorn Mnemon Ever-Ember: “Hey, you’re back again”

Speaker introduced the freelance scholar to Shimmer, who in turn found the idea of very real reincarnation to be curiously in line with immaculate holy texts.

“True. For celestial exalts, but not for unicorns. Your powers are bound in your blood” Speaker noted, Ever-Ember nodding in agreement.

Ever-Ember chuckled: “True, and with the civil war getting worse its surprisingly easier to have conversations like this. Far fewer monks and realm spies wasting time monitoring fools like me, not that it doesn’t have its downsides”

“Yes, Denzik Hala told us of the house navies that keep ‘inspecting’ them and confiscating stuff” Shimmer chimed in.

The unicorn sighed: “Not just things… ponies. Refugees trying to get off the blessed isle risk getting arrested and hung, and unicorns like me risk getting pressganged into serving whatever house catches us. I’ve gotten very good at hiding, had to”

“Well, that sucks. I assume you’re still working here with magical messaging and dealing in rare texts?” Speaker wondered.

Nodding, Ever-Ember sighed. Shimmer seemed to look at him with pity, appearing to understand the harsh reality of being hunted by others who would exploit you.

Speaker drew in a deep breath and gestured for calm: “Since we last met a lot of things have changed. Sunhill, the city-state I and my circle lord over, has grown. We could use a state sorcerer. You would be free to engage in your rare text business on the side”

“You mean that? Oh, that would be amazing” Ever-Ember said, his mane starting to spark as his emotions activated his elemental anima.

“Just get off the Denzik when it passes Lookshy. We have an embassy there. I’ll make sure that the staff there knows to expect you. Then you can send a message to Cash Charmer to ask for pickup”

It was nice to see just how alleviated the unicorn became, his happiness converting into an elemental warmth that made the cabin all kinds of steamy.

“Hey, now that we’ve at it – since we’ve pretending to be a Mnemon scion and his servant while passing through An-Teng, do you have any suggestions on how Speaker could pass for that?” Shimmer suddenly said, realizing that hearing from someone from that very house would be a good idea.

Ever-Ember found the duo’s plan of going over land with magical transportation interesting, but also sensible if they feared that they were being hounded by essence-tracking foes: “Well… since you’re not a unicorn, you could always complain about never getting the token”

Presenting a white lotus tile from the game of gateway, Ever-Ember explained that when any pony of his house exalts they are made to have an audience with Patriarch Mnemon, the eldest daughter of the Empress, during which she would give one a white lotus tile: “There’s an engraving on it: Power through knowledge, mastery through rigor, and conquest through diligence – it’s the house motto. I can give you other suggestions too if you want”

The rest of the journey on the Denzik were spent the occasional dinner party, Speaker being repeatedly approached with business propositions regarding identifying bits of ancient artifacts, as well as teaching Shimmer a fair about spirits, gods and the lore of the undead, in preparation of what they would likely have to face when they got back to Sunhill. Shimmer found Speaker’s educational charm quite impressive, constantly looking for something to repay Speaker with, and finding herself frustrated in having nothing to return the favors with, especially since he seemed to be oddly hesitant at sleeping with her.

Indeed, Speaker had found it difficult to transfer the love he had had for the old Shimmer. She was so young, so naïve – not the wise and world-weary matron he had once known. He was well aware of Shimmer’s bond to his exaltation drew her to him, and he had more than once resorted to charm-use to escape her amorous traps. Still, he took it in strides as he figured that her fascination would fade into that of a partnership of equals once they got back to Sunhill.

A few weeks later the Denzik approached the Dragon Mouth Bay, anchoring and sending forth dozen of merchant ships to do business in the City of the Steel Lotus. Speaker and Shimmer, clad in fine custom-tailored silk clothes to support their cover story of being a realm scion and his servant, came along for this.

“I feel silly in this…” Shimmer said, squirming in her servant’s outfit.

Speaker chuckled. He knew that this idea of actually wearing clothes was still foreign to Shimmer, indeed none at her tribe had really done so until having been forced to wear it at the slave mine: “So do I – it’s not my old uniform, but while wearing this nobody should question us buying passage to Thousand Dragons Lake and beyond. From there we can just fly over the fire mountains, we’ll be more or less safe at that point”

“Safe from who Lord Bright?”

“I’ve told you of them several times already – but you forget of them every time. Ponies who are shrouded by special magic that makes them fade from your mind. They tell the future and predict your movements, tracking you like nothing else, makes it easy for them to send dragonblooded assassins after us… or worse” Speaker sighed, eager to get back to Sunhill so that Shimmer could be formally made an agent of heaven, that she might remember that the Sidereal exalted were a thing.

It was never easy to guard against a foe that your traveling partner kept forgetting about. Shimmer sensed Speaker’s frustration: “Oh Lord Bright, I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be – but keep that attitude, it’s perfect for a servant”

As the Denzik merchant ship pulled up to the harbour, gangplanks coming into position for cargo and passengers, Speaker looked at the many tengese dockworkers standing ready to receive them and their cargo.

Chapter 9 Bitter Truths

The Swaying Grass Dance stylist only eats soup using his feet instead of his hands and only while listening to music.

…

The next morning Speaker woke up alone in Asina’s bed. At first he feared that he would wake up to a circle of spears – but instead a servant standing silently in the corner perked up as he roused, leaving without saying a word.

A few moments later Asina showed up, fully dressed – though not in an evening gown – but still, her embroidered silks were exquisite: “You’re up, excellent – I’ve had a lovely breakfast table prepared for us”

Washing up and getting dressed, Speaker joined Asina and discovered that Shimmer also sat with them. He wasn’t entirely sure what was most awkward, having slept with someone and having to eat breakfast in front of Shimmer right after, or walking on eggshells because he had no idea if Asina was going to out him and maybe Shimmer as anathema.

“I figured it would be best to bring your servant along” Asina said cheerfully.

Shimmer, still in her servant’s gown, kept switching her gaze between Speaker and their unicorn mare host: “Thank you my lady”

Not much was said beyond that – indeed, Asina seemed oddly hesitant to engage in conversation, mostly just nodding and smiling. It was awkward as all hell, but relatively smooth beyond that.

Leaving, Speaker politely bid goodbye to his host: “Thank you for a most wonderful party Ledaal Asina, and if you ever find yourself in the scavenger lands do come visit. I hear that the cooking in Sunhill is absolutely to die for”

The unicorn mare nodded and smiled, but Shimmer sensed something… else… not fear – but a strange form of respect and admiration?

As the duo made their way to the harbour, to find their ship towards thousand dragons lake, Shimmer simply had to ask: “What in all the beached jellyfish was that all about Lord Bright? …and you totally slept with her, didn’t you?”

“I did – hope you don’t mind – and I think her fear of anathema wasn’t as great as how much she loved hearing someone sticking it to the deathlords”

Shimmer bobbed her head from side to side, appearing to contemplate what Speaker had just said – appearing as if she at least had a basic understanding of what a deathlord was: “Not bad my lord – you think she could be a future ally?”

“I… wait, an ally? Maybe? She very far from Sunhill – not sure she could do much for us – and she doesn’t have many years lefts” Speaker mused, honestly surprised that Shimmer spoke so calmly about the idea of allying with a realm unicorn. The old Shimmer had hated unicorns with a burning passion.

Looking around herself, and making a motion that Speaker remembered from the old Shimmer as a charm that would let her know if anyone were listening in on them, Shimmer suddenly got a much sneakier look on her face: “Alright Lord Bright, listen: While you were telling tall tales to the nobs, I was talking to the servants and staff here – made some friends – and they clued me in on a rebellion that’s brewing here”

“Nobs? Oh nobles – and a rebellion? Well, it wouldn’t be the first time that An-Teng temporarily regained its independence from the realm” Speaker noted, recalling the history lessons he’d learned back in Lookshy about how some two-hundred years ago the realm had recalled its legion garrisoning An-Teng to quell a rebellion elsewhere, resulting in An-Teng overthrowing the defenceless satrap and ruling itself independently for several years until the legion returned and forced the three kings of An-Teng to bend the knee again.

Shimmer didn’t appear to know of this historical precedent, but then it also seemed that the rebellion she’d been clued in on wasn’t really connected to that either: “No Lord Bright, they’re not waiting for the legion here to be recalled this time. There’s a secret cult somewhere here, doing some kind of sun-worship – and they’re looking for a sun-touched champion to lead them in an uprising. They claim to worship the forbidden sun, and seek its salvation”

“Sounds like what you’d expect to hear sun-worship called in a place ruled by the realm for thousands of years. You sure they weren’t just lying to you to set you up?”

The look that the lunar shot back at Speaker was almost offended – almost – but she knew that Speaker had yet to get much of a grasp of what she actually could: “Oh I am certain. I used a charm to enhance the appearance this outfit gave me, convincing them that I really was a disgruntled tribal servant you had bought as a slave up in Wavecrest. This made them very sympathetic to me, started talking all kinds of shit about their masters once they had enough to drink”

“That’s still not a lie-detector charm” Speaker noted, having noticed that Shimmer was leading him to somewhere that most certainly wasn’t the harbor.

Shimmer frowned, clearly unsatisfied that Speaker wasn’t on board with her discovery: “Do you have a lie-detector charm Lord Bright?”

“I do – makes running a city state a lot easier. Now this cult, how about we check it out before leaving?”

The young mare cycled through a lot of different expressions as she revised her schemes with this new information: “Interesting idea, Lord Bright. After they told me of the cult, I tracked down the cultist hideout while in the form of a snake: Its legit and I know where it is now – and there was the scent of many ponies down there, and it seemed shady as hell, a real haven for smugglers, so make sure to use your lie-detector charm there”

“Oh nice. I’ll be sure to do that. If I start saying anything about how this isn’t like back home east, then it’ll be my signal that they’re lying and that we might be in trouble”

The hideout in question turned out to be in the basement level of a warehouse, illuminated via what appeared to be brightly luminescent bugs held in murky glass jars. The warehouse itself was set at the edge of the harbour district, looking quite uninteresting from the outside – with plenty of work crews hauling cargo around, making it easy to get lost in the crowd.

Through secret hoof-signs that Shimmer had been taught the duo was let in, and a cultist wearing a crudely woven sack cloth hood greeted them once they had been ushered inside: “Greetings fellow seekers. Are you here to give aid to the cause?”

“We would like to learn more about the cause first before we give you funds, but I’m sure we can help you” Speaker said quietly, seeing the many closed doors they were passing in the hallway. It was difficult to judge the size of the operation, which was probably by design. Clever.

The two were led into a small room with a table, five chair and two other hood cultists sitting waiting for them. The only source of light were some small candles in wall-set lanterns, casting strong and dancing shadows all over.

Speaker and Shimmer were asked to introduce themselves before the hooded ponies would do the same – and so Speaker spoke freely, to a certain extent, explaining that he was a traveling lord from the scavenger lands who had no sympathies for the realm: “And while I am planning on returning home soon, then I would like to make a donation for your cause, if I find it worthy”

Shimmer took her cue and produced the large purse of silver and cowries from her saddlebags, taking care to nibble it out with her mouth and not reveal her true exalted nature just yet, just as Speaker was careful not to.

The three cultists looked at the bulging purse for a moment, then one of them spoke up: “That… wow… that’ll keep us funded and stocked for months! We truly are blessed!”

“Well, I have been made to understand that you’ve been looking for sun-chosen champions – where I’m from there is an organization known as the cult of the illuminated who have similar goals. I help fund them too” Speaker explained, feeling that now these cultists would probably start explaining things.

Another of the cultists drew back her sack cloth hood – revealing a work-worn face with teeth ground from a sand-rich diet, smiling from ear to ear: “We have heard of them – but the immaculates hunt them eagerly, and the satrap has banned that cult for heresy, while we work hard to remain hidden. No, but now we are doubly blessed! A champion and a big donation like this, all in the same week? Oh, this is amazing”

Wait, had another solar already shown up? Speaker exchanged a curious glance with Shimmer, who nodded.

“We would like to meet this champion. If his leadership of your cause is up to snuff, then I think we can set up some kind of arrangement via the Denzik to funnel money to you somewhat regularly” Speaker said, curious to meet this champion and not at all against the idea of funding a rebellion against the realm if it was competently led.

The unhooded mare looked at her hooded peers who both nodded: “Very well – but we will have to check with our champion to see if he is available. Last I heard he was in deep meditation at one of our secret shrines. If you would wait here, please”

The unhooded and one of the hooded cultists got up and left, leaving just one cultist with the duo. Annoyed that they had been left with a minder, Speaker reached towards the pony across the table in a friendly gesture: “Please, could you tell me your story? How did you get involved in this? How bad is the realm’s oppression and exploitation of the tengese?”

With a sigh the hooded pony cleared his throat, briefly bowing down to draw back his hood. With a split-second motion so fast that Shimmer barely saw it, Speaker reached a bit further and poked the pony, the stallion instantly slumping down onto the table asleep. Shimmer reacted fast enough to catch him, so that the stallion didn’t hit his head: “What did you do to him Lord Bright?”

“Same thing I did to fix your nightmare – I can make a pony fall asleep with but a touch – as far as he’s concerned, he’s dreaming about telling us his story in this very room. The instant we wake him up he shouldn’t even be able to tell the difference – we can talk freely now” Speaker quickly stated.

Shimmer drew a slow breath, considering the ramifications of what Speaker had just said and done: “Alright my lord… but, does this mean that they have another solar here?”

“That’s what it sounds like – and trust me, that’s a rarity. Back east the… the ones I keep telling you about that you keep forgetting, they capture newly exalted solars and rob them of their memories, making them forget that they have powers. We have to warn this one. I know a powerful mental defence charm that can prevent a memory attack from taking hold. I could teach it to him before we move on”

“Oh, that sounds like a good idea Lord Bright” Shimmer noted enthusiastically, recalling how Sage had told her that for Lunars to safely operate in Creation, they had to steal the shapes of other ponies or creatures since shapeshifting into them obscured their true fate, making magical tracking difficult – maybe that was related to what Lord Bright was talking about?

A while later the wicker door jarred, and Speaker quickly flicked a small pebble at the nose of the cultist with them. The cultist snapped to, a little confused and coughing, but saw Speaker and Shimmer looking at him and nodding, so they must have been paying attention to his story. He quickly turned to look at the ponies at the door: “Oh hey, didn’t hear you coming. Did the champion have time for an audience?”

The two hooded cultists who had come in both nodded, though one gestured for calm: “First we must pray at the shrine, then the champion will join us”

Alright. It had certainly been a while since Speaker had sent a proper prayer to Celestia, so why not?

The duo was let led through the maze-like underground complex – it seemed to extend beyond the warehouse they had entered via, with tunnels dug through torn-down sections of basement walls. The tunnels were braced with sturdy and tared timbers which made the place smell smoky, while the glowing bugs in glass jars hanging along the tunnel gave off a fluttering light as they crawled around in their murky jars.

The shrine turned out to be cleverly placed in a surprisingly clean sewer cistern. High above a hole in the ceiling a led to the surface, which let sunlight in – and it seemed set up so that at high noon the sunlight would fall directly on the altar.

Now this was a setup that Speaker had seen before, mainly via hidden cult of the illuminated shrines he’d come across in Nexus and other places in the east – and that familiarity felt good all things concerned.

“We must be quiet here” a cultist whispered, gesturing for the duo to approach the shrine.

The shrine itself was very simple, and was mostly covered in fresh flowers, small pouches with what was probably offerings of fragrant herbs, and other meagre things that the cultists could afford to give away. On a simple and rough stone pedestal was a beautifully carved wooden sun, unpainted. It was humble but to the point – this was sun-worship alright.

The cultist guided the two to kneel at the shrine, and whispered: “Here we pray in silence to the forbidden sun – please join me”

Joining in, the duo gave their quiet prayers – and a minute or so later a pony joined them. Speaker looked up, and saw the pony wrapped in strangely ornate bandages: The flaxen ribbons were adorned with sewn-in squares of what looked like bronze, each square featuring minutely etched old realm glyphs. Whispering, Speaker said “Greetings” but the new strange pony quickly gestured for silence, followed by gestures for Speaker and Shimmer to follow him.

Getting up, the duo followed along into an adjacent chamber. It appeared to be the champion’s private chamber and was surprisingly nice: Nice wooden furniture wrought of bamboo, detailed murals of what appeared to be Tengese ponies fighting unicorns alongside elephants and other jungle animals, and flags and banners that were ostensibly of a Tengese nationalist nature, for they were certainly not Realm banners.

“Forgive me for the late introductions – but we are weary of the realm’s secret police. We have taken great efforts to remain hidden. My name is Bitter Copal, a doctor and alchemist from Adorned with Wisdom as a Sapphire. My bloodline once ruled An-Teng as kings, but now we simply bow our heads and plant rice. We welcome any aid to our cause to free ourselves” the pony stated, all of his face and entire body wrapped in those strange bandages… leaving only eyes that burned with a great pride and passion.

Speaker marvelled at the curios on display, while Shimmer remained silent.

Bitter Copal continued to tell his story, of how he had graduated from the foremost house of learning in An-Teng, a place known as Adorned with Wisdom as a Sapphire. There he had learned the history of his people and his heart had swelled with nationalistic pride, but when he had graduated, he had only been able to find work on an imperial merchant ship under a ship’s surgeon who just wanted someone to cover for his drinking habit: “…then three weeks out at sea we were attacked by lintha pirates. The captain, a unicorn mare from house Nellens, and the marines on board managed to fight off the lintha, but that just left me and the drunkard to triage all the wounded… and in his drunken state the surgeon cost the captain her right foreleg. He managed to blame me, and as punishment the captain cut off my leg with her jade daiklaive”

Listening to the horrible story, Speaker couldn’t help but notice that Bitter Copal’s right forelimb was… not missing – but then again, the stallion was completely covered in what could well be some kind of magical bandages. What else had the angry captain done to Bitter Copal?

“I was then thrown overboard for the sharks to eat, but in my bitter prayers I was heard – for I prayed for the power to give retribution upon the oppressors who exploit and abuse my people!” Bitter Copal said triumphantly, angry tears in his eyes.

Nodding, Speaker could only express his sympathy: “I know the feeling. A young unicorn, barely a summer since his second breath, was about to kill me when I was chosen”

“I knew it! I could feel that there was something familiar about you! I have been praying every day for an ally to help me overthrow the unicorns that oppress us here!” Bitter Copal said, his tears turning into that of joy.

It of course helped – sort of – that his eyes were the only thing not covered by bandages on Bitter Copal.

“Tell me, what caste did you exalt into?” Shimmer wondered.

Bitter Copal nodded, and stood before the duo. Then a third eye on his forehead opened – over his bandages – and as it opened a green and smokeless flame came from the eye.

Speaker stumbled backwards, absolutely horrified: “That… that is not a normal caste-mark!”

Standing more resolute, Shimmer leaned in to observe: “That green fire – that’s… hellfire – demonic flame”

Looking confused at the two, Bitter Copal quickly realized his error – and the error of those before him: “You… you are not a fellow green sun prince?”

Her silver-blue circular caste mark lighting up, Shimmer shrugged: “Of course not, I’m a lunar – and Lord Bright here is a solar”

His eyes widened – unnaturally so – Bitter Copal didn’t quite seem sure if he should angry, haughty or something else. In this moment of internal conflict, Shimmer quickly asked: “So… what’s with the voice in your head?”

Bitter Copal quickly looked at Shimmer, confused: “What? You can hear him too?”

“Raspy voice, sounds like a crab talking above water? Only crabby demon I know of is a tomescu demon – why is it talking in your head and telling you to be very careful right now?” Shimmer said, being very careful to buy Speaker enough time to get his bearings again.

Thoroughly distracted, the green sun prince didn’t quite notice that Speaker had gotten up again – nor that his eyes had flashed golden as he beheld the bandage-covered pony with essence sight: “That’s enough Shimmer”

Shimmer wound down the distraction charm she had been employing, a simple yet profoundly effective charm that made her the centre of attention. It was amazing for making sure others were only paying attention to her, not anything else: “Alright Lord Bright – but he totally has a demon talking in his head… and it’s really scared now”

“Makes sense – I guess – any demon worshiping cult discovering that they have been found by a powerful pony would be afraid – but let’s not jump to conclusions yet, there’s no need for this to turn hostile – Copal here still champions a worthy cause” Speaker said, brushing himself off.

Bitter Copal looked confused at Speaker: “Wait, what?”

Shimmer’s ears twitched all over the place: “…there are demons all over this place Lord Bright, hidden – they sound confused, not sure if they should attack us, or if that would endanger their master here”

Greatly appreciative of Shimmer’s perceptive nature, Speaker nodded: “You’re not the first pony we’ve found who made dark choices in the face of horrible circumstances – and we’ve helped many of the abyssal exalted redeem themselves. Whether tainted by death or demons, then you’re still carrying what was clearly once a solar exaltation, that much I can tell. If you want, we can probably help you purify that and redeem your soul, if you want”

With a deep breath Bitter Copal seemed to calm ever so slightly: “Redeem my soul?”

“I don’t know what kind of spiritual chains your demon masters have put you under, but the deathknights under the deathlords are under a heavy hoof to control them. As a restored solar you would be free to aid your people without any kind of chains on you – and I don’t know if the memory of your people reaches back that far, but An-Teng was once a favoured place among the solar host. The golden lord took his name from us after all” Speaker said, going through everything he knew about abyssals and the spiritual chains they were held in thrall via. A ‘green sun prince’ had to be under some kind of similar control – the demon lords were a lot of things, but they weren’t stupid enough to empower solaroids without some way of controlling them, right?

Taking a moment to centre himself, Bitter Copal reached for chairs and a table. His right forelimb’s bandages came undone, and the limb revealed itself to be a mess of chitin and tentacles that stretched to fetch the furniture: “The ponies of An-Teng have prayed to the golden lord, crying out for justice, since time immemorial. He has never raised his hoof to stop the abuses of the realm on us… his justice never came to us”

“Did… did you get that with your exaltation?” Speaker said, straining to keep his expression polite and calm in the face of such a hideous mutation, even if it seemed very ‘functional’ and utilitarian.

The young green sun prince nodded as he sat down and gestured for the duo to join him: “No, I was ‘repaired’ once I was brought to Malfeas to receive my training and learn the charms for my exaltation, granted this five-fold demon limb. Now, regarding your previous question: Would it surprise you that the Yozi did not initially tell me anything about such there being such chains upon me?”

“Makes sense that they wouldn’t – but you said initially – so what changed?” Shimmer quickly asked.

From a pile of coconuts Bitter Copal drew several over to the table with his arm-tentacles. Then his mutated limb pulsed and retracted into his shoulder socket – emerging a split second later as a giant crab clawed limb covered in thick chitinous armor. He cracked the coconuts very easy with that claw, passing the coconuts to his guests: “I found that the yozis are strangely hidebound – and that makes them oddly easy to manipulate, assuming that you know what buttons to push”

“They are bound by their nature – and to deviate from that hurts them spiritually and on a fundamentally existential level. So, you found one you could trick into talking?” Speaker noted, remembering quite a lot of the trickery and diplomacy that the solar host had employed at the yozis had exploited those aspects of their nature.

Nodding as he took a bite from his coconut – nut and all – Bitter Copal elaborated: “I assume you at least know of the yozi known as She Who Lives In Her Name? She is… very much into having everything be orderly. The nature of this order is something she will gladly elaborate on, for days on end if you aren’t careful. I simply had to ask how me and my peers were to be kept in her perfected order”

Speaker and Shimmer nodded, listening curiously.

“As part of their manipulation of our exaltations, they implanted a demonic urge to go along with it. In my case my urge suits me oddly well: I am to free An-Teng from the Realm and unite it under its royal family, so I’m not really complaining… for it suits my designs quite well”

“Hold on – if that’s your urge, then that’s not your personal goal in all this?! Are you more out for personal vengeance or something?” Shimmer pointed out, wanting to be sure that Speaker didn’t start helping these strange demon-worshiping ponies if their designs were beyond salvation, having been advised to be careful in how she might guide her solar mate to remain on a righteous path.

Bitter Copal smiled as he chewed a mouthful of coconut, but his eyes had begun to tear up angrily, to which end he bitterly replied: “No, for I am a scholar. I graduated from the most prestigious house of learning in An-Teng, Adorned with Wisdom as a Sapphire! Yet, the realm sees the tengese as naught but foolish peasants. Part of that is an intentional shroud to avoid interacting with them, but I want to end that and show all of creation just how clever we are!”

“To prove to the realm and the rest of creation that the Tengese are to be taken serious?” Speaker mused.

With tears in his eyes, Bitter Copal bemoaned the indignities that the tengese had submitted to for untold millennia, even since the usurpation: “We will walk with bowed heads no more”

A deep breath, followed by a kind but serious smile, Speaker found what he heard to be in his liking: “I’m not hearing any lies here – so I think we can still help you out”

“You… you’re serious? You still want to help me?” Bitter Copal said, sounding oddly shocked.

“I see no reason not to. In fact, I see quite a few reasons to – if for nothing else then to make sure that An-Teng doesn’t become another corner of Malfeas in your quest to free your people” Speaker said, sounding both sure of himself but also caring for the plight of the Tengese.

“A corner of Malfeas? No, but with the legions of demons at my command we can sweep An-Teng of realm ponies – right now we’re excavating tunnels and building summoning chambers. Once it’s all set up, we’ll flood the city with demons and overrun the legion garrisoning the coastal forts” Bitter Copal said defiantly, sounding very much as if he had it all figured out.

Speaker was about to say something in response when Shimmer cut him off: “I’m sure your demon masters would love nothing else – but what will your people say? How will you sate the thirst of your bloodhound demons once there are no more realm ponies to bleed dry? How will you handle your firmin demons plucking ponies of the street, to decorate their needle nests with pony corpses? Or when the marotte demons start killing foals left and right when their playing around gets too rough? The realm is only working An-Teng hard, not killing tengese ponies out of natural instinct”

Both Speaker and Bitter Copal looked quite surprised – but the green sun prince’s expression quickly faded into a look of horror as it seemed his thoughts drifted into something along the line of “Yes, my demon army would probably end up doing something like that…”

As both a statespony, military officer and a doctor, Speaker quickly saw where Bitter Copal’s plan had missed its mark: “You said you’re educated as a doctor – right?”

“I also have a degree in alchemy, yes” Bitter Copal said quietly, his eyes distant as it seemed his mind was still reeling.

“Do you have any experience at warcraft? Or statecraft?” Speaker inquired.

The bandage-covered pony dropped his head: “I… that’s why I was looking for allies. I know nothing of statecraft or even running a cult like this, and I was only taught the most basic of military manoeuvring – I was told to rely on the numbers and fury of my demon minions, not much else. I can fashion weapons and equipment easily, but I am the last pony you want leading troops in battle or directing troops as a strategos. The demons would be able to do all that on their own I was told”

“Then it’s not our funding you need, but my expertise in all things military and governance … but I have no plans on staying here – my people back east need me, as much as the Tengese needs you” the solar calmly stated.

Bitter Copal sighed: “If I request aid from my masters or another green sun prince to assist me, both will likely suggest we simply summon a demon army and use that – but I can see what you mean. The plight of my people has to be considered if I am to truly free them! There’s no sense in freeing An-Teng if it is simply put under the hoof of a cruel demon horde which will abuse them even worse… that’s not freedom at all!”

Speaker wanted to say something encouraging – but in that moment Bitter Copal sat up straight, as if possessed, and resolutely said: “No, I must free An-Teng!”

So that’s how the demonic urge worked – lovely.

“Look, at Sunhill we have a great track record of redeemed and purifying deathknights and their abyssal exaltations. I’m sure we can figure something similar out for you – then you will be free of your urge, and you’ll be free to impress upon Creation the greatness of the Tengese”

It was clear that Bitter Copal found the prospect intriguing.

The negotiations continued, more tender coconuts were consumed, and in the end, it seemed that despite having been part of a secret demon worshiping cult for most of his life, then Bitter Copal was actually quite nice once you got to know him. Speaker found a lot of parallels between Copal’s cult, the Seven Stranded Wine, and the Cult of the Illuminated – the biggest difference being that the seven stranded wine wasn’t on the immaculates watchlists, but both cults claimed that a higher power could save you in this life, and it was waiting for exalted champions to help free their people. Of course, it was also worshiping demons to achieve that goal, but still…

By the evening, having long missed their ship, the duo was escorted to a secret entryway to the cult hideout outside of the city. In the cave where they had been let out, Speaker cast his spell to conjure a flying cloud, allowing the duo fly off, all the while Shimmer tried to count the number of oddly attentive insects that she swore was looking at them.

Once they flew off, both of them breathed heavy sighs of relief. Shimmer quickly apologized: “I had no idea… I am so sorry for putting us in such a situation Lord Bright”

“Don’t be – we probably just saved An-Teng from being overrun by demons in the near future” Speaker said as he guided the magical cloud to fly east and fly upwards as quickly as it could.

Shimmer didn’t look entirely convinced: “In the short run maybe – but you heard him: He needs someone who can lead this rebellion as well as organize it properly, without relying on demons – your education charm granted him some basic administrative insight, but it won’t be enough”

“True. I think I know a pony who can help – but it all depends on how far he’s come with restoring Great Forks’ military – either way Bitter Copal said he would hold off on the invasion, focusing more on summoning demons to build him an arsenal to equip an army and train up his cultists” the solar mused, but that would have to wait until they got back home.

“You know a pony? Someone who knows how to raise an army?” Shimmer wondered.

Nodding, Speaker told Shimmer of the redeemed abyssal now known as Lee of the Third Breath, now a solar of the dawn caste, who had fought with them at Deep Rot, who lived in Great Forks.

“I think I’d like to go there one day” Shimmer said.

Speaker said that they would no doubt fly past Great Forks on their way back – but Shimmer quickly corrected him: “No, I meant Deep Rot – you’ve told a lot of stories about it, but I just can’t… I don’t remember anything about it”

“Lytek, the god of exaltation, prunes memories like that before releasing exaltations to find new hosts. You really don’t want to remember how it feels to die – it’s not fun” Speaker noted, his voice taking on a gloomier tone.

Shimmer, sitting down beside Speaker, quickly picked up on the subtle cue in that statement: “You… you remember that, Lord Bright?”

“I do – I had a deal with Lytek. We were close friends in my past life, still are – but trust me, it’s not fun being able to remember locking yourself in your own tomb and laying down to die”

As perceptive as she was, Shimmer instantly felt that she had dug a bit too deep into that topic: “I… sorry Lord Bright – can we change the topic?”

“Gladly. Do you remember what Bitter Copal said about the Golden Lord?” Speaker asked.

Shimmer said that she did – but she wasn’t familiar with that particular god. Speaker explained that even in the first age the golden lord had been the god of An-Teng, but he was also the celestial god of justice. Their conversation continued about that well into the evening as they flew on, right until they covertly landed outside a village set on the shores of the river of queens and took up lodging in a tavern there: “It sounds very out of character for him to let such abuses and injustice go on for so long… I would love to go and have a chat with him about that”

A drunken patron appearing out of nowhere suddenly stumbled over to the duo’s table, knocking over Speaker’s cup of local thin ale: “Ya, the golden bastard hasn’t done shit for us – hell, the pale mare barely ever answers your prayers anymore – the gods are all shit ya hear!”

Other local Tengese were quick to haul off their drunk peer – bowing and apologizing profusely. Shimmer appeared sympathetic, whispering: “No wonder some of them turned to demon worship, if they’re feeling abandoned by their gods”

“The immaculates can have that effect on local gods, forcing them into taking a less active role with the ponies that worship them – a sound thrashing by an immaculate unicorn can make a god very scared to do anything not permitted by immaculates” Speaker noted bitterly, having entertained a lot of divine guests from Great Forks who had told of such stories, many of which asking for his healing powers.

Shimmer shrugged: “The spirits we gave prayers and offerings to back at Five-palms were good at letting their presence be known – we wouldn’t worship them otherwise, Lord Bright - do you think that the immaculates got the better of this golden lord god?”

“It could have happened – but he was a very powerful god, so honestly I don’t see it… plus, the immaculates can’t do anything up in Yu-Shan where he lives”

“Goes to show what you know foreigner – the golden lord has his divine residence up on the pinnacle of mercy, in the fire mountains, everyone knows that” another patron said, garnering quite a few angry glares from the other tengese patrons around her for speaking out of turn.

Ok, so the golden lord had moved from Yu-Shan to creation?

“I guess we could give him a visit – would be on our way home” Speaker said, putting down his ale.

Chapter 10 Shining Lies

The Ebon Shadow stylist hides under the table, and takes spoonful’s out of everyone else's bowls of soup.

…

The next morning the duo flew off, finding the long mountain chain known as the Fire Mountains stretching across the horizon in no time at all. Having asked around, they knew that the pinnacle of mercy was the tallest peak on the chain.

Seeing as spotting the tallest mountain wasn’t exactly difficult, the duo quickly found themselves homing in on a magnificent palace carved and built into the mountain near the peak. There was an impossible-looking path leading up to the palace, winding up the side of the mountain. A few brave souls could be seen trying to climb it… and one slipping and falling down.

Speaker instantly had the cloud heave and drop into a steep dive: “Shimmer catch that pony!”

Shimmer dove from the cloud, first melting into a living blob of moonsilver, then shapeshifting into a familiar looking winged gryphon-like form, swelling in size and sprouting massive wings, growing a large beak and sprouting claws where her hooves should be. As her form solidified, her grey coat was replaced by grey weathers with white and purple crests. A second or so later, she had caught the pony tumbling down the mountainside in her massive talons.

Shimmer flew the battered, bruised and utterly wrecked pony up to Speaker’s cloud where the solar worked his magic quickly: “There we go – easy enough to patch up. Now let’s fix those bruises”

Flying next to the cloud in her warform, Shimmer looked on with great curiosity as Speaker drew three delicate orichalcum needles hidden in his sleeve and began to methodically acupuncture his patient. The welts and bruises on the Tengese pony faded with supernatural speed, the unconscious pony quickly coming to, squinting at the glare from Speaker’s shining anima: “Oh where… oh golden lord, is that you?”

“I would never claim the golden lord’s name or title – my name is Bright Machine Speaker”

“But… you shine with his gold?” the confused stallion said, tentatively stretching and flexing limbs that had been completely broken moments earlier.

Speaker didn’t bother explaining the situation, instead flying the pony up to the end of the winding path leading up the mountain. It terminated at the far end of a long rope and wooden plank suspension bridge which led to the castle gates, secured via two large piles of rocks where the bridge ropes were tied to.

On either side of the stone piles sat two three-yard statues of lion spirits, symbolic guardians to anyone who couldn’t see spirits. To the likes of Speaker and Shimmer, who could see dematerialized spirits, they saw the two actually three yard tall golden celestial lions standing guard at the bridge.

The pony Speaker had healed thanked the duo profusely, saying that his entire family would send their prayers and thanks for many years to come, before galloping off towards the temple.

Smiling from ear to ear, Speaker happily trotted up to the bridge, nodding politely at the two lions. Shimmer followed suit, but suddenly a voice called out from behind them: “Hold it”

It was the voice of a pony – not the booming roar of a celestial lion – but it had none the less been said with no small amount of authority and conviction. Turning to look, the duo saw the stranger standing before the celestial lions: “You two have some nerve coming here this late”

Speaker looked at the pony calling them out and smiled: “Oh, it’s you – it’s been a while since last we met, Anys Syn”

Shimmer struggled for a moment, the name sounding vaguely familiar – though to her memories of her past life the name had the scent of an enemy, but she could not remember why. To her surprise Speaker jumped over her, off the bridge, back to the solid mountain ground to face the stranger: “Get off the bridge” he barely managed to say in passing to Shimmer.

Not questioning the suggestion, Shimmer quickly turned around and moved off the bridge, joining Speaker as they stood before the black-maned mare.

“Last Shimmer, meet Anys Syn. She’s the pony who invented the five celestial dragon styles of magical martial arts” Speaker said, gesturing towards the stranger who was clad in very impressive silks.

Shimmer frowned as Anys Syn shot back, her sea-tongue being strangely accented: “You have some nerve to show up here”

“Just bringing back my lunar mate. I promised her last incarnation I would” Speaker casually replied.

Taking a cue from Speaker not to be in any way intimidated by the looming figure of this Anys Syn, Shimmer quietly commented: “She invented the dragon styles? She doesn’t look like an immaculate”

“She’s one of those ponies you keep forgetting of – can’t wait to have that fixed once we get home” Speaker noted, his annoyance there but kept under wraps.

Anys Syn scoffed at the two: “That can quickly be remedied… no sense in killing you if you don’t know why I’m doing it”

With a subtle gesture and an unheard thought, the sidereal did… something – and suddenly Shimmer remembered. She remembered the dozens of times Speaker had told her about the sidereals, the chosen of fate, the agents of heaven… and how quite a lot of them really didn’t like solars and lunars.

“Shimmer, the three ponies who just came up from the trail over there – get them to safety. I’ll handle her” Speaker said, never taking his eyes off their adversary.

It didn’t appear as if the sidereal cared that the lunar disappeared in a flurry of feathers and shapeshifting – it was obvious that her main focus was the solar before her: “Should I kill her first? Just to make your entire trip here for nothing?”

“Oh, how you have fallen Anys. I have faced down a deathlord since last we met, do you really think you can intimidate me? Do you think it wise to fight me?” Speaker noted, sounding like a disappointed grandfather.

With a mocking laugh Anys approached Speaker: “I have fought things you can’t even image… and you have the gall to challenge me?”

“I am not challenging you. Far from it – you should know well enough that I prefer not to fight if possible” Speaker admonished, wondering a bit why the sidereal hadn’t started fighting him yet.

Clearly seething, but for some unknown reason biding her time, Anys tried to circle Speaker – but he moved in tandem so that she never got around him, though it did put her face to face with him: “You and your circle… you cost me everything!”

“I didn’t cost you anything. You broke the laws of heaven, you got caught, you got punished” Speaker ‘corrected’, smiling maybe a bit too much.

Her eyes aflame with fury, Anys Syn stomped a hoof firmly into the ground: “You little… how dare you”

“When you’ve lived with lies for centuries, having someone dare tell the truth can be painful” Speaker said, feeling oddly antsy – he could feel the fight coming – and he was as ready as ever to bring his guard up, but she wasn’t doing anything.

Shimmer returned from having flown around with passengers, ensuring that no innocents would get caught in any crossfire, touching down near the landing that led to the path down the mountain. Anys spied the lunar in warform landing behind her and cried out: “An ambush? How dare you!”

Really? Pretending to have been ambushed as a pretence to attack them?

“I take umbrage to that accusation Anys. Luckily, we’re right in front of the temple of the god of justice. Let’s go ask the golden lord if what you said is right” Speaker said, wondering if Anys had brought other sidereals along… if she had, then they should be attacking them any second.

All three ponies thusly twitched as they heard a hoof set down beside them: A zebra pony clad in richly decorated red cloth of light cotton, replete in patterns that most common ponies would probably call ‘southern tribal’, though he spoke in a very old dialect of old realm: “Anys Syn, what exactly do you think you’re doing here?”

Three other ponies appeared out of the shadows after the mystery zebra stallion had revealed himself, a few of them looking somewhat bruised and battered – all three of them wearing garbs that made them look like sailors ponies. Abys Syn did not look happy to see the three appearing like that.

“Operating in a convention outside of your own jurisdiction without permit, picking a fight with a solar, trying to frame said solar for an ambush that was clearly of your own fabrication… honestly, you’re supposed to be better than this Anys. Now get back to your post, or I’ll report you on that too” the zebra stated firmly, staring the sidereal down.

Speaker wasn’t really sure what was going on, but it seemed to work. Anys Syn sneered at the zebra, then did… something… that made her disappear in a puff of red essence. The three other ponies that had appeared similarly left, one of them casting a spell that moments later zapped them far away.

Shimmer approached the two remaining ponies, looking a bit more confused than Speaker: “So… thank you?”

“Your old realm is atrocious. Now, do you two have any kind of legitimate business here, or are you just passing through?” the zebra asked, his tone stern enough to crush sand into sandstone.

Still under the effect of his fearlessness charm, Speaker didn’t flinch at the zebra’s brutal glare: “We were just about to pay a cordial visit to the golden lord. I hope that’s ok?”

That the zebra didn’t answer such a seemingly simple question instantly gave Speaker pause. Could meeting the golden lord lead to anything bad? The zebra finally spoke, his tone oddly disinterested: “Moot point. He’s not in right now – I suspect that Anys Syn pulled most of the few strings she has left to ensure that he was busy elsewhere today since you were coming. He will be very upset with her if you leave a message for him, seeing as he’s been eagerly awaiting the return of the solars ever since he heard of your return”

“Hold on, who are you?” Shimmer asked, circling Speaker and the zebra.

The zebra did… something… something obviously sidereal in nature, for it made Shimmer suddenly stand next to Speaker in front of him: “Neither of you need to know that – though it will not be difficult to learn who I am from your convention of wood friends, but you won’t be able to do that until you’re far away from here, which is just how I like it”

Speaker shrugged: “You’re not the first sidereal who wants to stay anonymous. Your choice – but tell me, we’re traveling eastward to reach Sunhill. Do you have suggestions for places to check out or avoid?”

“Who briefed you on what buttons to push on me?” the zebra stallion snapped back in an instant, giving Speaker an icy stare.

With a chuckle, Speaker recounted the wisdom that he had been told by Heath Rose, the sidereal attached to Sunhill as its advisor: “She told me that if we ran into trouble with other sidereals here we should just stall and invoke big enough gods until a local sidereal took notice, said that you lot are neutral if nothing else – and she suggested I word such a request for guidance thusly in case we could help you with anything. I hope we haven’t offended”

Closing his eyes for a brief moment, Shimmer leaned over to Speaker and whispered: “There’s something in his ear whispering to him”

“A crystal spider spirit – a spirit secretary” Speaker replied.

The zebra nodded: “I just got a new threat analysis on An-Teng. A forty-seven percent reduction in the likelihood of imminent overt demonic activity. Did you two have anything to do with that?”

Speaker nodded to Shimmer who eagerly replied: “We accidentally ran across a demon cult that was planning a rebellion to oust the realm from An-Teng, talked them out of using demons for the uprising – they’ll arm up and try to use pony troops instead, only using the demons to arm them and construct secret infrastructure”

It was a strange laugh that came from the zebra: “Really? Do you think you can do something similar in the deep desert?”

“Maybe? Will it be on our route home?” Speaker wondered.

The zebra remained silent for another moment or two, telepathically communing with his crystal spider spirit secretary: “I can arrange for a fire elemental to bring you from the outskirts of Gem to where you can meet Sand – a very self-righteous solar, wants to do things that’ll kill millions. Can you be there in two days?”

A quick bit of geography and math on the fly saw Speaker nodding, not that it was difficult to lure him into helping potentially save the lives of millions: “It’ll be close, but it should be possible to get to Gem that quickly”

“Excellent. Here, snacks for your trip – remember to drink plenty of water while in the deep desert” the zebra said, pulling out a pouch of something and tossing it to Shimmer.

The duo had probably wanted to ask more questions, but the zebra stepped up to the celestial lions and had one of them pick him up and toss him far to the east, over the mountains and beyond.

“Well, that’s one way to end a conversation” Speaker said, curiously looking at the pouch they had been given.

Opening the pouch full of sweet dates and nuts, Shimmer gave them a sniff: “Oh… sugary”

Flying in a roughly eastern direction on Speaker’s magic cloud, Shimmer consulted Speaker’s maps and vented her anger and discomfort: “This is a shit map and it is way too hot even with the sun down!”

“That’s why we’re flying at night. And I know the map is a bit rough, I’ll give you that, but we just have to find the diamond road and follow it south to find Gem. Look out for campfires lit along the road by trade caravans” Speaker noted.

Shimmer pondered the map for a moment, also peering down at the seemingly endless dune sea beneath them: “Spotting a sea-lane from the air is easier than this Lord Bright… and we’re way too high up to see any campfires”

“Well… can you sense the presence of animals? Try to feel out if there are any areas where the local wildlife has been scared away, sense the yeddim pulling the guild wagons” Speaker suggested, drawing a heavy breath as he fought his eyes to avoid falling asleep.

There was a moment of silence. Speaker sensed a dim light next to him, and sure enough: Shimmer was glowing softly, not via her moonsilver tatoos, but via strange silverly lines in her skin glowing through her coat along her body.

“This charm is a lot easier to use underwater… but I think I can sense a spot with a line of ponies in… that direction” Shimmer said, her caste mark of a hollow ring of silver-blue moonlight erupting and shining enough light onto her hoof that Speaker could see what direction she was pointing in the darkness.

Flying in that direction led to a caravan that – curiously enough – appeared to have erected what looked a bit like roof-less tents, or just canvas walls held up by poles and such, around their campfires.

“Why do you think they do that?” Speaker whispered, as the cloud hovered silently above the camp, with the soft murmurs of quiet evening conversation filtering up from down below.

Shimmer quickly answered: “I’ve seen similar setups on ships with smugglers – they did that to hide – but this is the desert. What are they hiding from?”

“No idea – most of the diamond road isn’t claimed or taxed territory as far as I know. Anyway, I can see other campfires, so now we have a rough direction to fly in”

Continuing onwards, the duo flew through the night, Speaker steeling himself with essence to stay awake. When Dawn came the diamond road became a lot more obvious, the snaking lines of caravans going either north or south in between the sandy foothills of the fire mountains were plain for all to see. In the distance the massive extinct volcano in which the city state of Gem was located began to tower.

It also didn’t take many moments from the sun peeking over the horizon before Speaker noticed that his elemental immunity charm had come on without him even thinking about it. Shimmer had no such defence, and so found the heat utterly oppressive, even with Deep Wave forming an umbrella for her, and by the time that the cloud came in over the caldera of the volcano, she was only alive thanks to repeated essence expenditures to stave off heat stroke.

Landing in what looked like a bazar of sorts, a market square where quite a few of the stalls stood empty and abandoned, Speaker helped Shimmer into the shade. He didn’t pay attention to the many strange stares that followed the two as they made it into what looked like a rather seedy tea house.

“A pitcher, no – make it two” Speaker commanded in heavily accented fire-tongue as he sat a very hot, if not downright steamy, Shimmer down. His charms might protect him from the heat, but he could still feel how Shimmer was positively sizzling, which really didn’t feel very healthy.

A southern looking mare came over to Speaker with a sneer on her lip, her mane curly and dark and her garb wrought of light and thin cottons: “We serve tea here – this isn’t an alehouse you stupid foreigner”

Not really wanting to engage in a prolonged argument, since he knew that Shimmer needed fluids and fast, Speaker instead opted to resolve the situation how he had learned from Cash Charmer: He threw money at it.

Pulling out a solid bar of silver from his saddlebags, Speaker dropped it at the hooves of the now wide-eyed mare: “Two pitchers of tea then, big ones, as cold as you can make ‘em”

The mare bit down on the bar and tried to lift it – and failed. Few ponies ever considered the weight of silver, for it was nearly as heavy as lead. As coins they were light enough due to their small size, but as a bar one needed more strength than a tea-house waiter could muster, a strength Speaker had in spades.

Two of what was likely the largest tea kettles in the establishment were quickly delivered. Speaker helped Shimmer rehydrate, the lunar slowly regaining her composure and the awareness of her surroundings, so much so that she quickly pointed out to Speaker that a number of armed guards had apparently assembled outside whatever place they were in.

“…but they’re not doing anything? Are you sure?” Speaker wondered, trying to not look alarmed.

“Doesn’t look like it – but… hold on Lord Bright, someone’s coming” Shimmer said, whatever extrasensory perception charm she had been using having clued her in on activities beyond the door to the tea house.

Moments later a mare clad in robes that Speaker figured marked her as a public official walked in, and through the door several ponies at arms in colorful but matching liveries could be seen. The official quickly looked around, checked a scroll she carried, then stomped over to Speaker and Shimmer: “Do you speak the firetongue ifendi?”

“I do, she doesn’t” Speaker calmly replied, even if his accent probably made him sound as if he spoke with a mouth full of river silt.

The official did not look impressed as she scrutinized the two: “Did you two arrive via sorcery at the day market? All sorcerers must register their presence with the Office of Vapors and Magic”

Not wanting any kind of trouble, Speaker simply nodded: “Terribly sorry about that. Is this office far off?”

“It is closed for today. You will have to spend the night in the district jail – it will give you plenty of time to pray and meditate on your crime. You will be brought before a magistrate in the morning – your punishment will likely be a fine and service to Gem” the mare said with not even a hint of remorse or pity in her voice. She looked pleased as punch as she gestured for the armed troops to come and take the duo away.

A quick glance at Shimmer, who was busy sucking on a sugared fig, left Speaker with little choice, seeing as he didn’t want to see innocents killed for something this petty, even though smacking around idiot officials who harassed ill-feeling travels certainly invited such.

The district jail was set right next to the district garrison – and in being led there, Speaker gleamed quite a few interesting details of Gem’s architecture: Pretty much all of the city was built underground, with dozens of levels throughout the mountain. This also meant that the district garrison looked like a one-story store-front… even though it was probably more like a small fortress built inside the city. The jail part of the garrison wasn’t much different.

Since they were only meant to stay there the night, the duo was ushered into the holding cell next to four ponies in various states of inebriation and drug-intoxication. They smelled about as nice as one would expect, especially considering that there was no means to wash one-self in the holding cell, nor anywhere to relieve one self. The drunk ones had each puked at least twice, and one of the druggies had shat themselves.

This would not do.

Steeling himself, Speaker first made sure that Shimmer was comfortable. The smell didn’t seem to bother her all that much, and she had been properly rehydrated – she just had to recuperate. Next up, Speaker carefully checked out the patrol routes of the guards, to make sure that they would be out of sight when he worked his charms. Finally, he applied his peaceful repose touch to thoroughly send the other ponies in the cell off to dreamland, before he quickly used his medical charms to scrub all of them of their poisons and vices, both physically and mentally, as well as washing them down with essence. He briefly flared with golden light, but it had subsided by the time the guard patrol came around the corner to see anything.

With the source of the stink in the cell gone, Speaker sat down next to Shimmer and breathed a sigh of relief. This managed to last for just long enough for Speaker to doze off, when Shimmer suddenly shook him awake.

“What, what is it?” Speaker said, getting his bearings. Yup, still in the cell carved out of volcanic rock, and it hadn’t started to smell like sick and shit, so it wasn’t all bad.

Well, it was actually all bad, as Shimmer quickly pointed out: “Lord Bright, I can hear demons and fighting outside!!”

Looking quickly over at the four sleeping ponies in the other end of the holding cell, Speaker frowned: “Can you turn into something small enough to sneak outside and go have a look?”

Shimmer was already out beyond the bars in the form of some kind of small lizard or snake, before Speaker knew what was happening. From inside the cell Speaker wondered how she would handle the heat – they hadn’t been inside for that long – so it would still be scorching outside, unless she just scouted the nearby tunnels.

It was then that Speaker noticed the distinct lack of guards in the prison. That… that was not good. He could also hear the distant clamour of fighting and screaming. Shimmer returned shortly thereafter, her tiny reptile form looking well cooked, but not worse for wear. Turning back into a pony, she confirmed the situation: “The city is chaos… the sky is straight up cloudy with demons”

“It’s an invasion! – We… we need to help these ponies” Speaker said, trying to piece together a plan of action on the fly.

Shimmer looked at Speaker, then at the iron bars of the cell: “We need to get you out of here first my lord”

“Bars stopped being an issue to me a long time ago. Not even jadesteel bars would hold me these days. No, we need to find out where we can do the most good here!” Speaker said, casually waving a hoof at the bars. With a wash of golden essence, the bars withered and turned to dust, leaving a door-sized hole for the two to exit, right next to the door.

In the underground hallways outside the prison Speaker first saw the blood. There was… too much. Several blood trails hinted of wounded ponies retreating, one of the blood trails had very dark blood – a wound to the liver – that pony would die soon, if it hadn’t already happened. His first impulse was to follow that trail and pray that he could reach that pony in time, but looking down the hallway in the direction that dark blood-trail, there was another splash of blood. Something had burst. It was too much for whatever pony that was to have survived.

With a deep breath and a pair of tearful eyes Speaker looked towards the nearest door to the outside: “Leadership – we need to find who is leading the demons and cut off the head of it all. Demons obey their masters rigidly; without a master they’ll scatter into the foothills”

The outside was baking hot. Truly, it was like stepping into a searingly hot oven. Speaker felt the soft inner parts of his hooves scorch, but in an instant his elemental immunity charm kicked in without him even thinking about it.

“I can’t… it’s too hot for me Lord Bright, I’m sorry” Shimmer said from the doorway.

Looking around and seeing that the sky was indeed dark with flying demons, Speaker grimaced: “Go full warform, everything you have. I doubt the leader of the demons is out in the open – they’re probably at the despot’s palace. We’ll go there”

Shimmer found herself impressed as she struggled to keep up with Speaker while he leapt and bounded from rooftop to rooftop, while her birdlike warform, with its clawed limbs, strong beak and large wings was more suited for flight than jumping around – but flying meant getting her wings scorched.

Enroute to the palace the duo saw a lot of demolished houses and structures where the screams of ponies could be heard from within, along with the joyous howls of demons. The sky was equally thick with strange demonic banners and flying demonic insects and other infernal horrors.

It made Speaker question where they had all come from. The despot of Gem was known for – if nothing else – running a tight ship, and trouncing any kind of rebellion or insurrection quickly. That was at least how the stories he’d heard usually went, like how Gem didn’t have a standing army, but instead three competing mercenary companies that never had enough troops to take over without the other two putting them in their place.

…had one of the mercenary companies been flipped somehow?

The demonic insects that controlled the skies finally began to pay attention to the duo as they approached the palace. They fell by the dozen as Speaker threw his chakrams, and Shimmer made great use of her magical spiderweb charm, trapping the flying demons and tangling up their wings, leading to a lot of them crashing into the rooftops of the city, or impaling themselves on sun-bleached flagpoles.

“Shimmer, can you tell what these demons are?” Speaker said as he leapt from another rooftop towards the palace.

Figuring that her solar mate was testing the occult knowledge he had taught her earlier, Shimmer quickly answered: “It’s a mix of demons Lord Bright, but the bug ones with wings are agatae – the giant demon wasps – and the ones parachuting down on spiderwebs are some kind of anhules, demon spiders – but Sage never told me anything about anhules doing air-drops – and I think I can see some kite flute demons!”

“Ya, that’s a new trick. I’m guessing its these green sun princes, like Bitter Copal; the demons have finally gotten some new strategoi to plan attacks like this” Speaker shouted back.

At a massive balcony overseeing the city, Speaker landed from a great leap into an expanding pool of drying blood. The bodies of many dozens of ponies were strewn everywhere on the balcony, dripping down on the rooftops of the rest of the city, forming steaming pies of blood, sand and dust.

The stone door leading into the palace proper suddenly creaked open. Two massive red-furred clawed hands pushed the door open. A lone bloodhound came through, hauling a cart filled with corpses. Dumping the corpses, the horn-crowned demon seemed far too preoccupied with squeezing the last few drops of out the pony corpses it had delivered to notice Shimmer sneaking up on him and ripping his head clean off.

“Are they just killing everyone?” Shimmer said in dispair, looking at the dead ponies that had been delivered.

With a cursory glance across the hundreds of corpses, Speaker’s solar intuition near-instantly gleamed a pattern in the corpses and their injuries: “No, these are the corpses of courtesans and servants – and they look burned too. I think they were caught in some kind of fire-based attack, probably an opening salvo. The rest of them have arrow, slash and stab wounds, wounds from combat – look at the naked bodies. They look like guards stripped of their armor and uniforms… I’m guessing that whoever is taking over wants to present a new guard that at least looks like ponies…”

Shimmer was scouting through the door into the palace as she had to wonder about what was Speaker had said: “Look like ponies?”

“I’m guessing they have shapeshifting demons, neomah – they can breathe emerald fire. I think what happened here first was that a bunch of neomah disguised as ponies arrived here and started burning ponies” Speaker said as he followed the warformed lunar inside.

Shimmer’s massive form took up most of the small palace corridor, but it quickly turned into a larger and more spacious hallway. The scattered bits of torn armor and blood spatter told a grim story of desperate battle, but there weren’t any patrols going around the halls. Her senses being the sharper of the two, this led to Shimmer detecting dozens of ponies hidden in various rooms they passed.

“They can’t leave the way we came in… they need a way out, and we’ll need help” Speaker mused, quickly looking the latest group of barely hidden ponies over with essence sight to make sure none were shapeshifted demons, or had been possessed by stomach-bottle bug demons.

With barely enough room to turn around, and constantly on the lookout for demons, Shimmer wasn’t able to face Speaker to incredulously ask him: “Help from who Lord Bright?”

“Doesn’t matter – we have to let the rest of creation know what’s going on here. Just give me a minute, I’ll have a messenger spell out, then we can round everyone up and get them out of here” Speaker said as if they already had an escape route, which they didn’t, or allies on call who could be there in an instant, which they didn’t have either.

Her armored feathers bristling, Shimmer waited the tense minute or so as Speaker wove the messenger spell into being… and then he hesitated. Hesitation was bad, to the point that Shimmer momentarily forgot her manners: “What’s the holdup?”

“I can’t remember the deliberative emergency codes to the bureau of weather for demonic incursions. We could call down the wrath of heaven on these things if I could…” Speaker replied, the anguish in his voice palpable.

A quick re-evaluation of his options, Speaker spoke a simple message in old realm: “From: Bright Machine Speaker. Gem is being overrun by demons. Enemy leadership has not been identified. Evacuating civilians. Inform all available forces in the south, or Gem will have fallen by dawn”

“Who did you send that to Lord Bright? The zebra sidereal we met at the golden lord’s temple?” Shimmer wondered.

With a deep sigh, Speaker wished he had: “He never told us his name, so I couldn’t. I sent it to the sidereal in charge of overseeing the east. It’ll be five or six hours before the message reaches her, but she probably has faster ways of getting a message back here to the zebra and any other sidereals and martial gods here. Maybe they can get the southern god of war involved – now, roundup all the ponies you can find while I make us an exit”

Chapter 11 Sand and Fire

The Silver-Voiced Nightingale stylist manages to reach a pitch that shatters his bowl, and sends the soup flying in every direction. He manages to catch every droplet in his mouth before a single one hits the ground. When soup moves, he moves—just like that!

…

It was a rather big revelation to take in for Shimmer that Speaker had a singing staff in his possession. The magical white jade staff, with its carvings making it look like polished but gnarled white wood, and featuring runic bands of orichalcum, resonated beautifully with the rosined bow Speaker played with, its music melting the mountain rock away as if it was water, leaving behind a tunnel just big enough for a pony to walk in with her head down, advancing at an even trot.

The greatest challenge for the lunar was to round up all the ponies who were hiding. Shimmer couldn’t really speak firetongue, and while Speaker had told her the words or sounds she had to repeat in order to say “Come with me, we have a safe way out” – instead she had to improvise, often dragging random ponies who kicked and screamed back to Speaker who could explain things, then escort those ponies back to their peers and hope they could talk the rest into coming along – and fight any demons they ran into.

After a number of courtiers and servants had been found they were able to help talk most of everyone else Shimmer could find into coming along – but many still refused to go, paralyzed with fear, not daring to come out of their hidey holes.

Shimmer chose not to tell Speaker of the ones who had stayed behind – she had more important things to watch out for: There might not have been many demons about, but there were enough to keep her on her toes. Her talons, made into long silvery daggers via her charms, rent demon flesh over and over while trying to the demons away from the ponies escaping – a challenging task, considering how vulnerable her charges were, but as taught by Sage of the Depths, then many of Shimmer’s charms excelled when they were about protecting others.

With Speaker leading the way in the tunnel, they quickly reached the outside of the mountain. Shimmer had apparently managed to block the entrance to the tunnel in the palace, hiding it well enough that the demons at least hadn’t found it until everyone was out – and on the old heat-cracked cliffs going down the mountainside, she spun her essence webbing into ropes so all the ponies could climb down via, on their own. It took a while, but at least they were going down on the east side of the mountain, so they were in the shade of what would otherwise have been a blistering sun.

At the base of the mountain, they were met by other ponies – ponies who had escaped the demons via the usual way one got in and out of the mountain: the snaking tunnels carved from its foothills, leading up into the caldera. Of course, the demons had cut off the main routes pretty quickly, but there were still about a couple hundred ponies who had made it out before the demons had closed the upper gates and started capturing and killing anyone they found in the tunnels.

This left Speaker and Shimmer with nearly seven hundred ponies, no water, no shelter, and a southern nightfall that looked to be almost as mercilessly cold as its daytime heat.

“Lord Bright, is that the elemental who was supposed to take us to that other solar?” Shimmer pointed out, not understanding what any of the locals were saying, and feeling very much like a fish out of water with so much land around her and absolutely no water.

Speaker quickly glanced over to what Shimmer pointed at, seeing the… impromptu shrine some of the escaped ponies had set up to pray for salvation from the newly arrived spirit: “Looks about right”

The fire elemental, appearing to mortal eyes as a living flame that just floated in the air, looked a lot more like a pony wrought of flame to the duo as they were able to perceive spirit’s immaterial body properly. Approaching it, one of the refugees who appeared to had set herself up as an impromptu priestess lording over the ‘shrine’ – if one could call it that – didn’t want to let foreigners get close: “Stay away strangers – this is a sacred shrine!”

The priestess’s extravagant gesturing made for a really easy hold as Speaker picked her up, flipped her over, and sat her down behind him, clearing their path to the elemental.

“Are you the elemental sent to take us to the solar in the east of the dune sea?” Speaker asked in old realm.

The mortal ponies around him and Shimmer looked on in great confusion as Speaker spoke the ancient tongue of scholars, few if any of them understanding the language – but none managed to ask questions, as in the next moment the elemental materialized before them, it’s beautiful and sleek form of flame and its mane of smoke clear for all to see. With eyes of glowing red gems the elemental looked around: “I thought I was only transporting two ponies…”

“I know – shit happened. Will you be able to transport some seven hundred souls to the destination?” Speaker politely asked, smiling warmly.

Dimming briefly, the elemental didn’t look happy with what appeared to be a lot of extra work: “You have got to be kidding”

“I can ensure that a written commendation for going above and beyond your call of duty, gets delivered to your master, with the seals and signatures of five solars upon it, if you do this” Speaker offered, with not a hint of deception or lies in his voice, but he did flare his caste mark to prove that he was a solar.

To Shimmer’s surprise the elemental didn’t even stick around to accept the offer, before flitting off to blast nearby sands with fire, shaping the molten glass into the form of a… ship. A barge?

Turning to Shimmer, Speaker smiled: “You would not believe the things that lone spirits will do for a written something-something from a solar – the poor things get so little appreciation in their daily lives. Now, we’re going to need to wrangle everyone up on this glass barge, come on”

Between the courtiers from the palace and Speaker trying to talk everyone into getting into orderly lines and marching up on the barge, and Shimmer webbing in what few fools and stragglers who didn’t want to come willingly – her not taking no for an answer this time around – then it didn’t take long to get everyone settled in.

Up on the ship, Speaker was installed as the ‘captain’ at the instructions of the elemental, who parked itself under the ship to melt the sand under the barge, to allow it to flow and to direct the ‘current’ so the barge could move at great speed.

“Alright everyone – the elemental is about to bring this thing up to speed, to get us away from Gem!” Speaker announced, much to the cheering of the crowd of ponies on the deck of the barge.

A flaming light underneath the barge erupted, and the barge lurched away from the mountain with its buzzing cloud of demons and green fire up top. Speaker continued his oration, his caste mark lighting up as he used essence to smooth over his words: “We are going to cross the glittering desert, which we will be doing very quickly. I want everyone to sit down and keep their heads down, because we will going very fast – you can get hurt very badly if you do don’t”

From the crowd the lone voice of a young stallion cried out: “Where are we going? Why not head north to the Lap?”

“We’re going to… I don’t actually know where we are going – but I am supremely convinced that there’ll be water and shelter where we’re going” Speaker replied, not at all reassuring the ponies listening to him.

Murmurs spread throughout the crowd, so much so that Shimmer quickly poked Speaker and told him to fork over his maps: “I’ll track where we’re going via the stars and the moon, so we can at least try to predict where we’re going”

The barge quickly picked up speed, to the point that it became very hazardous to stick one’s limb or head out to the side, lest you desired having it sanded off. Of course, at the supernatural speed they were going, they arrived at their destination so fast that Shimmer barely had time to chart their course: “I think we’re somewhere south or south-east of the Varang city states if your maps are right – and the mountains we’re heading towards, that’s the summer mountains Lord Bright”

“Vague, but it’s better than nothing – I think we’re heading towards that one volcano there” Speaker mused.

Approaching the looming volcano, the steady plume of smoke rising from it clearly marking it among the mountains around it. As they got closer, Shimmer spied something carved into the volcano at its base with her supernaturally keen eyesight.

The barge came to a halt on the outskirts of whatever it was built into the volcano, the elemental melting its way up through the barge to announce that it would approach any closer: “You can walk the rest of it – I can’t bring this any closer, the area is warded”

“Thank you. I’ve already relayed instructions to the rest of my circle. Your commendation is being drafted as we speak. We’ll have it delivered via messenger spirit once I return home” Speaker said.

The elemental was overjoyed, and erupted in a plume of flame as it flew skywards as if living fireworks, before disappearing. The fireworks made sure that the ponies on the barge were seen by the ponies at the volcano, an armed patrol quickly reaching them.

Screams of fear was what first alerted the duo to the patrol – and it turned that the screaming hadn’t been entirely unwarranted, because the ‘patrol’ had consisted of three gnarled ponies in worn and patchy desert garbs, wielding crude spears – and exhibiting very obvious physical deformities and marks of sickness.

“They’re taken us to a jackal hideout! We’re doomed!” sounded the shouts that spread throughout the crowd of ponies.

Neither Speaker or Shimmer knew what a jackal was – so Speaker did the only thing he could think of: “Shimmer, get up in front and flash a caste mark quickly. Keep everyone safe. I’ll ask at home what this is”

Shimmer was off in an instant, while Speaker focused on his hearthstone and projected his senses back to Sunhill. It was late night, but being able to see and hear everything within the city, combined with his investigatory charms, made it reasonably easy to track Cash Charmer down. Using the Sunhill manse’s powers, Speaker manifested an illusion of himself next to the bed of Cash Charmer where he snored: “Cash, quickly – we’re in the south, what’s a jackal, it’s some kind of pony, its scaring everyone”

Startled awake, Cash tumbled out of bed in confusion before looking up at the illusion of Speaker: “Who what? You – really, in the middle of the night? Right in front of my salad?”

“Answer the question please, we have a situation here” Speaker implored.

Cash shook his head and brushed his mane back: “Jackals… that’s a southern catch-all for exiles and banished ponies. Think outlaws. It’s how a lot of southern nations deal with their sick, criminals or other undesirables – sending them out in the desert to fend for themselves and die from exposure. I’ve heard some ugly stories of the kind of deals they strike with desert spirits for protection and the means to survive. Anything else?”

“Well, we just escaped Gem, it got overrun by demons – and we’re at some jackal hideout carved into a volcano south of the Varang cities”

Cash pondered for a moment, then a wide and toothy grin spread over his face: “Oh…. Oh. That is amazing… horrible, sure, but also amazing”

“Anything I need to know, or can the briefing wait until we get back?”

“You’re probably at the hideout of one Admiral Sand, pretty sure he’s a solar – make friends, have him talk to me later, keep your mind control defences up – he doesn’t play anywhere nearly as nice as we do. The rest can wait until you two come back, now let me get back to my beauty sleep”

Terminating the connection so Cash could get back to sleep, Speaker pondered what he had been told. So, the panic was because the ponies sighted were potentially diseased? Well, that was a problem he could comfortably work with.

By the time Speaker reached the patrol, he found Shimmer staring down five ponies in ragged desert garbs. The five had crude oil lamps with them, letting Speaker see their angry expressions – expressions that were chiefly aimed at Shimmer, who stood a fair distance from the jackals next to a pile of shattered spears.

“Playing rough with their toys?” Speaker inquired.

Shimmer chuckled: “Sort of – I don’t speak their language Lord Bright, but I think they’re upset I broke their spears after they tried to grab me”

With that information it was with a raised eyebrow that Speaker approached the ragged looking ponies: “Jackals, I seek Admiral Sand”

That got their attention. The five kept their eyes wearily on Shimmer, but approached Speaker. One of them drew their hood, revealing the face of a scarred mare with notably notched ears: “That depends on who is asking. You come here on a ship of fire and glass, mark our location for all to see for miles around us… are you here to kill us?”

The accusatory tone was unmistakable, even Shimmer caught on to it.

Speaker shook his head. If these jackals were followers of a solar, then he was doing it all wrong – how silly of him. Flaring his caste mark, the golden light on his brow that marked him as a chosen of the solar twilight caste, Speaker spoke up: “My name is Bright Machine Speaker, Lord of the city state of Sunhill. I am a peer to your Admiral Sand, for we both belong to the same host. The ponies with me are refugees from Gem, for it has fallen to demons. They will either need safe passage to the nearest city, or the opportunity to join you. They are under my protection, and I will accept no abuse of them”

It was quite amusing for Shimmer to see how the eyes of the jackal ponies, most of them having their faces wrapped up as part of their ragged desert garbs so only their eyes were visible, turn to fear. All but the one talking to Speaker dropped to the ground and pressed their faces into the sand in displays of abject submission, the remaining one bowing deeply: “My humblest apologies your highness. Come with us, we will take you to the lord of sands”

Following the five to the volcano hideout, Shimmer quickly found that Speaker was paying a lot of attention to the architecture – as befit a scholar. The place looked roughly hewn out of the volcano, with open lava flows used for lighting, regardless of the heady fumes it gave off. Indeed, Speaker quickly concluded that the place was a crude but simple manse: “Can you feel the controlled essence flows?”

“I can… I can also see that there are zebras, saddle-arabians and all kinds of other ponies here, Lord Bright” Shimmer pointed out as they were led deeper into the hideout.

Speaker nodded: “They’re united by the one thing that they have in common: They’re all out-castes and exiles from their people. Think of them like… a tribe of pirates living on the edge of other civilizations. Also, I’m surprised that you know what a zebra pony or saddle-arabian looks like”

“Oh, so they’re like… wait, Lord Bright… how did I know that?”

With a calming gesture, Speaker smiled: “Your exaltation remembers. You’ve been around creation many times in your past lives – that kind of memories will come to you every now and then as your essence matures”

Pondering what other things she might end up remembering, Shimmer took note of the increasing number of armed guards in the part of the hideout they were in. At a great stone door a team of six jackals pushed and pulled with all their might to open it up, with Shimmer seeing that Speaker clearly wanted to step in and help, but struggling to control himself and stay put. She could only smile, recalling Sage of the Deep’s countless tales of selfish solars and how they only knew how to exploit and command others.

Beyond the door, the walls were still roughly hewn, but there weren’t any open lava pits and channels to provide lighting – oil lamps provided the lighting here, along with the odd glowing crystal or gem.

In a grand chamber, the duo was introduced to the vaunted Admiral Sand.

At a large table cut from volcanic rock, upon which laid many a map – both maps of the south, and maps of various cities – stood the tall, dark-coated and handsome admiral. In a silk turban richly decorated with gems and bits of jade, wearing a heavy garb – some kind of very decorative armor –with a thin silk garb along with it, the admiral stood resplendent. He nodded to the jackals that had escorted the duo to him, them quickly running off – ostensibly back to their posts – before addressing the two new arrivals: “Greetings. I am Admiral Sand, to whom do I have the pleasure?”

“I am Bright Machine Speaker, chosen of Celestia, of the Twilight caste, Lord of Sunhill. With me is my lunar mate, Last Shimmer, of the no moon caste, a fellow lord of Lord Sunhill” Speaker stated officiously, flaring his caste mark.

Shimmer followed suite, flaring her caste mark, and paying careful attention to who among Sand’s cohorts dropped to the ground to prostrate themselves before them and who didn’t.

With his dark brown coat, piercing green eyes and quite charming smile, the good admiral bowed subtly to the two and approached: “Well met friend solar and lunar. I am Admiral Sand, leader of this fellowship of wretches. To what do we the owe the honor of your visit?”

Shimmer didn’t need to understand Sand’s firetongue to see how a lot of curious eyes had turned on them. Speaker too spent a second reading the room, then stated: “Gem has fallen to demons. I came here with the help of a fire elemental with a little under seven hundred refugees, as we were just passing through the city when the invasion began”

The predictable kind of murmurs one would expect from hearing that one of the great powers of the south had fallen to demons. Sand’s expression certainly became a lot more serious than simply cordial: “That is terrible indeed – but it is also beyond my powers to undo. I have my people to worry about – I do not have the forces needed to undo such an invasion”

Sighing deeply, Speaker returned the sentiment: “I know that feeling. I and my circle are lords of our own domain in the scavenger lands – and it’s never fun having to prioritize who gets aid and who is left to die, but that is the burden of leadership”

Nodding, Admiral Sand called for tea and snacks – but Speaker politely refused the offer: “We have no plan of staying here – and I would much rather see water and food be brought to the refugees. A lot of them don’t want to stay here, but they’ll need help finding a new place to live”

“That… will not be easy. The nearest territories are the Varang city states, and their policy of that kind of foreign immigration can be summarized as a polite but firm ‘No’, and few other places have the kind of spare food, space and resources to suddenly house this many ponies. This is why I lead so many jackals: It is the way of the south to simply abandon, shun and exile ponies who have no place to live” Sand explained, giving Speaker a very sympathetic look.

If nothing else, Shimmer could sense Speaker’s unhappiness – she might not have understood Sand, but she got that what he had said wasn’t good news.

“The Varang have their pre-ordained plans, foretold by the stars. Their pandit priesthood divines your cutie-mark and your special talent shortly after your birth, and they generally dislike anyone who hasn’t gotten the same treatment – which includes all foreigners. If we were closer to Chiaroscuro, they might have had a shot there, even Harborhead, but we’re thousands of miles from the coast here at my hideout” Sand elaborated.

Slumping down onto the stone floor, Speaker simply despaired. Shimmer could clearly see his drooping ears and miserable look. Sand wasn’t slow on the uptake either, but he appeared to take hearth: “I know. That is actually why we are here. Most of the ponies here are exiles and out-castes from Varang, me included. The pandits aren’t perfect, and their divinations don’t always work – and they simply automatically exile anyone where their divinations fail, rather than admit failure. That’s why I’m working on a plan to conquer Varang now that the realm is thoroughly distracted with their own little dance of the dragons”

It was at least nice to see someone working on a solution, but Speaker was quick point out that Sand’s plans didn’t include the refugees: “What about them?”

“I will extend a hoof to them, that they might join us – but they will have to work and contribute to earn their tea and bread here. Supplies are still short, and I have yet to secure the magical weapons I’ll need to take on Varang, but once I do their regime of prophecy and pomp will end in an instant” Admiral Sand stated firmly, to the cheers of his loyal jackals.

Thus, the ponies from Gem were brought to the volcano base and explained the harsh truth of the situation. A number of them seemed to at least know of Varang and their treatment of foreign immigrants, so they understood why that wasn’t an option – and being so far south, so deep in the dune sea, meant that getting anywhere fast wasn’t much of an option. Many were upset that the glass-ship hadn’t gone to the Lap.

Shimmer watched with some trepidation as Sand greeted the newcomers from Gem, effortlessly weaving essence into his words to thoroughly sell them on the idea that if they joined him then in a short while he could offer them all comfortable jobs in a desert made green again. Oh, it was such a seductive sales pitch… and she had to consciously fight it not to succumb to desire herself, which tired her greatly – meanwhile Speaker’s mental defence charm kept him safe from Sand’s subtle mind control.

“Excellent – I’ll have sleeping halls made ready. It will soon dawn, and nobody wants to be outside for that. In the meantime, Lord Speaker, I would like to verify something with you” Sand proclaimed, inquiring into some stories he’d clearly heard about what Speaker and the circle had done in Nexus.

After confirming that Speaker was indeed an exceptionally good healer – not that it was difficult to get him to start talking about that – Sand quickly roped Speaker into tending to his jackals during the day.

“Perfect – in the meantime your lunar, can she see at night? She could track down the last group of jackals who left me for the last sands” Sand wondered.

Speaker didn’t quite understand what leaving for the last sands meant, but noted that if Sand wanted Shimmer to do something he’d have to overcome their language barrier. It took a few tries, but Sand quickly figured out that Shimmer spoke old realm. This let him instruct her quickly: “It is our ways, that at every dawn those among us too sick, injured, old or otherwise unable to pull their weight anymore goes out into the deep desert to find peace. With the healing your solar mate has offered, then we might be able to save the last ones who left us. They were seven when they left”

Oh, the things Speaker wanted to say about such a barbaric practice – but… curse his wisdom – he understood why they did it. Shimmer quickly flew off in her warform, all of her tracking charms blazing bright moonlight, while Speaker was led to what passed for an infirmary in the hideout.

With no real medical supplies, and barely enough water to go around to stay alive – Speaker found the state of the infirmary beyond appalling. The smell, the pitiful wretches trying to hide festering wounds so that they wouldn’t be made to seek last sands, oh this would not stand.

With a barely simmering rage, Speaker demanded to be allowed to attune to the manse they were in, so that he could use more essence, then he quickly made a round at the infirmary to ensure that no pony would die within the next hour.

Admiral Sand could only shrug: “I would if you could – but the manse isn’t complete yet. The spirits I have working on it aren’t done”

“Yes, it is – the essence flows here are too orderly to be natural” Speaker quickly pointed out.

It turned out that while Admiral Sand had many skills and abilities, then essence sight wasn’t one of them. He had a charm to see and interact with spirits, but not full-on essence sight: “They… they lied to me?”

Now it was Sand’s turn to be furious, him storming deeper into the hideout – into the heart of the manse – while howling the true names of the spirits who were supposedly working on the manse, commanding them to show themselves.

“Cowards! How dare you! We sacrificed blood, sweat and tears to you! Eyes! Newborn! You dare lie to me, to exploit me and my people!?” Sand roared; his fury as bright as his flaming anima.

The spirits seemed content hiding immaterially in the walls and in the mountain, and Sand was in tears by the time he realized that he couldn’t force the spirits to present themselves to answer for their charges.

“Let me have a crack at this” Speaker said, not at all happy about what he had heard Sand shouting about having sacrificed – but even more unhappy about the idea of spirits having tricked him into doing more of that.

Using a simple but absolutely brutal essence pattern, Speaker traced the spirit-repelling diagram and empowered it, forcing all spirits near him to either flee his presence or materialize – a quick bit of running around to coral the spirits resulted in them having nowhere to go, pushing them into the material world… into Sand’s furious grasp.

It was honestly rather admirable to see Sand ignore as his hooves were scorched to cinders, as he soundly thrashed elemental after elemental, beating apologies out of each every single one of them – making them beg for forgiveness or death… or both.

“Tell me sand, how many lives have been lost from them stalling on declaring the manse finished?”

“Hundreds – we were told we couldn’t move into the manse proper until it was done, that it would be dangerous. It’s supposed to make water and cool living quarters for all of us… and that’s not counting all the things we sacrificed to them… all the poor souls… newborn infants included” Sand said, his tears still flowing.

With a deep breath, Speaker stepped forward and reached into elsewhere, retrieving homage, his essence-bladed gyroscopic chakram: “That… that is beyond cruel. Luckily there is a solution to that”

Looking up at Speaker, Sand’s lips were curled into a furious grimace: “What possible solution… these filthy creatures have souls blacker than night”

“Yes, and they must be made to atone… through the hardest of labors” Speaker said softly, his outrage having already pushed him far beyond simple things like shouting.

With a flick of the hoof he activated the essence-edge on Homage and grasped the nearest elemental, his charms protecting himself from the fire: “I shall mine them for star-metal, cut them into their core components, and put them to good use. A thousand years of works as components in whatever I build them into should suffice as their penance…”

“You easterners have a fun way of meeting out justice” Sand said as he wrestled down an elemental that didn’t want to just lie still as it watched its fourth peer get dissected alive.

Speaker could only shrug as he focused on extracting the useful bits of the screaming elemental he was working on/dissecting alive: “We have a lot of gods and spirits in the east. Some a little more unruly than others – they have learned not to defy Sunhill, but I have never heard or seen of something this grim. Ideally, I’d want to keep at least one of these alive so a sidereal could interrogate it, do you know any local ones?”

“A side-what?”

Well so much for that idea.

By the time Speaker had finished carving up the elementals as they died screaming, he was covered in strange spiritual ichors, but felt immensely satisfied. It was when he turned and saw that Shimmer had returned and was looking at him and Sand with absolute horror in her eyes, that his feelings of joy somewhat waned.

“You’re back? Great – did you find any of them ponies?” Sand asked in old realm, ignoring Shimmer’s shocked expression.

Nodding somewhat absentmindedly, Shimmer asked with the utmost of horror in her voice: “They were down to six... what were you here doing Lord Bright?”

Feeling supremely justified in his own actions, but self-aware enough that he didn’t have the same gift of gab that Sand seemed to have, Speaker excused himself as he went to the infirmary: “Sand, explain this to her – make sure to mention how many lives their lies cost!”

At the infirmary Speaker shuddered briefly – not from the smell, or the sight of the six newly arrived half-dead ponies, all of which appeared aggressively well cooked and with naught but a cup of water in their bodies between the lot of them – no, he felt really bad because Shimmer had seen him like that. He didn’t even really know what she had seen, or heard, but he knew full well that the last couple of elementals – the ones who had managed to wake up after Sand’s initial pummelling – had been rather vocal about not wanting to carved up, not that it had changed his mind in the slightest.

It coloured the whole experience in a woefully bittersweet light.

That was when one of the ponies in charge of the infirmary started shouting that one of the six new arrivals were dying. Speaker instantly switched into doctor-mode, flinging healing essence around as if it was going out of fashion, the pony was quickly restored to full vigor, needing only to sleep to recover completely. The ponies around him looked on with absolute wonderment in their eyes.

If nothing else Speaker was able to sigh happily, able to feel good about himself again.

Checking the other new arrivals, making sure that none of them were going to suffer similar episodes in the near future, Speaker returned to Sand and Shimmer.

“They wanted weekly sacrifices like that?” Shimmer said in old realm as Speaker came into the manse.

Sand nodded, replying in kind: “And we gave them all they asked – I had used all of my powers to negotiate the best possible terms, but even then… so for almost a year we sacrificed our own in vain”

“Grammy told me of cruel spirits, of what to watch out for, but… I never thought…” Shimmer said, her voice trailing off as she sensed Speaker approaching.

It was with a sigh of relief that Speaker saw Shimmer look at him not with horror or shock, but with a kind of righteous indignation. She understood.

Now that the manse had been opened up Speaker was allowed to attune, though Sand went first as the manse was his. After that Speaker and Shimmer went to the infirmary to work their magic, while Sand began organizing his people to properly exploit the magical water sources inside the manse.

With the infirmary so close to the manse, Speaker felt a massive influx of essence. This topped him off very quickly, and let him start using his charms all over the place. Shimmer quickly found herself actually challenged to keep up with Speaker, struggling to give him fresh bandages or other medical kit fast enough as he went cot to cot, using healing charms to fix everyone. Even in the form of an eight-armed octopus Shimmer didn’t have enough limbs to give him supplies fast enough.

It didn’t take long before almost every single jackal in the hideout, even the outer patrols, were lining up to get their turn in the infirmary – because true to what Cash Charmer had said, then pretty much everyone there had something wrong with them, which had been the cause of their exile, or their exile had seen them gain new injuries and diseases from exposure or infection from their new peers. A few had mutations, some had been disfigured via accidents or attacks, there were birth defects, many were marred by diseased… it was a cavalcade of misery, which slowly became one of song and joy.

What did surprise Speaker was that it turned out to be Sand who was leading the communal song and dance act – and he was very good at it.

By the evening every pony who wanted aid had received it, and Sand had proclaimed before his people that he owed Speaker a great debt: “We now have water, and we have good health – with this we can weather any storm. When you are in need, you may call upon us”

“Thank you, Sand, – but I have no interest in collecting favors right now. Instead, I would prefer you moderate your planned offense against Varang you told me of. I remember The Drop That Contained an Ocean that you seek. I recall it from the first age and it wasn’t something used to irrigate deserts with back then. It was a terrible weapon used to wash away entire cities in catastrophic tidal waves. Carefully consider whether you’re looking to be remembered as a liberator or a bringer of death – I don’t want to hear about new shadowlands here in the south” Speaker replied, hoping that the trust he had built with sand would be enough to make the would-be warlord reconsider his plan.

Sand nodded, albeit slowly: “Had anyone else told me that I would have questioned their motives – but I’m not sensing any deeper deception in you. A pony who cares for the living without regard to tribe or creed… such a pony is a rarity here in the south – I respect that”

It was ultimately difficult for Speaker to extract any concrete promises from Sand on what he would do with the drop once he got it, but if nothing else Speaker did feel that he managed to impress upon the fellow solar that he should think a little harder on what his plans were to take over Varang, to ensure that even after winning such a war that he could maintain the peace, without having to deal with constant rebellions and invasions from the realm.

Speaker, aware that he didn’t have the same wordsmithing skills as Cash or Sunrise had back home, but he hoping dearly that Sand would take his warnings to heart, said: “We have a lot of warlords back east who claims their people love them – and they will say that they love them if asked, because the punishment for saying otherwise is death. Don’t go down that route… I beg of you. I understand that you hate Varang for having exiled you as a foal, and I can’t possibly imagine the suffering you’ve gone through to survive to this day, but trust me when I say that killing them will not make you feel any better”

“I understand. I do… and I can also see that you speak from bitterly learned experience on that topic. Do keep in mind that my plans were chiefly based on me operating alone with my people. Perhaps with the aid of Sunhill, a bloodless solution can be found? But I can only do this, if you help me with something…” Sand said, as he gestured for Speaker and Shimmer to come with him to his private quarters where talks might continue.

Chapter 12 Strangers in Strange Lands

The White Reaper stylist orders a dozen bowls of soup, and chugs them down one after another with a terrifying ferocity, chugging harder and faster with each bowl consumed.

…

Leaving Admiral Sand and his jackals in a far better state than when they had arrived, the duo flew north at the next sunset. This meant crossing through the territories of the Varang city states, an ally to the realm, so care had to be taken – especially at night – for Sand had warned them: “The pandit priests who rule Varang scry the stars to predict the future at night. No army has ever managed to surprise them, and all foes who enter their lands have a strange habit of being caught…”

This of course didn’t explain how Sand’s own raids against Varang worked – but since the duo was simply passing through Varang, and wasn’t seeking conflict, they figured that any prophecies the pandits made shouldn’t reveal them too much.

Thankfully this turned out to be true: Flying at night and hiding away from the city states during the day, the duo made it to the fertile coastlands in less than week, the lands there more than cool enough to permit travel during daytime as well.

Consulting their maps, the duo sought out the buoys that the Denzik had left behind over the scuttled barges containing their forbidden goods in the middle of the inland sea. It took a bit of searching, but up on the flying cloud Shimmer’s keen eyes were able to quickly spot even the smallest objects floating in the water.

At the lone glass buoy the duo dove into depths. Here Shimmer’s western animal forms made things easy: As a giant squid she could see clearly in even the darkest depths due to its massive eyes, while Speaker had to rely on his essence sight to simply track her and follow her deeper down. As a giant squid Shimmer also had many strong tentacles to pry apart the scuttled barge and access its cargo hold. Several chests filled with everything from bars of orichalcum – something that immaculates and more religiously inclined realm houses would likely have executed its owner for having – to quite a lot of silver, jade and other riches were recovered. A few chests were very clearly lined and wrought in such a way as to remain airtight even in the deep, so they weren’t opened.

Back on the surface, Speaker sent a magical message to Cash, calling for pickup and instructing him to bring roughly three miles of very strong rope or chains.

“Where is your friend going to find that much chain or rope Lord Bright?” Shimmer wondered, as she floated in the waves.

“Oh, he likes that kind of challenges – plus we have a really good metalworking industry in Sunhill. I trained the smiths there myself”

By nightfall Shimmer flew high into the air and scouted the seas around them to check for realm fleet patrols. Seeing none, she signalled Speaker by flaring her anima. The silver-blue light of her soul also acted as a beacon to Cash Charmer as he came flying on a… seriously?

“Is that a flying yeddim Lord Bright?” Shimmer asked incredulously, as she landed on the water next to Speaker.

Turning about a bit, because he couldn’t see Cash approaching in the darkness, Speaker nodded: “Probably. His charms let any creature he rides and commands fly and move at amazing speeds. He zips all over Creation like that, usually comes back with stranger things yet he can sell for a fortune”

“So… is he from the Denzik Lord Bright?” Shimmer wondered.

With a chuckle, Speaker replied: “No, but they really like him – envy him even”

True to Speaker’s estimate, Cash showed up on a flying yeddim laden with three miles worth of… blue jade-steel chains? Really?

“Where did you get this?” Speaker simply had to ask, the incredibly strong but near weightless chains rolling off the sturdy wooden drum they were attached to, the crank spinning around furiously.

Cash shrugged: “You’ve been talking about setting up an aviary for skyremes for a while – and I have contacts up north. The Haslanti forge these because they’re lighter than ropes but much stronger, and wont snap when frozen – so I’ve been buying them every time I go north”

“You… of course you would. You know, just before you arrived, I was telling Shimmer about how you kept buying strange things whenever you flew off” Speaker mused while drying off his clothes with essence.

With a smile most smarmy, the master merchant leaned back into the pilot/rider seat on the howdah of the swimming yeddim: “I hope you haven’t been telling her too many tall tales – I prefer to toot my own horn”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. Now, she should be near the barge right around now… watch for the signal, and make sure to ascend slowly or you’ll probably rip the scuttled barge in half and scatter all the chests across the sea floor” Speaker pointed out, paying careful attention to the chain going into the water.

A minute or so later the entire yeddim suddenly tilted to the side – so much for Shimmer gently yanking the chain as her signal – but Cash was strapped in and Speaker caught himself before he fell over: “Alright, let’s go Cash!”

With an expert touch, Cash pulled the reigns of the yeddim, and the slightly confused yet giant four-story tall beast began ‘walking’ in the water, the solar’s charms making the beast’s attempt at motion work not just horizontally, but also vertically.

The first few minutes of the ascent were the most perilous: Cash reported that he could feel the strain on the yeddim, and thus sense how much resistance there was in the chain going down: “…and there’s a lot! I think the sunk barge is lodged in the ocean floor. It feels like pulling out a stuck anchor!”

Monitoring the structural integrity of the wooden howdah, its massive alchemically cured leather straps around the yeddim, and how well the drum with the metal chain was connected to the howdah, Speaker held his breath as his eyes passed from one strained rivet to the other, occasionally slapping nails back into place as they began to worm their way out due to the intense stress.

Of course, the biggest issue was whether someone else would show up – particularly a realm patrol fleet. Dropping the barge half-way up would be disastrous, and likely result in the whole cargo being lost to the currents.

“Cash, are you keeping an eye on the horizon?” Speaker said, after slapping the same nail back in for the fifth time.

Appearing far too much at ease, the eclipse caste solar dismissed Speaker’s worries: “Don’t fret – I came in high, saw much further around than what you can – and I had daylight too. There’s nothing around here. The realm fleets don’t like poking around in waters this near Lookshy or Thorns”

“Since when does Thorns have an active fleet again?”

Apparently, that was but one of many new things that had come about since Speaker had left for the west: “They shouldn’t be an issue to us. They’re mostly crewed by the undead, and have very strict orders. They’ll engage any realm fleet they spot, and inspect any merchant ship approaching Thorns – since we’re neither they’ll just ignore us. I’ve flown by them dozens of times, dumb as rocks”

“And they don’t have any intelligent leadership with them?” Speaker said, confused at how such a fleet could even work, let alone inspect merchants.

Cash explained that at night ghost officers would emerge on the Thorns patrol fleets: “They’re calm and dumb during the day – at night they’re a bit more risky, depending on the whims of their ghost captains and officers. And they simply follow any merchant ship they spot coming in, inspecting it at night”

“That… would give smugglers up to half a day to hide things – that’s so stupid!” Speaker simply had to point out.

Nodding and laughing, Cash simply pointed out that it is exceptionally difficult to hide stuff from cargo inspectors who can move through solid walls. Speaker found that to be a rather novel but oddly effective-sounding solution.

“Plus, if they catch you smuggling, they don’t just take your ship… they take your souls – most of the smugglers I’ve talked to who used to work around Thorns say they’ve gotten the hell out”

“What would anyone want to smuggle into the city?” Speaker wondered, not really seeing what one could smuggle into a kingdom ruled by the undead that its rulers would mind.

Cash gave Speaker a disappointed look: “Salt for the most part, owning salt is completely forbidden in Thorns now. Holy water, anything else that might ward off ghosts or the undead – and they’re just as rigorous for checking ships going out of the city. The Mask of Winters is really eager to make nice, so he’s selling most of the goods they’re making dirt cheap, but every pony who can is fleeing the city, often by sneaking out on merchant ships as stowaways”

Speaker shuddered. Cash pulled the reigns once more, noting that there was barely any resistance left on whatever it was he was pulling up. Not long after the barge breached the surface, wrapped in essence-webbing, and the jade-steel chain was tied to the essence webbing.

Quickly jumping down to the barge, Speaker repaired the damage done to the ship and helped drain it. This allowed Cash to set the barge down on the water, allowing for a proper transfer of goods onto the yeddim’s massive saddle-… well, calling them saddlebags was a bit like saying that a barn was a big shed for holding grain. It was like two small warehouses, each three stories tall, strapped to each side of the yeddim, cloaked by the darkness of the night. Speaker and Shimmer quickly transferred the goods under the light of their caste marks, the walls of the strap-on warehouses having been made to slide to the side for easy access.

“Hey you two, hurry up – I can see flags on the horizon, pretty sure its realm flags!” Cash suddenly shouted.

Speaker nodded to Shimmer who quickly joined Cash up on the howdah: “Speaker will be up in a moment, needs to scuttle the barge”

Joining his fellow solar and lunar a few moments later as the barge quickly sank, Speaker finally formally introduced Shimmer to Cash and vice versa: “…and Last Shimmer, this is Cash Charmer, chosen of Celestia of the eclipse caste”

“So… he’s like Admiral Sand?” Shimmer wondered.

Cash chuckled: “Oh no, the ponies I rule actually have plenty of running water and aren’t made up of exiles and outcastes from neighbouring countries. Would love to meet him though”

As they rose into the sky, fully ladened with all of the hidden riches of the Denzik city ship, Speaker saw the realm fleet approaching from the west. Its sails were colored red, marking the fleet as part of the realm’s fire navy – not a navy he wanted to tangle with – and if he could see them, then they could see the flying yeddim in the dawning light.

Indeed, several small first age vessels that probably used magical means of moving through water raced out from the fleet a few seconds later.

“Cash, I know you can fly a lot faster than this – I have no desire to trade blows with the fire fleet, come on!” Speaker said, a creeping panic inching into his voice.

The blue-clad stallion with the carefully coifed blond mane sighed: “With this much cargo have to accelerate slowly or the satchel-houses will be ripped off. You did just load a whole barge worth of goods into them”

Shimmer might not have understood what Speaker had said to Cash as they spoke an eastern tongue together, but she had understood his worried tone – and had equally understood Cash’s confident dismissal. She wasn’t quite sure which to believe, opting to keep her eyes trained on the approaching vessels.

Now, yeddim are not known for being fast. What they are known for is being very big and very strong, able to slowly haul absolutely massive loads of cargo – while even the laziest pony can casually out-pace a yeddim with a leisurely trot. With Cash’s charms the yeddim that the three were riding on was already moving at the speed of a pony’s gallop, but the realm ships were approaching much faster still.

“Look at the closest one. That actually looks like… bloody hell. That’s a dragonfly-class patrol boat. Color me impressed that a realm fleet would have a first age relic like that still in service. Those things come with a lot of firepower!” Speaker said, peering intently at the trio of ships approaching them.

Cash really didn’t like the sound of ‘firepower’, to which end he simply asked: “What kind of range are we talking about with that firepower? I can’t dodge very quickly right now”

The first gout of lightning from the patrol boat’s lightning ballista answered that question – though the shot went wide, missing by almost half a mile. The thunderclap still sent chills down the spine of the three ponies on the yeddim, which itself was too stupid to understand the danger it was in.

“Spe- Lord Bright… what are you doing?” Shimmer asked, as she saw her solar mate climb to the back of the howdah and whip out his two orichalcum chakrams from elsewhere.

Not turning to look at Shimmer, Speaker kept a focused lookout for more incoming lightning: “I’m protecting us – though I need you ready to fly out and catch me if I have to jump”

Shimmer wanted to ask what Speaker would have to jump for, but that was when a far better aimed gout of lightning came in, aimed squarely at the flying yeddim’s giant rump. Speaker leapt out in front, chakrams ahead of him, and somehow managed to parry the lightning strike with the comparably small chakrams.

This of course also left Speaker falling towards the ocean several hundred feet underneath – but Shimmer, ever quick-witted, didn’t leap out flying towards him. She simply tagged Speaker with her essence-webbing and hauled him back up: “Please tell me that you’re going to do that next time you do that Lord Bright”

“I’ll try - and thank you for saving me” Speaker said, catching his breath as he steadied his hooves up on the howdah.

It was difficult to tell if their pursuers had simply remembered that they had left the kettle on back home, or whether they had judged the yeddim too far out of range, but they stopped shooting lightning after that. This allowed Cash to accelerate the yeddim up to proper speed…

Now, Shimmer was quite used to racing through the water at what she had previously considered great speeds. Some of her aquatic forms were supposedly very fast indeed. With Speaker and his magical flying cloud, she had learned a whole new meaning to speed, for it could zip past landscape like nothing she had ever heard of nor seen before. Then there had been the elemental and the glass ship, which had crossed a near endless desert so quickly she hadn’t been able to get a bearing via the stars…

What Cash was making the yeddim do, speed-wise, felt even faster.

This left the lunar utterly stunned, barely able to keep track of where they were going.

“Cash, we need to stop by Lookshy first before heading home – I promised Admiral Sand we’ve check up on something” Speaker noted.

Cash shot Speaker a raised eyebrow: “What have you gotten us tangled up in this time?”

“Nothing serious. Sand is looking for a unicorn who knows something, but he ran off north-east and was apparently picked up by a Lookshyan patrol before Sand could nab him, that’s at least what he told me” Speaker said, sounding as if he understood fully that there probably was more to the story than what Sand had told.

The solar merchant frowned, appearing absolutely sure that that there was more to it than just that – and indeed Speaker agreed, but said that all he had promised Sand was to find the pony and try to arrange for him to be sent back to him: “Apparently he ran away from his duties as some kind of keeper or watcher over something Sand wants – but we won’t have to mention Sand at all in this while in Lookshy”

Shimmer saw coastline ending on the horizon before Cash did, and commented that the terrain was rising up quite a lot: “Is this Sunhill?”

“No, it’s the city I was born in, Lookshy – now, they all talk Riverspeak there, but we’ll get your language lesson sorted out once we get to Sunhill. I just have to talk with a few ponies, then we’ll leave to go there. Oh, and don’t shapeshift while we’re there, it might scare the locals” Speaker said, gazing at the rising walls of Lookshy as the flying yeddim approached at its blazing speed.

It was difficult for the tribal Lunar to make up her mind of where to look as they slowed down for their approach over the city. It was the biggest city she had ever seen in her life, and it was so… everything. There were towers poking up, city walls everywhere, the absolute wall of smells and scents that rose up from it… and an massive hollow tiered obelisk that Cash was steering the yeddim towards at the highest point in the city. It seemed to have multiple internal levels, and elevator platforms…

That Shimmer knew what an elevator platform puzzled her briefly as Cash landed the yeddim.

“Since when do we have a ‘regular’ landing spot” Speaker wondered, seeing some of the signage next to the place they had landed.

Cash shrugged and nodded towards a trio of ponies who looked like airship hooves who were all quite obviously merely pretending to work: “I show up here often enough like this, wasn’t difficult to arrange – plus it makes it so much easier for their spies to make sure that we don’t try to smuggle anything in or out… that’s at least what they think”

It was difficult for Speaker not to chuckle: “Well, we’re not here to load anything on or off, right?”

Shimmer marvelled as the trio exited the ground level of the aviary, coming out into the ‘old city’ in very heart of Lookshy. True first age architecture, light fixtures and waterways that magically supplied the district with level of luxury and amenities that most kings wouldn’t dare dream of. This, the oldest part of Lookshy, was particularly beautiful and tranquil – it was all unnatural for sure, but it also seemed wonderfully calm and in balance, with fruit trees and plants growing in beautiful symmetry.

“You grew up here Lord Bright? Wow…” Shimmer commented, as her head kept spinning around like an owl to take in everything.

“What’s with her calling you Lord Bright all the time?” Cash commented.

Speaker shrugged: “She’s been calling me that since we met – I guess it’s my time to be the elder”

Making their way through the nearby residential district, and then into the recently rebuilt port district, the trio found the circle’s town house/consulate still there – a good sign. The staff there welcomed their masters and relayed the usual pile of mail and messages.

Cash threw himself at the paperwork, devouring invitations to social events and consultancy offers with ravenous business acumen, leaving Speaker to go do his thing.

This left Speaker with a bit of a conundrum: “I don’t actually know who to talk to about this… we need to find someone from the security directorate, and the coughers don’t exactly advertise their presence”

“So… find someone you’re sure knows of them, that’s how we do it back home Lord Bright” Shimmer suggested, intuiting the simplest but best solution.

That wasn’t a bad idea, and Speaker knew just the pony. Thus, the two of them made their way to what might appear to be the largest fortification in the many rings of city walls within the city – but Speaker knew better: It was Valkhawsen, the academy of sorcery and magical engineering in the city.

“You know, I expected there to actually be ponies here” Shimmer commented, as they walked the empty halls and peered into empty auditoriums and laboratories.

It certainly puzzled Speaker why there weren’t anyone around. The guards at the gate recognized him and waved them through, but they hadn’t said anything about the place having been evacuated – and if it was an evacuation, then the guards shouldn’t have let them in. What was going on?

Shimmer used her charms and detected a lone pony in a nearby hallway. They quickly caught up with the pony, Speaker recognizing him: “Kraik you sneaky bastard – what’s going on?”

The old unicorn spun around, his bushy beard and shaggy mane all over the place: “Speaker! Just the pony I was hoping to meet – what brings you here?”

“Well, I need to talk to some coughers, figured you would know where to find some – but… why is the academy empty? Did something bad happen?” Speaker wondered, not sure if he should be curious or alarmed.

Shimmer, still firmly stuck behind a language barrier, carefully observed the unicorn: Parts of him didn’t quite look… right – not to the casual observer, but to her keen senses she could see that a lot of bits of the unicorn were… younger… newer… than the rest. How very strange – the unicorn also smelled of a lot very unnatural chemicals and metals.

“…but why start without having me ready to assist raising the manse?” Speaker wondered.

The unicorn stallion didn’t seem to take Speaker’s question for much, simply remarking: “You know why – we’re moving Valkhawsen to a new walled off section of the port district, in preparation for tearing this place down. We’ll contact you if you’re needed for the actual raising”

Nodding slowly, Speaker looked to Shimmer as if he had a lot more questions to ask – but also as if he had understood enough to not need any more information right at that moment. Either way the unicorn seemed to give Speaker the directions he needed, because the next thing the lunar knew she was being led away by Speaker through the city, past many a school and noisy workshop, to what looked like a huge bazaar district. There were market stalls everywhere, and Shimmer’s nose was assaulted by the scent of a thousand spices and other strange things for which she had no names.

“Come, we can get lunch over here” Speaker directed, the two sitting down at a café that turned out to serve what Speaker called southern food.

As far as Shimmer was concerned, then ‘southern food’ was apparently code word for brutally over-spiced food, to which she marvelled at how Speaker was able to eat the stuff. Not even the stuff they had been served to them at Sand was this bad.

“Alright – Kraik said that we just have to wait here, then we’ll get contacted by the coughers”

Having fought back the tears so her eyes weren’t watering from the spicy food, Shimmer eyed Speaker suspiciously: “Lord Bright, what are coughers?”

“It doesn’t translate well to sea-tongue – but it’s what we locally call the secret agents of the security directorate here. I think they’re trained to sneak up on you and then cough a bit to get your attention, or something like that” Speaker explained, making it sound like it was the simplest of things.

It was with a pained expression and ultimately tired eyes that Shimmer just looked Speaker: “This is a lot to take in… would it be ok if I take a nap? I couldn’t really sleep on the yeddim”

“I… sure dear, you have a nap” Speaker said, Shimmer already down on the table and getting comfortable before he could get another word in edgewise.

A generous tip to their waiter stopped any questions from being asked, leaving the solar to simply wait for the coughers to show up.

It was while pondering his next infrastructure project in Sunhill that Speaker suddenly found himself disturbed, as an eager pony came up and sat down next to him: “Hi there, you must be Speaker? Great to meet you, heard loads about you”

Giving the stranger a quick look-over, Speaker wondered what was going on. The brown-coated pony with a slightly darker brown mane looked about as generic as it was possible for a pony to appear, while also wearing a bright red bowtie and a fez, prompting Speaker to idly wonder: “Why the fez?”

“Because fezzes are cool” the spry and oddly cheerful pony said.

Suddenly a mare with a somewhat clumsy gait and a bad case of the cross-eyes stumbled into the fez-wearing stallion, saying: “Doctor, we need to go – or the muffin-men will get us!”

Speaker perked up at the pony being called doctor: “Oh you’re a doctor? Are you from Dragon’s Mercy? Do you need help with anything there?”

It honestly wouldn’t have surprised Speaker one bit if there was some poor soul at his old stomping grounds in need, and that a young and desperate doctor would hunt him down to ask for help – and indeed, Speaker would gladly have rendered such aid – but that was not what the stallion said: “No, but I have occasionally been called the Doctor of War, but that’s neither here nor there. I need to know what your current plans are, on expanding your personal library”

Doing a double take, Speaker wasn’t quite sure how to answer that: “What are you talking about?”

“Do you have any plans on retrieving any fun new interesting books in the near future?” the spry stallion inquired, his tone jovial and quizzical, with an infectious cheerfulness to him.

“What are you going on about? Who are you?” Speaker implored, getting a bit annoyed at how oddly vague the pony was.

Looking almost hurt – almost – the good stallion threw Speaker a cheerful smile: “I go by many names, but most simply call me Doctor Hooves. Now seriously, have you given any thought to getting any new fancy books?”

“We’re too early doctor, he’s not there yet – now come on, we have to go” the mare insisted, her somewhat unkempt and wild blond mane standing in muted contrast to her grey coat.

The ‘doctor’ got up and bowed apologetically: “Right, I see. It’s a touchy subject, thorny even – we’ll have to catch you later then, toodles!”

Speaker just sat there, wondering what in creation had just happened. A minute or so later four coughers in full white-painted suits of lamellar armor and armed with spears came rushing by, asking Speaker if he had seen a pair of ponies whose description matched the two oddballs. Speaker acknowledged, then added in his own polite and totally not at all essence-enhanced query about a unicorn from the south…

“Oh dragons, that weirdo? The one we found in locked in that shipping crate down in the docks sent from Chaing-Dav? Yes, wreaked havocs at the docks, but he killed himself shortly after we took himself custody, before we could interrogate or execute him – yanked his own head off as if he was pulling the cork from a bottle” one of the troopers quickly bemoaned, before a swift hoof to the side reminded the seemingly green and inexperienced security trooper not to blab about captives and whatnot in public, and especially not in the middle of the market district for all to hear!

“Easy – there’s nobody in earshot and I’m cleared for top secret information. But he killed himself? That’s unfortunate. Thank you” Speaker said, getting up from the table as the troopers went on their way, apparently hunting the two strangers from earlier.

As he got up Shimmer stirred and yawned: “Hey, we ready to go Lord Bright?”

“Yes – lets go see if Cash is still back at the town house. It turns out that the unicorn we came for killed himself rather than allow Lookshy interrogate him. I guess he really wanted to keep his secrets secret” Speaker noted, not at all trying to hide his disappointment.

Shimmer frowned: “That’s too bad Lord Bright – I hope Sand won’t be angry”

Back at the town house Cash was in good spirits, but he instantly picked up on Speaker’s lack of success.

Shimmer noted, upon hearing the description of the two strangers who had spoken to Speaker, that the mare faintly reminded her of a sidereal she had seen back during the Lookshy Games before the battle of Deep Rot, but her memories of her past life were still quite fuzzy. Speaker agreed that this ‘doctor’ fellow also reeked of sidereal, but that discussion ended when a magical message with the bad news was sent to Admiral Sand.

“Oh, by the way Speaker, there were some more letters from your family – more of the usual begging and pleading to let them come to Sunhill and work as ‘royal advisors’. I took the liberty of writing and sending some rather stern rejection letters. That should hopefully stop their writing campaign for good” Cash noted.

Speaker sighed and shook his head, thanking Cash for having been able to make the tough choice that he couldn’t get himself to do. Shimmer didn’t understand anything that exchange, but picked up enough of a vibe from their conversation that it was about something that had irked Speaker, which was now resolved.

With all that done, the trio returned to the aviary to fly off to Sunhill.

Chapter 13 Dawn of Evil Light

The Ivory Pestle stylist eats soup in a way that banishes ghosts, and is unintentionally better at eating soup than everybody else.

…

Like so many other strange sights since leaving home, Shimmer found the endless stretch of land beneath them as they flew eastward on a yeddim amazing. She could see hundreds of miles of endless forests beneath them, only broken up by a sprawl of rivers and streams, each of them flowing into a bigger one, over and over, until they flowed into what she felt was less a river and more a small but very long ocean.

Speaker said that it was the mighty Yanaze river – a river so wide that they couldn’t even see the opposite shore while up in the air – apparently it was nearly a hundred miles wide in some places. After a bit they came to a split in the river, were the yellow river from the east and the grey river from the south merged to form the Yanaze according to Speaker. It was at this meeting of great rivers that Nexus sat, the second most populous city in creation, second only to the imperial city of Canterlot on the Blessed Isle.

Still, seeing a city that great, and being told that there were more ponies on those five hills than there were in all of Wavecrest… hell, probably in all of the west, it made Shimmer’s head spin.

Speaker mainly took notice of the south-eastern portion of Nexus. Even when going past the city at speed, he could see that much of the Firewander district had been cleared out and levelled entirely. Shimmer commented on that: “They’re tearing it all down Lord Bright, why are they destroying their own city?”

“They are demolishing an old slum previously used by poor ponies and mutants – Sully has gone there more than once to invite mercenary captains and entrepreneurs alike to have a cup of tea with him and talk about their treatment of the residents there. The council has put out a general bounty on ponies with mutation, allowing the mercenaries to hunt and clear out most of the now former residents of the district simply by accusing them of being mutants” Cash said, not sounding terribly pleased by the development.

It was with a deep sigh that Speaker regretted having abandoned his hatred of Nexus in exchange for learning sorcery. Oh, he still didn’t like the place, and had developed a growing disdain for the council of entities that ruled the place, along with the truly heartless mercenaries who enforced their will, but he had also grown to understand that they were simply a product of their flawed and short-sighted society. He thus couldn’t fault all of Nexus – but he could still greatly dislike those individuals who would exploit those weaker than them for personal profit.

Continuing east, high above the yellow river, the circle rounded the very circular city-walls of Great Forks. It too was located at the merger of two great rivers, but the real point of interest was on the north shore of the yellow river while Great Forks was set on the south shore.

Shimmer first noticed that Cash had made the yeddim descend, so that it was barely more than a few hundred feet above the waters. This gave her a much better view of the hundreds of ships and barges that traversed the busy waterways.

Flying north for a few miles up along a set of canals, Speaker had Shimmer look ahead: “I give you, Sunhill!”

Between the carefully tended fields, the flowing streams, and the golden pyramid they could see getting nearer in the distance, all Shimmer could say was: “…this seems oddly familiar Lord Bright”

“It should. You helped build most of this, negotiated terms with the field spirits and everything” Speaker noted, as they passed in under a raincloud.

Landing in the Sunhill aviary, which only really had a name in common with the giant one in Lookshy, Shimmer marvelled as dozens of workers that swarmed the two small barns strapped to the side of the yeddim and instantly began unloading the goods from the sunken Denzik barge.

“I want all of it sent to the treasury for evaluation and cataloguing!” Cash commanded, while Speaker stalked off with Shimmer to show her the city, though the heavy rains did make things a bit uninviting.

Oh, there were so many things he wanted to show her! The Sunhill manse, the golden pyramid that gave the city its name and housed its grand magical hospital, as well as the penthouses for whole circle. Or maybe the quarries and mines on the outskirts of the city, which Shimmer originally set up via deals she had brokered with local earth elemental courts? Perhaps the workshops? Maybe check in on Fire Orchid and see what she had been up to?

“Can you show me where I’m supposed to sleep Lord Bright? We’ve been going since last night… and I don’t want to tour the city soaking wet” Shimmer yawned, as more rain clouds drew in overhead.

Well ok then.

It was strange for Shimmer, so many ponies she had never met, yet they all bowed respectfully before her and seemed to treat both her and Speaker like royalty… and she of course didn’t understand a word they said.

Leading the lunar to the Sunhill manse, Speaker was quickly flanked by the chief of medicine and his personal secretary once inside, each having prepared reports for him to read. Accepting the reports and gesturing for everyone to follow along, Speaker in turn dictated a few memos and orders to be sent out, before they reached the elevator platform.

“Here, this will take us up to your penthouse” Speaker said to the tired lunar as she gingerly stepped on.

Shimmer rubbed her eyes: “I don’t even know what a penthouse is Lord Bright”

“I know – language lesson, first thing in the morning – but your bed is in here” Speaker said, leading Shimmer into her outer trophy hall at the entrance to her penthouse.

It was a strange experience for her, though only one of many she had experienced that day, walking into a hall full of stuffed and mounted hunting trophies… and she could even remember killing some of them, yet knowing full well that she had not done so in her current lifetime: “I… wow”

“You’ll get used to it” Speaker said, feeling no small amount of relief that they were both finally back.

The sound of a toilet flushing coming from the bathroom instantly drew the attention of both ponies, even more so as a mare came out from there. Her bright scarlet mane, her stylish but very utilitarian leather and cotton barding and garb, she looked like she knew what she was doing – and Shimmer quickly picked up on how she was looking at Speaker; It was a casual and friendly look, which put the lunar at ease instead of making her raise her defences.

Speaker smirked: “Heath Rose, you old bandit - we have public restrooms for guests”

“I know, but Shimmer’s loo is just so comfy…” Heath Rose said, giving a knowing nod to the lunar.

Seeing the sidereal nod to his lunar mate, Speaker quickly introduced Heath Rose: “…she’s our official contact to the sidereal host, the gold faction, and she’s enough of a permanent fixture here that our guards don’t freak out when she shows up out of nowhere anymore”

Heath Rose perked an eyebrow at how Speaker had spoken to Shimmer: “Sea-tongue? You didn’t have enough time to give her any language lessons? Can’t have that”

Before Speaker could even start to explain why they hadn’t had time, or of what other strange things they had born witness to during their travels, Heath Rose had yanked Shimmer off into an adjacent room. Slightly confused, Speaker shook his head and then trotted over to the door, finding the two mares conversing: “You see, the merchant tongue is a mish-mash of almost every other language in creation, that’s why its word for ocean is the same as in sea-tongue”

Shimmer nodded, replying to Heath Rose in a heavily accented river-tongue: “I see. Still, it’s a lot of words for streams and rivers...”

“How?” Speaker simply had to ask.

Heath Rose smiled as she stalked past Speaker back into Shimmer’s living room: “Solars might be great educators of the masses, but sidereals will always be the best for one-on-one tutoring – now bring her along, the rest of your circle wants to talk, plus I need to brief all of you before she goes to sleep”

Shimmer looked at Speaker, speaking to him in her very recently acquired river-tongue language: “I… she does this a lot, doesn’t she Lord Bright?”

“They all do” Speaker simply said, gesturing for her to follow with eyes that begged forgiveness. Shimmer picked up on the sentiment quickly and nodded, appearing to realize that sleep would not be in the cards for her just yet.

A quick ride on the elevator platform brought the trio of ponies to what seemed to be the peak of the pyramid – or at least the top floor of the manse, to the clearly labelled war room.

To Shimmer, the floor quickly reminded her of a ship’s crows nest: It had windows all around, allowing for a clear view of all of Sunhill – and considering how high up they were, then she could also see quite a lot of the surrounding countryside, forests and farmland. She could even just make out the highest towers and silhouettes of structures from Great Forks to the south.

The floor itself was one large room, held up by four slim stone pillars and the strength of the outer walls. The elevator platform had come up in the middle of the room, and off to the side not far from it was a large set of large tables, and some chest-height shelves loaded with books, tomes, scrolls and stacks of papers. The maps on the tables and the coloured markers on them quickly caught Shimmer’s eyes: This was a room where plans were made.

At one of the tables, the one where Speaker guided her over to, stood several other ponies. They looked… familiar, sort of: A mare in an off-white hooded robe, her hood down, with a striking orange mane was looking at her and the sidereal with… neutral eyes? Shimmer didn’t sense any hostility – but not any friendliness either – from the mare. Next to her was a very handsome stallion, that Cash Charmer fellow who had picked her and Speaker up out in the ocean. Finally, there was a mare dressed in a… red uniform? No wait, it was the same kind as Speaker’s uniform, except it wasn’t all faded. A sunhill military uniform? No, Speaker had said it was a Lookshyan thing.

At the table Speaker nodded to Cash, who quickly looked around the table for nods of approval to start talking. Everyone gave their consent, to which end Cash Charmer started out by saying that he was quite happy to see Shimmer finally back among them: “…and with Heath Rose coming in with you, I suspect we won’t have to continue this in old realm?”

Shimmer nodded happily: “I still don’t really understand how she taught me a language that quickly”

Heath Rose simply smiled – as far as she was concerned, having the gratitude of a member of such a powerful circle was more than enough payment for such services.

With that covered, Cash quickly began the briefing proper, catching both Speaker and Shimmer up the goings on in Sunhill with barely suppressed glee: “Our immediate security situation is quite good. It’ll be months until anyone else in range can start marching armies against us, and the guild is currently in the process of selling our debt to another hopeful and gullible merchant prince – and despite the guild’s leadership trying to hide how much money they’ve wasted on us so far, then we’ve made sure that copies of their ledgers have been spread around widely, making that sale very difficult. I suspect that they’ll switch to just ignoring us and going back to only pretending to officially embargoing us and our merchants in a year or so”

It wasn’t difficult for Shimmer to see the relief on Speaker’s face. Heath Rose Nodded: “Our auguries have it around winter in two years’ time. They won’t bother spending money on fast couriers for this – so it’ll likely drag out a bit”

“What about our current security situation beyond mortal concerns?” Speaker inquired.

Sunrise quickly answered, speaking in a measured tone: “The deathlords are still an issue, of course, but after their last corpse barge, we’ve set up harbour patrols with sniffer dogs. I am still lobbying Yu-Shan for spirits that can sense or detect the undead to be assigned to the city’s security”

The rest of the circle nodded, though Shimmer mainly latched on to the mention of multiple deathlords – but before she could question that, Heath Rose spoke up: “You missed something”

Everyone were of course curious at what the sidereal hinted of. She simply pointed to the nearest window, the driving rain drumming on the glass.

“Did a deathlord flip a weather god?” Cash wondered with a raised eyebrow.

Heath Rose smirked: “Close. It’s the bronze faction’s latest stunt that we’ve uncovered – surprised you haven’t noticed yet. They’re still catching lone solars and wiping their memories, but we’ve detected a circle of solars that the bronze faction is actually protecting – using the same legal loopholes we’re using to keep you lot safe”

Cash frowned: “I would have heard of another established circle – where are they?”

“What few audits we’ve managed to force on them, has revealed that the bronze faction is using a lot of resources to keep news of this circle from reaching you – and from reaching us. But like I said: They’re using the same tricks we used initially. Oh, and circle has claimed territory, so they’ve protected by their mandate of heaven” Heath Rose explained, in a somehow circuitous way.

Shimmer wasn’t quite sure what to think – why was another circle of solars a bad thing? She wasn’t the only one thinking that, as Cash spoke up: “You haven’t gotten to the part where this circle is making it rain cats and dogs here”

“Has the weather been that bad?” Speaker wondered.

Cash nodded: “It’s been raining like this for almost a week. Weather has been a bit screwy for several weeks actually, with a heatwave before this – but this heavy rain is the worst so far – our farms are reporting that they’re barely able to keep their fields from flooding with their drainage canals constantly clogging”

With that established, everyone looked at Heath Rose for a proper explanation. The sidereal obliged: “This circle is… for the lack of a less subtle term… bad. We haven’t been able to get anyone in to spy on them, because the bronze faction helped them file the proper heavenly paperwork to prevent us from doing so – but we know that they’ve been using charms to pray to and summon gods left and right – and once they get the god to show up, they capture the god and torture them into submission, forcing oaths of fealty and blessings on their lands out of them. You getting bad weather is simply eastern weather gods venting their fury on the nearest other solars they can reach…”

“So that’s why all our milk spoiled the other day” a new voice said, that of a stallion, coming from right behind Shimmer, startling the young lunar quite a lot.

Heath Rose nodded to the new strange-looking pony, Shimmer finding his appearance quite odd: He was wearing a white garb that looked quite utilitarian, had a short-cropped tail that was bright pink, had a mottled brown and grey coat where his uniform didn’t cover him, but most strikingly was the orichalcum helmet or mask that completely encased his head, leaving but tiny slits for his eyes and mouth: “Good to finally see you Sully, yes – the gods of milk, gods of weather… only reason your agriculture hasn’t been hit is that this part of the scavenger lands have different gods for that, so the harvest gods that this new circle has brutalized can’t have a go at you – but around their lands every crop is failing, which only drives more ponies into their domain…”

“I take it that you showing up here was to warn us about them, and perhaps request that we politely visit this circle and ask them to stop messing things up for us?” Sunrise Glow asked, her expression having noticeably soured.

Heath Rose sighed deeply: “I can’t ask you to – not without giving the bronze faction an opening to audit me into oblivion – but I can tell you that they exist. It’s their sovereign territory, they can do with it as they see fit due to their mandate of heaven. All I’ve done is tell you that the gods are angry and are venting on you, and that I’ve traced the cause of that to their behaviour”

“Sounds like we need some solid diplomacy – do you know if they have an eclipse caste solar among them? Have these gods been bound by magical oaths?” Cash inquired.

Shrugging, Heath Rose could only reiterate that the gold faction had little to no information about the circle: “We’re barred from sending spies or other agents to them – they’re locked down tighter legally than what we ever did to you, and their heavenly records are similarly guarded. You’ll be going in blind”

While by no means optimal, the circle agreed that it would be most prudent to deal with this sooner rather than later. Cash said that he would order a yeddim loaded for a diplomatic visit, along with enough supplies to last them the trip. Sullen Hoof appreciated this: “Good. I’ll check my tea stores and bring something along, if it comes to that”

Shimmer wasn’t sure, but hearing the stallion speak from within his helmet – his voice somehow not at all obstructed by it – sent the deathliest chills down her spine. It was like hearing a poisoner say that he was going to bring his very worst and most potent of brews – which unbeknownst to her, was exactly the case.

That night Shimmer slept uneasy. Her bed… an actual bed, not just a pile of dried hay or sea-weed to curl up in, it smelled of her – and yet the scent was foreign. It was her old scent, and it was everywhere now that she knew it: “Oh Sage… what have I gotten myself into…”

The next morning the circle assembled once more in the planning room atop the pyramid, Cash announcing that everything was packed and ready. Sunrise had similar news: “I have communed with the gods and asked for a week’s stay in the heavy rains – their demands for what should be done to these solars were brutal. They want blood, lots of it”

“We’ll have to see how well this other circle cooperates. Either way we have a solid excuse to go to war. I’ve checked the reports from our orchards and farms: This heavy rain has been crushing our crops – the next harvest is going to be miniscule” Sullen Hoof added.

Breakfast was light and quick, Shimmer finding the spread of nuts, seed-bars and egg strangely invigorating, her not yet aware of Sully’s magical cooking skills.

Assembling at the aviary on its top level, the circle boarded the howdah on a yeddim that had been loaded with all kinds of things. To Shimmer’s surprise a lot of it was silver: “That… that is a lot of money, isn’t it?”

“We can’t just show up and threaten them – so we’re bringing some bribe money, or ‘investment funds’, whatever they feel most at ease with calling it… can’t be all stick, need a carrot too” Cash said, sounding just a tad too enthusiastic for the Lunar’s taste.

Speaker sat down next to Shimmer on the seats: “I believe what Cash meant to say is that if we can make friends and talk them out of their bad ways, then it’ll be a lot easier – plus it’ll be better in the long run”

Nodding slowly, Shimmer wondered if she should have asked for anything special to be brought along for her to use.

The flight itself took but a couple of hours. The directions that Heath Rose had left behind for the valley where thorough and easy to follow – but enroute the circle agreed not to simply fly all the way there. It thus came to be that the yeddim was pointed towards lands beyond the territory of the new circle.

“We really need a name for this new circle… what’s the name of the valley with their seat of power? Or what was the name of the place before the circle took over? We need to call them something” Cash groaned, as the yeddim approached the ground.

The grass looked withered and dry, despite it being very early autumn and the ground being moist from fresh rains. It was clear that the lands around the new circle’s territory had been struck down by vengeful gods much harder than the lands of Sunhill. As the circle got down from the howdah Sunrise Glow noted that the gods she had communed with had said that the lands they were seeking had previously been ruled by a series of duchies belonging to a noble family called the Pear-blossom dynasty.

“Perfect, then we’ll seek the lands of the pear-blossoms. Did the gods say anything about their relationship to these former rulers? Perhaps we could seek them out and reinstall them if need be” Cash wondered, appearing to enjoy the idea of having another option to resolve the situation.

Sullen Hoof leapt from the howdah in a single smooth jump, up atop a nearby tree as he scouted the surroundings: “Considering how rough these solars are with gods, how gentle do you think they were to the Pear-Blossoms when they seized power?”

“Fair point – but nobles are as nobles do, so there’s bound to be illegitimate offspring somewhere we can prop up. Shouldn’t be difficult to have Heath Rose track down their family tree and any offshoots – either way we can call this new circle the pear-usurpers… or pear-soupers!” Cash asserted confidently, sounding way too happy about the supposedly snappy nickname.

Sullen Hoof jumped from the tree, landing without making a sound: “We’ll let you manage that – now, I could see a border post a few miles from here along. We can’t miss it: The border is right where the grass starts growing again”

Unpacking the goods loaded onto the yeddim into a very nice wooden cart that needed a bit of on-the-ground assembly, Shimmer marvelled as Speaker had the cart put together in absolutely no time, using no tools other than his essence to float parts around and even drive nails and pegs into place. It was just as Speaker had finished the cart that it struck Shimmer that they didn’t actually have anything… or anyone… to pull it: “So… who’s pulling it?”

“Well, I wouldn’t expect you to have any really useful land animal forms yet, so I think Fire Orchid is on cart duty, to put her out in front in case of trouble” Cash casually remarked.

Without objection, Fire Orchid slipped into the cart harness – it certainly looked like she had done that song and dance before. The rest of the circle loaded up on the cart, though Shimmer stayed on the ground, trotting along next to Fire Orchid as they began moving towards the road leading to the border post: “Hi, we haven’t really been introduced yet”

Fire Orchid threw a brief look back at the rest of the circle on the cart, then looked ahead as she answered: “No we have not – not sure we need to either. We apparently both knew each other in a past life… that’s what the others are saying”

“We both… oh, you’re a new reincarnation too” Shimmer said, it dawning on her that Fire Orchid probably felt just as awkward and out of touch as she did, compared to the more longer-lived members of the circle.

The stout crimson-maned mare shook her head: “Sort of… I exalted, what, almost two years ago? But some bad sidereals caught me and made me forget that I had powers… spent the time since then working as a mercenary out further east, killing tribal raiders for coin and somehow not noticing that I had super powers”

Shimmer’s positivity and enthusiasm for bonding with Fire Orchid fell flat on its face when she said that she had been killing tribals for the last few years: “How… how can you say that so casually? I’m a tribal!”

With a shrug, Fire Orchid brushed off Shimmer’s outcry: “The sidereals made me forget… made me forget my family, the values I had been raised to believe in, my honor – I did a lot of things in that period I’m not proud of – but I don’t see why I should feel bad about it, I mean I didn’t have a choice in the matter”

Slowing down to let the cart catch up with her, Shimmer looked up at Speaker as if begging for him to say something to reassure her. Speaker could only shrug and give her an apologetic look: “Fire has been having a lot of trouble catching up with her old life and reconciling that with her stint as a bloodthirsty mercenary…”

“Based on what we were told by her mother when she came to visit, then Fire Orchid had always been a very pious and honourable pony. Having worked as a guild killer has shaken her faith in herself. I have been counselling her on this” Sunrise Glow commented without any emotion in her voice.

If nothing else Shimmer was happy to learn that Fire Orchid wasn’t as bad as she had come to fear – but at the same time… Fire Orchid was a solar, just like the others. Weren’t solars supposed to be above that kind of issues? The idea that solars could have such doubts and problems didn’t feel quite right to Shimmer: As an exalt you were supposed to be stronger than that.

“Border post in sight – everyone, get your game face on” Sullen Hoof called out, his orichalcum mask fading away to reveal a face… but Shimmer knew in her heart of hearts that it wasn’t Sully’s real face: it was an illusion made by the mask, just as Speaker had explained it would do.

That was when Sully’s outfit suddenly made a lot more sense to Shimmer: It was a servant’s outfit, with colors befit of Sunhill livery. Wait, was that why she had been given a matching outfit for the trip? “Lord Bright, am I supposed to act like a servant?”

“That was the idea, right? I thought you’d figured it out earlier” Cash noted.

As they continued towards the stone tower and the wooden gate that blocked passage into the valley, Cash elaborated on the plan to Shimmer. It was rather simple, and since they were visiting another solar territory, they didn’t have to lie all that much: “Me, Speaker, Sunrise and Fire Orchid will be the ‘official delegation’ from Sunhill. You and Sully hide in plain sight, in case of trouble, or if we need you to sneak off to spy on them. If we were sneaking into guild-controlled territory, we’d all need disguises and then we’d pretend to be merchants or something, assuming we’re trying to be subtle”

Shimmer understood the plan, but still found it a bit odd that Fire Orchid was meant to both be a lord, and then also the one hauling the cart… At the mention of this, Cash got a look on his face like deer caught in a bright light at night, after which Shimmer and Sully were quickly made to take over for Fire Orchid. Sullen Hoof threw Shimmer a somewhat disapproving look: “You just had to point that out…”

“Sorry…” Shimmer said, as she pulled the cart along, feeling conflict over having pointed out the flaw in Cash’s plan but then also being admonished for doing so – she had only tried to help! She quickly took over from Fire Orchid, pulling the cart in the form of a western water buffalo.

At the border post, while Cash tried to bend the ears of the guards, the rest of the circle carefully observed the ponies there to see how they behaved. In mere seconds they all spotted obvious signs of mind-control, as the blank looks in the eyes of the guards were a dead give-away, even more so combined with the almost mindless replies from the guards to everything Cash said: “The border to the realm of the Sun Tiger Lords is closed by order of the Sun Tiger Lords”

Cash quickly grew annoyed when his polite requests for entry were repeatedly denied – the guards seemed unable to say anything but that one line.

Shimmer chuckled, then Cash changed his approach: “Well, then it’s good that we are here by the orders of the Sun Tiger Lords. In fact, they said that anyone who prevents us from seeing them are to be dismissed from their service and banished from their lands right this instant!”

It took effort to resist the urge not to face-hoof, because that was so blatantly not true. This only made Shimmer all the more shocked and amazed as the guards quickly opened the gates and let them in.

Sullen Hoof began pulling the cart in through the open gate, and Shimmer quickly helped out as well, but she was clearly distraught at seeing the many guards at the post mindlessly taking off their armor and returning their spears to the armoury as they pulled the cart into the bailey: “Why are they…”

“Cash said that anyone who prevented us is dismissed – they’re just doing as told. Now stop the cart, we need to see what they do next” Sullen Hoof casually remarked, with but a hint of veiled glee in his voice.

The now ex-guards of the post mustered beyond the gate, where the circle had come from, and as the circle looked it was as if a spell had been lifted on them. Cash simply chuckled: “Just as planned”

“Ok, can someone explain what is going on?” Shimmer said, thoroughly confused.

In a sombre tone Sunrise noted that these Sun Tiger Lords were clearly rookies when it came to mind control, and that Cash had exploited that: “If you mind control someone in such a way that they must obey all orders from you, you just have to convince them that you’re giving or relaying orders from them. I made the same mistake once before, that’s where we learned this from”

The implication that Sunrise had mind-controlled ponies like that once before was by no means good, but Cash quickly followed that up by elaborating as he got off the cart: “…and now that they’re dismissed from the service of their lords, as well as banished from their lands, they’re no longer in a position to take orders from those lords, which removes that compulsion from them. We can talk to them now and learn how things are in there”

The ex-guards were understandably confused about what was going on, but they were equally grateful for having their minds freed up. In their owns words they described the compulsion to obey their lords as absolutely irresistible, though even with the compulsion gone only a few of them dared cross the gate back into the valley out of fear that the compulsion might somehow return. Supplies, materials for tents and other tools were quickly collected from the garrison and given to the ex-guards so that they could set up camp outside the gates, while the few guards who had dared cross back into the Pear-Blossom valley helped the circle in every way they could.

Written orders from the commander’s office were revealed, giving Cash a taste of the Sun Tiger Lords’ writing, which he said he could easily copy. The orders did indeed confirm that the borders had been ordered closed. They also said that there wouldn’t be a supply caravan to the post for another month, which meant that it would be a while until anyone would discover what had happened there.

The collaborators also told a grim story of how the rest of the valley looked: “Everyone is like how we were. You can only think what they want you to think… and even if your mind is screaming, your mouth cannot move”

“Take hearth my brave little ponies. We came here because the Sun Tiger Lord’s abuse of the gods, but now we will also labour to free the minds of the ponies here. This cannot stand” Sunrise Glow said, her kind words sweet as honey, her resolve hard like stone.

Cash frowned: “Sunrise you know how difficult it is to clear mind control commands out of large numbers of ponies…”

“No, it’s not. You showed that it isn’t. We just have to convince any pony we meet that they’re no longer in a position to take orders from these solars. I trust that’s within the scope of your powers and creativity” Sunrise chided the well-dressed stallion in an almost playful tone, as if daring the eclipse caste solar to prove her point.

It was with a sigh and a chuckle that Cash said that he simply could not say no to a challenge like that.

As the circle made ready to travel further into the valley, the collaborators began putting their guard armor on again. They would man the border post, not out of any mad compulsion from their dread lords, but to protect their homeland, for they recognized that brigands and thieves would easily be able to exploit their mind-controlled kinsmen. The circle respected this choice.

Inside the valley Sullen Hoof quickly scaled another tree, balancing magically atop its bough on a single leaf, surveying all he could see: “I’m seeing a lot of farms and orchards – and not much else”

“And I’m seeing decent roads. We’ll make good speed here” Cash said, all the while writing up a storm on a series of scrolls he had retrieved from one of the chests on the cart they had brough along.

To Shimmer it was distressing to see Cash’s magical writing. It was beyond fast, his calligraphy brush whirling about at a speed that blurred to the eyes, yet his writing was beautiful enough to make one cry: “What are you writing?”

“Fake orders. It’ll be a lot faster to pass these around than having to talk to everyone we meet. I’m sure they’ll have at least one pony in every village we pass who can read. I’m writing that their village and land has been traded to neighbouring nobles, so they’re no longer to take orders from their Sun Kitten Lords. Should work like what I did to the border guards, without us having to stop and chat everywhere” Cash said, looking intently at his scrolls as his silvery brush whirled around in the air by the power of his essence.

With the scrolls set up, Sully and Shimmer made speed into the valley. The roads were indeed well-kept, and so the circle was able to cross deep into the valley and deliver Cash’s faked orders to several villages as they passed.

“They won’t really think that they’re beholden to a different lord now, will they?” Shimmer wondered out loud.

Sullen Hoof didn’t think so: “Knowing Cash, he added a section in the scroll not to be read until after they’re free from the compulsion, that lets them know it was fake”

“Wont that make the compulsion come back?”

“That’s not how mind control works – trust me, I’ve tried it – once the spell is broken it won’t reappear again without someone to put a new charm upon them” Sullen Hoof noted.

Throwing a brief look back at the cart, then looking back at Sully, Shimmer replied: “You’ve… been through some stuff, haven’t you?”

“You were there too” the disguised solar remarked casually.

By the evening the circle had passed several villages, and they had begun looking for roadside taverns or anywhere else suitable for staying the night. As the sun set, it became clear that accommodations along the particular road they were traveling just weren’t going to appear.

“Pull over here – I’ll have something suitable up in a minute” Speaker said, jumping off the cart next to a large rocky outcropping by the road.

Shimmer looked on as Speaker withdrew his strangely carved jade staff from elsewhere: It was clearly white jade, set with a single band of orichalcum, but it was elegantly carved to appear like gnarled wood. Speaker struck the staff to the stone, lodging it firmly, then retrieved a nearby stick and plucked a single hair from his tail.

Not a tunnel built into a dead volcano on the edge of a desert, nor riding a glass barge across that desert, or the wonders of the depths that Sage had shown her, could match the lunar’s bewilderment as Speaker turned the stick and his tail hair into a bow and began playing the staff as if it was a musical instrument. The stone around him quivered, as if it was water one had tossed a stone into, then it began flowing with the music… and a few minutes later a sizeable villa wrought in stone stood before the circle, complete with stone doors and shutters for the windows.

“I knew I should have brought a proper bed” Cash jokingly complained.

Chapter 14 Tiger Tiger Burning Bright

The Sapphire Veil of Passion stylist thinks the soup is orgasmically delicious, so does anyone she splashes with the soup, and they love her for it.

…

The next day the circle made more headway into the Pear-Blossom lands, now the domain of the Sun Tiger Lords. They passed mining operations digging into the mountain-sides, fisheries set in the river that ran through the valley, and quite a few farms that appeared to focus on raising goats.

“Maybe the Sun Tiger lords like goat-milk cheese?” Shimmer wondered.

Fire Lotus shrugged: “Not much else you can use that many goats for – and cheese exports can be good money, or good rations to feed an army”

Sullen Hoof disappeared from time to time, first showing up in the evening: “They’re not making cheese. They used to, last farm we passed still have the equipment for it, but they’re not raising them for milk anymore”

“You couldn’t ask them why?” Cash wondered.

“Until their village gets the news of your scroll spread around, they’re all mind-controlled – the few I tried talking to just tried to raise an alarm, had to knock them out” Sullen Hoof begrudgingly noted.

It took three more days before the circle reached the capital of the sun-tiger lands – and curiously they didn’t run into any patrols along the roads leading to it.

It was a pretty city, mostly built of stone quarried from the nearby mountains, and good timber hewn from local forests. The guards at the city gates were quite easy for the circle to talk their way around, once more using the simple lie that the Sun Tiger lords were expecting them already – and to doubt the commands of their lords was obviously illegal, punishable by exile.

Moving through the city, Shimmer found the experience strange: “I… haven’t been in that many big cities yet, but shouldn’t there be more activity here? This smells like a marketplace, but there are no stalls, no booths…”

“You’re quite right. There is no commerce here… and look at the clothes all the ponies here are wearing: It’s the same bland rough-spun cloth. At least out in the villages they looked like they were able to make their own clothes, but this looks like a cult took over the place and decreed that potato-sacks are the new fashion” Sunrise remarked, sounding increasingly worried.

Speaker agreed: “There should be life and color in a place like this – where are the foreign merchants buying and selling things?”

“With their main export gone they probably stopped coming. I don’t know what these Sun Tiger fools are planning, but they’re bringing economic ruin to these lands” Cash noted, his brows furrowed in a grave expression.

At the centre of the city rose the castle – this was pretty normal for hundred kingdom cities – with walls, a moat, and a drawbridge which was up. It had the look of a castle that had stood for generations, with towers and expansions that grew out of the main structure, as if each successive generation of rulers had added their own flourish and details to the place. It told a story of wealth, but also one of recent conquest, with the Sun Tiger banners hanging from the walls over what was clearly Pear-Blossom carvings on the walls underneath.

This time Cash’s usual method of lying to guards about their lords wanting to meet the circle didn’t work for the simple reason that there didn’t appear to be anyone who could listen at the castle gates.

“Really? Who leaves their castle gates unmanned? That’s just bad form” Fire Orchid quipped in a most disgruntled tone.

Sullen Hoof’s voice appeared from under the wagon: “Me and Speaker could jump up to the battlements and lower the gates – but that could cause a scene”

“It certainly wouldn’t be subtle. We’re not here to attack them out right. Sully, could you zip up quietly and see if there’s a reason why the gates are unattended?” Sunrise requested. A slight rustle was the only reply she got, as Sully disappeared again.

Shimmer looked to Speaker to judge the situation, but a second later a roar from the battlements was followed by Sullen Hoof, his clothes torn to shreds, leaping from on high down onto the wagon: “They don’t have guards. They have tigers”

“Well, they do have a golden tiger on their banners… Shimmer, can you speak with animals?” Speaker said, sending a quizzical look up to the battlements, and sure enough: A tiger peeked its whiskers out, looking down at them.

Quickly considering her abilities, Shimmer shook her head: “Sorry, it’s on my list of charms to learn”

“Right – I will speak to it then” Sunrise said, getting out of the cart and trotting up in front. With her back arched she threw her hood down, revealing a mane that was as wild as it was gorgeous, framing a face that was the pinnacle of beaty. Activating a charm that let her speak to animals, one that she usually used to organize choirs of songbirds, Sunrise called up to the wall: “Hear me tigers! We are here to see your masters. Open the gate, or we will open it for you”

More growls and snarls could be heard from the battlements – as if several tigers somehow conversed.

Cash quietly wondered: “Do yall think they have a lunar in their circle?”

Shimmer nodded to herself, while Speaker said it was likely: “…but if there’s a lunar involved then it’s all the stranger that we haven’t been detected or intercepted earlier. Shimmer used to know a lot of charms that clued her in on strangers entering her territory, especially enlightened ponies”

A series of loud clicks and clangs sounded the prelude to the drawbridge coming down. The circle wasted no time enter the castle while Speaker used his charms to repair Sully’s torn clothing.

Indeed, upon entry through the gate the circle found itself flanked by two rows of tigers patiently waiting for them, giving them only room to advance up to a large opened door into the castle keep. No-one questioned what they were intended to do, Fire Lotus and Shimmer quickly pulling the cart and the circle inside.

A well-dressed mare of ceremonies received the circle, clearly moving with the eerie and jerky motions of a pony whose mind was shackled with magic: “The glorious Sun Tiger Lords will receive you shortly. Please wait”

There were no tigers in the entrance hall where circle got off their cart, only the mare of ceremonies. Exploiting the lack of anyone to stop them, Cash quickly bounded up to the mare of ceremonies and playfully poked her.

The mare instantly convulsed as snakes of golden flames erupted from her mouth and eyes. Shimmer looked on in horror, but Speaker was quick to stop her from interrupting: “She’s ok – it’s a charm that cleanses the mind of mind-control charms, just give her a moment”

Indeed, the officiously dressed mare got up again without any need for help, looking at the circle with no small amount of confusion: “I… what did you do to me?”

“I unbound your mind. You can think freely now – to which end I would like to learn what you know of your masters here, that we might best aid the ponies of these lands” Cash said, standing before the mare in all of his pomp and glory.

Several thoughts seemed to flash over the mare’s face, her confusion yielding to sadness, then horror and fear: “My masters? But they are gone… the whole Pear-Blossom family was fed to their tigers. The usurpers who hold the throne are horrible… just horrible”

Sunrise approached the mare, gently calming her with soothing charms: “Be at ease. What is your name?”

“I’m Thrice-Blossomed Lilly, mare of ceremonies. Who are you?”

Introductions were made, Lilly not appearing to question the logic of a group of magical lords from a domain over a thousand miles away who had come due to the fallout of the Sun Tiger Lords abusing the gods. Indeed, Lilly’s primary worry was the few castle guards-ponies that were still left: “They’re still under the spell of these tyrants – please don’t harm them… they were loyal to the Pear-Blossoms, we all were… all are”

With that information, the circle made its way to the throne room to meet these Sun Tiger Lords. Lilly led the way, choosing not to flee the castle. Enroute, Cash quizzed her on any surviving members of the Pear-Blossoms, learning that there were some illegitimate offspring spread around some of the villages. Cash wanted to learn more, but there wasn’t time, so he simply said: “With how they like to mind-control ponies, don’t bother with subtlety. When we introduce ourselves, everyone sounds off”

The great oak doors to the throne room were decorated with beautiful and ornate carvings. Of course, it was carvings of pears and blossoms – not suns and tigers. They swung open silently.

The throne room looked… threadbare. It was clear that a lot of decorations had been removed, those of the former rulers, leaving only some simple but tasteful banners with the sun and tiger motif hanging on the walls. The throne itself was set on a raised section of the stone floor, and on it sat a mare clad in rich silken robes. To her left stood a stallion whose garb was anything but regal – it was a utilitarian leather garb, outfitted with bits, bobs and small whistles. On her right stood a brute of a heavily armored mare with a short-cropped mane, her standing half a head taller than the one in plain leathers. This pony’s armor gleamed with a warm golden hue from the light of the braziers that lit the throne room, indicating that it was very obviously magical orichalcum armor.

The mare of ceremonies quickly trotted up and stood before the throne plinth: “Presiding: The esteemed and most resplendent Sun Tiger Lords!”

With a subtle hoof gesture, the mare sitting on the throne had a beautiful musical fanfare sound off, horn-blowers up in a gallery hidden behind banners beginning on cue.

Politely waiting for their cue to approach, despite the throne room being completely empty – there were no courtier other than the mare of ceremonies – the circle listened to the fanfare wrap up.

“Announcing: The lords of Sunhill” called out Lilly, stepping back.

Stepping forth, with Cash and Sunrise out in front, the circle approached – though Sully had disappeared a while ago, so there was no telling where he was.

“It’s been a while since we’ve had proper visitors… and lords no less. What is your business here?” the mare on the throne inquired, sounding aloof and amused.

Cash beheld the mare with a judging look: “How about we do introductions first? There is protocol to a meeting between lords. I am Cash Charmer, Lord of Sunhill, and Chosen of Celestia of the Eclipse caste”

With his caste mark lighting up, a golden circle with a with a smaller golden dot in the middle brightening up his brow, Cash motioned for Sunrise to continue. Without pulling her hood, or even bothering with eye-contact, she introduced herself as Sunrise Glow, Lord of Sunhill, and of the Zenith caste. Speaker was next, followed by Fire Lotus, and finally Shimmer: “And I am Last Shimmer, chosen of the argent mare of the No Moon caste!”

Shimmer felt a strange rush having announced herself, feeling all kinds of energized by the grand display – even if there weren’t really anyone else to witness it.

Having just been introduced to five celestial exalts, the three Sun Tiger Lords did exchange a few worried looks before speaking up. Cash probably learned a lot simply by observing these silent exchanges before the mare on the throne spoke up: “And to what do we owe such an impressive audience?”

Stomping his hoof on the ornately tiled and polished stone floor, Cash firmly stated: “Introductions, please!”

Maybe it was Cash’s harsh tone, maybe it was that he had completely ignored the subtle mind-control charm that the mare had woven into her otherwise innocent question, but she looked even less at ease after that. Perhaps that was why she had a sneer on her lip when she finally did introduce herself: “I am Golden Noon-Sun, Eclipse caste, of the Sun Tiger Lords”

The stallion with the almost casual bush-walker garb tipped his leather hat up, speaking with a southern accent that Cash would later identify a being from The Lap: “And I am known as Fang-Whisperer, the heavenly beast-master, Zenith Caste”

The large mare in heavy golden armor remained silent. This seemed to irk Noon-Sun, who actually turned to chide her: “Come on”

“I see no need to humour their request. They’re fools to come here, fellow solars or not” the burly mare said in a surly tone, her eyes gazing across the circle before her.

After exchanging approving looks from Speaker and Fire Lotus, Cash locked eyes with the armored mare: “You will be polite and introduce yourself”

It was fun to see her reaction to the compulsion from Cash’s charm. It wasn’t quite a full-on mind-control charm, but it did compel her to answer his question: “I am the Invincible Sword Princess, Dawn Caste, born to the house of Pear-Blossom, now of the Sun Tiger Lords”

Cash shared a pleased look with the rest of his circle, communicating without words that they had found a foe with little to no mental defence charms. Still, having completed introductions Cash had to follow his own protocol, explaining the circle’s plight. That the Sun Tiger lords laughed at him after he had explained the issue of the abused gods taking their wrath out on Sunhill wasn’t quite unexpected, but it certainly didn’t endear the Sun Tiger lords with the circle either.

“If that’s your reason for coming here, then you have come in vain. Begone, and make your own peace with the gods” Noon-Sun declared dismissively, waving an equally dismissive hoof at them.

Cash motioned for Speaker and Fire Orchid to speak up. They quickly explained Sunhill’s tight diplomatic relations with Lookshy, Fire Orchid noting her familial relations: “…and my full name is Karal Fire Orchid, of Gens Karal, as in Taimyo Karal Linseed of Lookshy’s General Staff is my mother. Don’t make me seek her out over this, it won’t end well for you – regardless of how many tigers you command, for they will fall to arrows and skyreme bombardments just the same”

Now, the Sun Tiger lords might never have been to Lookshy – but you had to seek out eastern tribals or very small farming villages to find ponies who hadn’t heard of Lookshy and its grand military might at all. Being told that you were facing the daughter of one of the leaders of Lookshy was a powerful message indeed. Fang-Whisperer shot Noon-Sun an uncertain look: “We can’t fight Lookshy, not yet”

Noon-Sun’s face scrunched up as if she had sipped lemon juice: “And this is why you’re not supposed to have audiences without being informed of who you’re meeting in advance…”

“Doesn’t matter” Sword Princess mused, sounding very unimpressed: “Doesn’t matter who they’re related to – just tell them to leave”

Cash would later argue at length whether Sword Princess really was the brains behind the Sun Tiger operations or not – for her calm and dismissive advice was, in his opinion, quite sound. Of course, it seemed that the pride of Noon-Sun prevented her from acting on that advice, even with Fang-Whisperer being worried.

Under normal circumstances other courtiers and advisors could have given their thoughts, but having gotten rid of such things – maybe out of vanity, or to root out loyalists to the Pear-Blossoms – meant that the Sun Tiger lords had no one else to turn to. Sunrise capitalized on this moment of confusion: “In our travels here we have seen how you have bound the minds of the ponies you lord over. We find this very offensive. This city here, all ponies wear the same rags, and your markets are closed. Whatever your plans are, they are leading this land to both social, cultural and economic ruin. We cannot permit you to continue this”

“That almost sounds like a threat” Noon-Sun cheerfully commented in Sword Princess’s direction.

Cash shrugged: “For the sake of the ponies of these valleys, it is. But we are willing to give you the option to simply change your ways. Free the minds of your serfs and citizens, and cease your abuse of the gods – promise this and we are willing to open diplomatic relations with you, peacefully. Fail to do so, and we shall render upon you as we did to a Deathlord at Deep Rot two years ago. None of you have caried your exaltations for more than a year, tops – our powers are far beyond what any of you can hope to match”

Perhaps Cash had put charms into his words, perhaps Sword Princess was just ill-tempered, but she quickly stepped forward and reared up: “You dare!?”

“Cooperate or reincarnate” Cash said smugly, leaving Sword Princess fuming.

It was sad to Speaker how misguided the martial mare was: “Of course he does. I’m former Looksyan special forces, Fire Orchid was a legionnaire now a dawn caste just like you, Cash can hold his own against deathknights. Even Sunrise could take you out and she’d do it without even laying a hoof on you”

That Speaker hadn’t mentioned Shimmer seemed to fly over the hot-headed warrior princess, for she seemed a lot more intent at reading the fighting abilities of the solars before her. Cash made a nice little show out of extruding a claw form his magical shoes of distant claws, scratching his nose. Sunrise, as always, remained stoic and near motionless, her hood still covering her eyes that none could read her face.

Sword Princess reached into elsewhere and withdrew an enormous seven foot long, one-foot wide grand orichalculcum daiklaive: “I’ll take all of you”

Cash sighed, looking at Noon-Sun who still lounged on her throne: “Don’t say I didn’t warn you”

Advancing towards the circle, her giant golden blade floating in front of her – poised to strike – Sword Princess looked a little surprised when Sunrise stepped forward to meet her: “You have got to be kidding”

Sunrise remained quiet, her breathing deceptively calm. Sword Princess raised her giant blade, preparing to strike a blow against the hooded mare before her.

Then Sunrise shouted: “Yield!”

The force of the shout sent every banner on the walls flying. The mare of ceremonies was equally knocked over, but the Sword Princess? Her blade remained floating in the air for a brief moment, until it clattered to the ground, as the blade-mare in all of her fancy armor was flung with impossible force back into – and through – the heavy stone wall of the throne room.

Noon-Sun’s eyes were wide as dinnerplates, as Sunrise turned to her. The enthroned solar flinched as Sunrise opened her mouth, but Sunrise simply said: “We get attacked by deathlords roughly once a month, sometimes more often. We are quite used to fighting other exalted ponies. None of you are, that much is obvious. Shall we resume our diplomatic negotiations?”

A rumbling by the hole in the wall signalled Sword Princess’s return, her armor scuffed and covered in dust, but the mare herself appearing largely unharmed: “I… I’m not down yet!”

“Yes, you are” Speaker said, having positioned himself at the hole in the wall. Sword Princess was in no position to parry his simple blow against her armor, not that his hoof tapping her armor plates did anything to hurt her… but she instantly slumped over.

Struggling to get up, Sword Princess screamed: “What in malfeas did you just do to me? I’ll kill you!”

With a chuckle and a shake of head, Speaker trotted back to the circle, leaving the blademare trapped in her de-attuned armor, now that it weighed the full weight of orichalcum, and not the featherweight of essence-buoyed magical metal: “I would tell you, but I don’t like you”

Hiding behind the throne, the beastmaster was halfway to a door out of the throne room when Cash shot a claw from his shoe into the wooden doorframe before the beastmaster. The chain connecting the claw to the shoe blocked the path well enough, and the claw itself sent a very clear unspoken message.

It thus came to be that the Sun Tiger lords were rounded up and brought before the lords of Sunhill. Many questions were had, chiefly to the designs of the Sun Tiger lords, which turned out to simply be raising an army by breeding and training the native tigers of the forests of the valleys, using solar training charms to endow the tigers with supernatural strength but also intelligence, so that they could be ordered around like a normal army.

“And then what? Conquer all the neighbouring kingdoms?” Cash idly wondered, sounding quite a bit as if his stated guess was not what he expected the answer to be.

Sword Princess had remained largely quiet during the séance, so she simply grunted at Cash. The circle found that charms were needed to compel her to speak. Noon-Sun and Fang-Whisperer were far more talkative, even with the deathly glares of Sword Princess. Through them the circle learned that the Sun Tiger lords had must loftier aspirations: They wanted to unite the hundred kingdoms, sweeping through them with fiercely loyal tigers and recruiting every large jungle predator that came across their way to replenish and grow their forces on the move.

It was an ambitious plan if nothing else – and to the great surprise of the Sun Tiger lords, then the circle had no real objections to their grand plan: “Honestly, the hundred kingdoms would do well with some better and more united leadership” Fire Orchid said, sounding very much as if she spoke from both personal experience and opinion.

“We might even help you – but you would have to be worthy of our aid. You would have to show that you can govern justly, without simply shackling the minds of your citizenry to enforce conformity” Sunrise Glow noted, speaking like a disappointed teacher to a group of unruly foals.

Noon-Sun sighed deeply, leaning in over the large table in the royal dining room: “And how exactly do we earn your good graces? So far, you’ve all said that pretty much everything we’ve done has been wrong”

Cash chuckled: “Saying that there is a good start. We want you to learn from your mistakes. You’re an eclipse caste – governance and commerce should come naturally to you. Speaking as a fellow of that caste, I know that you should know, that your current treatment of these valleys will leave them destitute and stripped of resources over time. Your conquest of the hundred kingdoms won’t last long if you only leave behind paupers and ponies dressed in rags”

A servant came into to the dinning room quietly, pushing a trolley loaded with a big cake and a large ceramic tea-pot: “Tea or cake my lords?”

“Oh I’ll have some tea” the beastmaster said, floating the tea-pot off the trolley and over to the table.

A single claw launched from Cash shattered the tea-pot: “We’ll all have the cake”

Fang-Whisperer looked decidedly disappointed, his essence-grip on the pot having left him floating a broke handle: “But… I’m thirsty”

“And our tea would have been the last thing you would have drank – by the way, meet Sullen Hoof, Night caste, master of disguise, cooking and poison” Cash noted, smiling just a tad too much.

Both Fang-Whisperer and Noon-Sun’s eyes went wide, as they reluctantly accepted the plates with slices of both cake and humble-pie.

The negotiations and instructions on better statecraft lasted well into the night, but the circle opted not to sleep over, instead borrowing a yeddim to fly home with as they were sufficiently satisfied that the Sun Tiger lords would better their ways.

In the skies above the hundred kingdoms, the circle reflected on their little excursion atop the flying yeddim’s howdah. Sunrise was disappointed that Cash hadn’t bound the Sun Tiger lords to a magical oath: “How can you be sure they’ll do as promised?”

“If we had oath-bound them, they would have resented us even more than what they already do now. They know that we’ll keep tabs on them via the gods, and the trade missions I promised to make to them. Trust me, what they needed were incentives to behave better, not threats of punishments if they behaved worse. You win a lot more friends with honey than with vinegar” Cash argued, feeling certain in his judgement.

Fire Orchid nodded: “That sounds reasonable – but what about Sword Princess? The two others seemed open to cooperating, but she… I don’t think she’ll honor this agreement”

Cash shrugged: “That’s another reason I didn’t oath-bind them – I think she’ll leave the two others, to find herself. A good formative adventure would probably be good for her”

“That’s surprisingly large of you. I thought you didn’t like ponies who broke their promises” Speaker mused, recalling that Cash tended to be quickly wrathful at merchants or nobles who thought they could avoid doing as promised.

“I never expected her to keep that promise – the two others, I do”

Sullen Hoof yawned, it being but a few hours before dawn: “I agree. My profiling charms put her in a very different headspace than Noon-Sun and Fang-Whisperer. Those two were willing to build an empire, but Sword Princess just wanted conquest. I think without her the other two will be much better off”

“I have to say: It’s a bit scary to think that this is the first solar circle other than… well… us… that I’ve seen us come across” Shimmer said, gazing out over the moon-lit jungles and farms that covered most of the landscape of the hundred kingdoms, the odd dot of light flickering down on the ground from a bonfire or a particularly bright magical source of light.

There was a pregnant pause, then Speaker spoke up: “That’s because the sidereals – the bad ones – have been catching solars and wiping their memories of being solars. They even did it to Fire Orchid here”

“That’s… that’s horrible Lord Bright” Shimmer blurted out, looking quite unsure of how to respond to such evil.

Nodding, Speaker sighed: “They figured that they can’t stop us from reincarnating – but by locking exaltations away in ponies who don’t know what they are, they’ve found a way to stem the tide of solar resurgence. We can’t stop them directly, but by being good examples and showing that we’re not a threat to creation, then we’ve been swaying quite a lot of them to switching sides, so they support us instead”

Shimmer nodded, trying to calm her agitated breathing: “I… I thought we’d be fighting evil warlords or monsters, not having to deal with foes we can’t catch Lord Bright”

“Oh, we have plenty of foes who are quite tangible. In fact, now that we have this business with the Sun Tiger lords wrapped up, we can get back to dealing with them” Sunrise noted calmly, but with a serious tone that left no doubt that this was speaking of war and great danger.

Her ears flicking around to lend Sunrise her full attention, Shimmer looked at the priestly mare: “What enemies?”

It required a bit of retelling of the past events, specifically the battle of Deep Rot, but by the time the circle reached the airspace around Sunhill, Shimmer had been both clued in on and horrified by the tales the circle could tell of the deathlords. In the west she had heard stories of the Silver Prince, a deathlord who ruled the western nation of Skullstone – but that had always been a far-away place… to learn that several Deathlords operated in and around the east, and all of them considered Sunhill a priority target, that was… that was a lot to take in. To learn that a Deathlord ruled a nation here in east, out in the open? And that there’s one further east somewhere, plus that one Sunrise called the Black Psychopomp? It was too much to take in.

“Take hearth Shimmer. Get a good night’s sleep, tomorrow Cash will show you around Sunhill – with any luck it’ll rekindle some memories – maybe you can mark your territory again” Sunrise said, speaking in a calming and reassuring tone.

Shimmer took a deep breath, ignoring the cheers from the ground as Cash landed the yeddim. It was still a lot to take in, but she liked how the circle exuded an energy of being in control of their situation: “Thank you. Though, why not have Speaker show me around?”

“I have a hospital to empty out. I’ve been away for a very long time – it has a long on patients awaiting my healing. Once Cash is done with you tomorrow, you can join me” Speaker added before he jumped down from the howdah.

Seeing the circle scatter to tend to their own projects, Shimmer took a deep breath. The air in Sunhill had an intense smell of pine, and yet she saw no pine trees anywhere. Getting a proper introduction to the place would be good… but at the same time part of her dreaded what she might learn, considering the strange revelations she had already been subjected to.

As a quantum of solace Shimmer found that it was quite easy to home in on the golden pyramid, the city manse where her quarters were located. It was still very weird to sleep in a bed that didn’t smell like her, yet part of her mind told that it too was her scent…

Chapter 15 Divine Enlightenment

The Celestial Monkey Stylist, moving with the perfect grace and the solemnity of a philosopher, pours his soup down the waiter’s pants.

…

Shimmer awoke to a pleasant scent, and found that a servant standing by her bed with a tray loaded with a mix of steamed kelp, coconut and shellfish: “Good morning, Lady Shimmer. Lord Sullen Hoof had this prepared for you, and Lord Cash is awaiting you in the front lobby”

Rubbing her eyes, Shimmer looked at the young stallion, then at the food: “Ok this… this I can get used to”

Quickly devouring the meal, and finding it absolutely heavenly, Shimmer looked around: “So… what’s the fastest way down to where Cash is?”

“You previously preferred going out via an open window in the form of a small bird – waiting fo the elevator usually bored you” the servant dutifully noted.

Looking around and spotting a window that had been opened already, Shimmer nodded: “Thank you”

Leaping out of the window in the form of a seagull, Shimmer gently glided down in a spiral pattern towards the front entrance of the hospital manse.

The great entrance had a lot of traffic: There were ponies going in the middle towards the emergency room, there were some elderly ponies going in to the left for appointments with doctors and there were ponies going in on the right towards the pharmacy section to buy or pick up medicine. Cash stood in the middle, surrounded by half a dozen managerial looking ponies, most of which were taking notes or handing Cash scrolls to sign.

Approaching the mass of ponies, Cash quickly perked up: “Ah, there you are – just a moment”

With a flurry of his silvery brush, his golden caste mark lighting up brightly, Cash added a few lightning-quick notes and comments to the documents before him and signed a dozen more, waving the ponies around off and giving Shimmer his undivided attention: “Perfect – how was breakfast?”

“It was good – for freshwater fare… your kelp tastes oddly sweet” Shimmer replied, unaware that Cash was projecting confidence into her via a subtle charm meant to alleviate any awkwardness or shyness.

Satisfied that Shimmer looked refreshed and ready, Cash first directed her attention to a pillar across the road from the front entrance of the manse: “Do you know what this is?”

As the duo approached the pillar several small pods loaded with cargo arrived, and others reminiscent a bit of stagecoach carriages, but without anyone pulling them around… instead the pods and carriages seemed to latch on to and get carrier off by beams of light that came from a glowing sphere above the pillar. Shimmer had to admit that she had no idea what she was looking at: “…but it’s some kind of transport system, for ponies and cargo?”

“Yup. It’s a light rail system. Come, we’ll take one to the harbour” Cash said, inviting Shimmer into a carriage. The attendant at the pillar waved them in and inside Cash showed the lunar how to operate the crystal display and controls. The destinations were neatly labelled in the local tongue, letting Shimmer punch in the instructions for the harbour pillar. There was a jolt as the carriage latched on to the light rails and floated up into the air, accelerating at a comfortable pace.

Cash was quick to point out the various parts of Sunhill to Shimmer as they moved through the city, talking about the alchemical works, the blacksmith square, the big foundry, medicine lane, the underground warehouse entrance, and once they arrived at the harbour Cash regaled her about the magical cranes that allowed for speedy cargo on- and off-loading: “We’re not quite at first age levels of productivity yet, but we’re getting there. Speaker has personally trained nearly every craftspony in the city, to the point that we have almost nothing but masters – we’re earning a fair bit of money taxing the schools that many of them have set up on their own, many ponies from beyond Sunhill coming here to learn from us – but it’s still an uphill struggle to get merchants to package their goods in large enough crates to fully exploit our cranes”

“This is amazing… half a year ago the fanciest anything I knew of where the drift-netting techniques the elders in my tribe taught us, but now I’m flying in a pod on a beam of light through a city that smells of pine all the time” Shimmer marvelled as they rode the light rail to another part of the city.

From what Shimmer could gather, chiefly based on the painted and glass framed map of the city’s light rail system on display at the pillar, then the rail network was set up in big circles in and around around the city, with several connections set around the manse. It was a bit like a wheel within a wheel with spokes, with four stops encircling the manse as the central hub of it all.

“The really cool thing is that over in the artifice district we’re cranking out pillars and gemstones cut for anchor spheres, so we can spread the rail network. We’ve also helped Lookshy get their own light rail system back in working order, and now we’re making pillars to connect Sunhill and Looksy, which would make Sunhill a trade hub almost on par with Nexus… and you won’t believe the bids we’ve gotten to have our network extended to other neighbouring kingdoms” Cash said, his eyes gleaming with golden essence in sheer anticipation.

The implications of Cash’s light rail schemes were a bit beyond Shimmer’s understanding, but she remembered Nexus… or at least parts of it: “Right, and Nexus is an enemy, right?”

“No. Nexus is a trade hub. Its full of greedy and vindictive merchants who think we owe them money – which we most certainly do not - but they have been funding a lot of raiders, mercenaries and bandits who have harassed us, tried to blockade the canals that come up to us from the yellow river… but we’ve countered them, and if you recall what Heath Rose said on the evening of your arrival here, then those foolish merchants will give up on us in but a few short years”

Their rail pod slowed down as it neared the southern manse pillar, slowly floating down to the ground and untethering itself from the light rail, allowing the two to exit. Shimmer looked on as the pod floated back up and rejoined the network: “Who controls these things? How do they do that on their own?”

“You’re a lot better off asking Speaker about that – I think they work on their own, but I know we have a maintenance hub in the eastern part of the city” Cash said, gesturing towards the hospital manse.

The two walked towards the manse, when suddenly a pony came galloping from behind them, her angry scream muffled by the knife in her mouth as she tried to stab Cash in the back.

To Shimmer’s surprise then Cash’s exquisitely luxurious blue silken jacket turned the blade as if it was armor plating, leaving the mare looking somewhat confused. Guards quickly rushed her, pinning her to the ground.

It had happened so fast – Shimmer didn’t even to react – but Cash seemed to have chosen not to react, at least not until the mare was pinned to the ground. He then trotted up to her, his caste mark flaring as he withdrew a purse that rattled with coin from a pocket and gave it to her: “This should be enough to get your family out of Nexus. Have them sent here. There will be honest work for all you, and the guild will not be able to collect any debt you owe them here”

Shimmer looked at Cash with roughly the same level of confusion in her eyes that the mare on the ground had. Cash gestured for the guards to release the would-be assassin – she was even given back the knife. With that done, Cash walked off: “Come on Shimmer, Speaker is waiting for you”

Shaking her head in disbelief, Shimmer had to gallop briefly to catch up to Cash and his swift stride: “What just happened?!”

“The guild has run out of professional assassins to send after us. We are very good at catching those, so now the guild uses ponies who are in more debt than they can ever pay and turns them into would-be killers. They tell them to kill me in exchange for having their debt erased. With my charms I could see it in her eyes. I also used a charm to make sure that she’d actually do what I told her, but once she gets her family here there will be work for her”

Ok, that much made sense – but still, Shimmer found herself incredulous: “She tried to kill you – most places punish attempted murder”

“Yes, but we don’t bother wasting money and guards on prisons here. Trust me, the guild has tried flooding Sunhill with thieves to burden our courts and jails – but we’ve found it much more efficient to just round them up and use charms to instil in them regret, a strong and honest work ethic, and a desire to do penance. After that they join our workforce as honest labourers or leave as honest ponies to seek their fortunes elsewhere” Cash said, speaking with a casual candour that quite thoroughly impressed upon Shimmer that this had been something that the circle had chosen to do after much careful deliberation and debate.

Shimmer shook her head: “That’s… that’s amazing”

“Between me and Sully, then we have a wide suite of charms to figure out what makes a pony do what it does. Like with you for example, you practically radiate uncertainty. You’re afraid that you’re not good enough to be of any use to the circle here – and it’s spiced up with a hint of wondering if you should just return to the west to the ponies you know there” Cash casually stated, as he trotted towards the hospital manse.

The expression of horror on Shimmer’s face, with Cash having just laid her innermost secrets bare – despite no other ponies being in earshot, was palpable. Cash quickly followed it up: “We all had it like that at some point. There was a time when I was useless in combat, nearly got killed several times. You even saved my life on quite a few occasions, so I owe you that much. It takes time to learn these things, but with Speaker’s education charms I’m sure you’ll catch up in no time. Fire Orchid is having the same problem, you could probably train with her if you asked”

Entering the hospital via a staff entrance, Cash told Shimmer how to find Speaker and then left to resume his own work. She certainly had plenty to think about as she stalked the halls of the manse.

Listening carefully, Shimmer tried to home in on Speaker. Cash had told her to find him by finding the joyous crying and singing. After a little thought, Shimmer found that such directions probably made sense: Having been gone from Sunhill for almost two seasons, they were bound to have plenty of patients who had ailments beyond what the ordinary doctors could fix – and back at Admiral Sand’s desert hideout there had been much joyous crying and singing as Speaker had healed everyone.

“Lord Bright!” Shimmer cried out, as she found him in a hallway as he had just left the foal ward, which true to form was full of singing of foals and their families, celebrating the miraculous recovery of their children.

With his long fine beard and kind smile, Speaker raised a hoof to beckon Shimmer to halt: “Ah, good to see you – but hold on”

Speaker used his charm to rinse off the blood and gore on his hooves, his unshorn fetlocks caked in all manner of nasty looking and smelling goop from his last patient. Shimmer smiled: “Tough case Lord Bright?”

“No, not really – just… leaky. A multiple compound fracture, partially gangrenous, patient had gone septic. Poor soul had five different colors of goop coming out of him, not counting blood” Speaker explained with a somewhat pained expression, but he equally smiled, which told Shimmer that the patient had survived.

“So… now what’s on your schedule Lord Bright?” Shimmer wondered.

Pointing towards a door down the hall, Speaker explained that he still had three wards with adult patients to clear out: “So… we should be done in an hour or so”

That didn’t quite add up to Shimmer, but once they got to the first ward and Speaker began his work, Shimmer quickly revised her estimate: With mere glances, the softest of touch, or gentle words – all of them infused with ample essence, Speaker breathed life into the dying, had amputated limbs growing back, purged bodies of poison and disease and brought hope to the hopeless.

In mere minutes there were dozens of ponies jumping about in joy as family members who had been at death’s door were up and about again – and by the end of the hour all the wards were full of empty beds, many of them soaked in tears of joy.

His work done; Speaker didn’t linger. Shimmer followed him to his office, absolutely blown away by how fast he had performed his medical miracles: “How were you able to use that much essence, so quickly Lord Bright? You should have run out halfway through the first ward…”

“We’re in a powerful manse – it restores plenty of essence to me, plus I wear its hearthstone, and quite a few ponies who have been healed by me include me in their prayers at night. I get a lot of essence to work with here, ludicrous amounts really” Speaker casually explained, as if it was nothing special.

Speaker just barely managed to float up a scroll and start to unroll it, when Shimmer swatted it aside: “Then what am I doing here Lord Bright?”

“Philosophically, or are you asking for specific duties?” Speaker wondered, looking very much as if he wasn’t sure what she was asking about.

Her eyes glaring daggers at Speaker, Shimmer leaned in over his desk: “You can heal others like no-ponies’ business Lord Bright. Cash seemed to have the businesses around here just making money out of thin air and Sunrise fights better than a heavily armed dawn caste solar despite clearly not being a warrior – what do you need me for? I can’t do anything that any one of you can’t do leagues better!?”

“We used to feel the same when looking at you– when we all first met you were the elder with powers greater than any of us, able to match each of us at any task. You’ll catch up, with my training charms you’ll…” Speaker said, only for his gaze to grow distant all of a sudden.

Her brows furrowing, Shimmer wasn’t quite sure why Speaker had suddenly stopped mid-sentence.

Suddenly, in a blur of motion, Speaker made for the elevator: “Come quickly, I need to train you!”

“What? Yes, but… why are you galloping all of a sudden Lord Bright?” Shimmer cried out, stomping her hoof in frustration.

Turning on a dime, Speaker darted back and grabbed Shimmer, his face one of wonder and urgency: “The Terrestrial Edification Program! I need to remember it!”

Her inner conflict between demanding clarification and simply submitting to her bond between Speaker and her exaltation lasted only a split second – chiefly because Shimmer reasoned that she could get an explanation while in the elevator.

Indeed, while going down to ground level Speaker started going off about this would change everything: “It’s the final apotheosis of the educational charm set I know. It will let me teach mortal ponies how to enlighten their essence! We can have the whole city enlightened… we could have… oh…”

Ok, the idea of having a city full of enlightened ponies – that would probably change a few things. Shimmer could still remember, quite clearly, how much easier it got grabbing things when she could just use her essence to float things around instead of having to grab stuff with her mouth, or balance on three hooves to use the fourth to work a tool. A city full of ponies with enlightened essence… that was bound to grab someone’s attention: “Hold on, won’t that bring the mother of all wyld hunts down on us Lord Bright?”

“Nah, the immaculates stopped sending wyld hunts after us a long time ago – after we got their grandmaster killed and humiliated the top leader of the hunt they’ve had all kinds of trouble mounting any kind of hunt against us” Speaker said in passing, as he sped out of the manse.

A few minutes later the duo arrived at a place where the sign out front read “House of strength” – and inside it revealed itself as a gym. This made Shimmer wonder exactly what kind of ‘education’ Speaker was thinking about, but it quickly became apparent that he wasn’t there to teach, but to question some of the ponies training: A group of egghead-looking ponies who were lifting iron-capped wooden logs up and down, while also reading books resting on strategically placed lecterns.

“Lord Speaker, what can we do for you?” one of them said as the duo was noticed, Shimmer taking note of her not being the only one to address Speaker that way.

Speaker nodded to the pony: “As you were – I need to know how quickly all of the foals in grade six and seven can be gathered at the grand Amphitheatre”

“In a few hours – why?” the pony replied.

Shimmer didn’t find the conversation all that interesting – expect that retort, that this pony dared question Speaker… it made part of her want to rip the stallion’s head off – but Speaker was smiling… and calm… so it was ok? But weren’t all these ponies their subjects? They shouldn’t be able to second guess their exalted lords, or least not be allowed… right? That was how Sage had said that solars ruled.

“Perfect, I’ve sent the messages – Shimmer, please come with me” Speaker said, leaving the establishment.

Keeping apace, Shimmer simply had to ask: “Hold on – who was that pony, and why was it ok for him to question you Lord Bright?”

“He’s the pony in charge of our grade schools – and of course he can ask, all our subjects can, otherwise we might end up doing something stupid” Speaker said cheerfully, heading towards the nearest light-rail pillar.

A quick ride on the light-rail, the duo arrived in the city’s entertainment district. Buskers at every street corner filled the area with music, and colorful parlours, theatres, tea and coffee houses were everywhere. The biggest feature was the grand amphitheatre: Like every other structure it looked as if the stone structure had grown out of the grown, with large leaf-painted rain covers that could be drawn over the stage and the audience seats if needed.

What struck Shimmer was how big it was: “Just how many ponies can be seated here Lord Bright?”

“The whole city – we made this place for large public announcements and debates” Speaker said with a grand gesture.

“Debates, Lord Bright?”

“Of course. We’re not a dictatorship. Cash wants to train our administration to be able to run this place without us being here – he’d probably say something about how the ponies here desire to be under our leadership because they recognize the good we’ve done… and honestly, when everyone learns what we’re about to be able to offer, every pony in creation will want to be our subjects… but we don’t want that kind of blind obedience” Speaker explained as he gestured at the theatre maintenance staff.

In just a few hours the theatre was dusted off and made ready – and the foals began arriving in droves shortly thereafter. Shimmer had never seen so many foals in one place, hell she’d never seen this many pones in one place… and yet part of her urged her to be calm. It felt right. They were clearly there to listen, and during the setup Speaker had explained that the point of it all was to give a charm-enhanced lesson to all of the children… and her. Sage might have taught her to read, that she could understand the old scripture in the depths, but she knew little less of the lore of creation, something she dearly needed for future reference.

While noisy at first, Speaker quickly called attention to himself and everyone in the theatre fell silent almost instantly, even the youngest of the foals. Shimmer found a spot to sit and listened intensely as Speaker began to teach all whole list of topics like math and geography, about the various nations of the hundred kingdoms and their crests or livery colors. By late afternoon Shimmer’s head was swimming, straining to absorb and process all the information Speaker had dished out.

“And remember: Meditate on what I have told you for a week to make sure it sinks in and sticks with you. There’ll be a test in two weeks administered by your teachers, and all who pass it will be off from school for the rest of the year” Speaker announced, before stepping down from the stage and motioning for Shimmer to come with him.

Shimmer, heeding Speaker’s instructions, meditating deeply on what she had learned – and as the days passed the new information did become easier to parse and figure out. At the end of the week Shimmer realized that it had taken Sage several weeks just to teach her to read, but now she had absorbed and internalized what amounted to probably a month’s worth of private tutoring in just a single afternoon… and so had all those other foals.

Galloping out of her chambers, Shimmer sought Speaker to tell him that her lesson had finally come to fruition. At his office she was told by his elderly secretary that Speaker was at Fire Orchid’s training grounds, probably sparring. Shimmer was out the window in the form of a seagull in the blink of an eye, the old mare secretary simply shrugging and closed the window after Shimmer.

Having travelled with Speaker, Shimmer knew his scent well enough, so tracking that was quite easy. This let Shimmer home in on what turned out to be a sand-covered courtyard in the middle of what looked like a somewhat fortified apartment building. Speaker was down in the courtyard, observing Fire Orchid sparring with a group of other burly looking ponies-at-arms, tossing them around left and right.

“Ah Shimmer, perfect, just the pony I need – Fire Orchid, if you would?” Speaker said, sitting on the side-lines and observing the sparring quite thoroughly.

Shimmer quickly gestured for Fire Orchid to pause: “Hold on, what’s going on Lord Bright? I just wanted to say tell Speaker that the lesson he gave last week finally made sense to me”

Fire Orchid sized Shimmer up: “He wants to see me teach you how to wrestle – but I’ll need to see you fight first, to see how good you are”

“Ok… and why does he want to see you teach me?” Shimmer wondered, as she began circling Fire Orchid, while the ponies at arms cleared away.

With a somewhat meanspirited chuckle, Fire Orchid shrugged: “Well, you are a tribal… so no formal combat training. I know how eastern tribals fight, so I’m guessing Speaker just wants to see if you’re good enough”

“You know how tribals fight? Really?” Shimmer said, sending a few weary looks over at Speaker who simply looked on silently.

Fire Orchid reared up and dropped into what was clearly some kind of fighting stance: “I spent the last several years of my life as a mercenary out far east, killing tribals who were raiding guild plantations – trust me, I know how your kind fights”

Shimmers eyes went wide. Was this the dark past she had been told Fire Orchid had? She certainly didn’t seem all that conflicted about it – which only went to piss of the lunar who began shifting into her warform.

“There we go – even looks like your old warform, how about that” Fire Orchid commented, though by her tone her words sounded decidedly mocking.

With all three eyes of her warform trained on the pony before her, Shimmer’s feathers ruffled down her sides in waves as her massive vaguely pony-shaped bird form solidified, though the instant her form was no longer shifting its feathers began to melt together into massive bone-shell segments, while her talons began to extend – all the while she circled Fire Orchid.

The ponies at arms who had previously sparred with Fire Ochid began taking bets, which Speaker found quite silly: The result of bout was already given – but he couldn’t see any other way for it to play out. This was a lesson Shimmer had to learn the hard way.

Shimmer lunged at Fire Orchid with a wild swipe, the solar pony expertly parrying the deadly blow with her bare hoof, the lunar’s knife-sized claws sparking against the solar’s essence-hardened hide and hooves. Fire Orchid returned the favour with a powerful blow, but Shimmer’s three eyes meant that she saw it coming a mile away, letting her dart back a little to dodge the blow effortlessly.

Fire Orchid then leapt at Shimmer, going from a standing position to bounding high into the air, a rear-hoof raised for a powerful downward buck. Shimmer unfurled her wings, enhancing her manoeuvrability while conjuring her essence webbing all around her: Fire Orchid somehow managed to twist and weave through the webbing blasting at her, though it meant missing Shimmer by a wide margin as she came down.

Briefly looking a tad distraught at how Fire Orchid had dodged all her webbing, Shimmer was caught off guard as the pony dodged under the warformed lunar and delivered a series of swift but potent blows to her belly. Jumping into the air, Shimmer tried to grab Fire Orchid with all four of her limbs, but again this was parried – and as Shimmer came down, she couldn’t twist out of the way for Fire Orchid’s blow.

One smashed wall and several bits of crushed furniture later, Shimmer found herself digging her way out the apartment building, feeling a bit dizzy. Her ears were ringing, and she was seeing six of everything: “What happened…”

“Fire Orchid put you to bed, through the wall… and another bed” Speaker noted, helping her out of the rubble.

Shaking her head, Shimmer looked out at the sand-covered courtyard. Fire Orchid stood in the centre of it, smiling.

Once out and up on all four again, Shimmer took stock of her loss: “It was over so quickly…”

“It was over before it even began” Fire Orchid noted with a smug look.

Dusting herself off with a ripple of essence, Shimmer looked at Fire Orchid in disbelief: “You’re full of shit”

Speaker gestured for Shimmer to calm down: “Now now – how about you just listen to her, she might know something you don’t”

Taking a deep breath and steeling herself, chiefly to not make a fool of herself in front of Speaker, Shimmer nodded and approached Fire Orchid. What followed was a surprisingly enlightening conversation, not about fighting techniques, but about the very art of war: “…and that’s why I taunted you with the comments about having worked for the guild killing tribals. I don’t like what I did, but that doesn’t mean I can’t use it. I took your focus away from fighting, and once that happened you weren’t thinking clearly. All fighting, whether its one-on-one, or a grand battle, is ultimately about deception – I tricked you, and that meant I won”

Shimmer would probably have preferred being able to see a bit more anguish in Fire Orchid’s eyes, but she had to respect the mare for her skill and knowledge. She also noted that Fire Orchid’s teaching methods were delightfully practical, calling in the ponies-at-arms she had sparred with earlier to demonstrate how one best organized small squads of soldiers and how to best use mixed-weapons tactics. Speaker in turn silently observed the lesson, though from how his smile broadened then Shimmer suspected that he had finally figured out whatever he had been looking for.

That evening Speaker called for a gathering of the council of lords. Atop the Sunhill manse the circle met, and Shimmer found her solar mate beaming with pride and joy: “Everyone, the day has come!”

“You’ve finally decided to stop wearing that faded old uniform and fix that ye-ye ass hair-cut of yours?” Cash joked, Sully chuckling from the other end of the table, and Fire Orchid drawing a wide grin.

Sunrise, dour as usual, plainly inquired if Speaker was talking about his improved education charm. Speaker nodded fervently: “Yes – but the lesson takes three weeks to sink in if I’ve understood the essence patterns right. Cash, can we put the whole city in lockdown for that long? Sully, how are our food stores?”

Cash quickly consulted some of the scrolls of the big table between them: “No chance. We get ships coming in almost every day, they need to be serviced – plus the guards and patrols watching for raiders, and there’s the hospital’s minimum staff requirements”

Speaker’s mood took an abrupt dive, but Cash quickly added: “…mind you, we’ve been planning for this. A little under two thirds of Sunhill can be set up for this, but the rest will be needed to run the city and distribute meals for too busy to cook. We should be able to have everything set up in a few days”

It thus came to be that the next day at noon Speaker used the Sunhill manse hearthstone to broadcast a great magical image of himself across the city, announcing the grand plan – though he didn’t say what was going to be taught. The whole city was abuzz in mere seconds, as everyone seemed well aware that for so many ponies to be called to the great amphitheatre then it had to be of great import.

By Cash’s plan then most households had at least one or two ponies who weren’t called in, who in turn were tasked to maintain the households and help the others. Much of the city’s industry ground to a halt, and the Sunhill hospital executed its emergency staff protocol in order to briefly operate at far fewer numbers, though knowing that Speaker would be there to support all wards did make things easier.

On the day of the grand lesson, as the light-rails were thick with pods coming in from all over the city heading to the entertainment district, Shimmer flew overhead in the form of a seagull. It was just so many ponies in one place… not just thousands, but almost ten thousand. If not for Speaker’s previous lesson on math, she feared that she might not even have been able to comprehend such a number.

Shimmer also observed various delegations and foreign observers. There were Lookshyans in their civilian uniforms up on a theatre balcony booth, and in another were ponies from Great Forks who had the look of god-blood in them. There were others that Shimmer couldn’t quite recognize, but as Speaker had made clear, then all foreigners in the city who could spare three weeks to digest the lesson were free to join in, provided that there was room. A lot of sailor ponies had shown up on that account, some simply looking curious, other having a look on their face that seemed to hint that they had figured that whatever was being taught had to be valuable.

The lesson itself started off with Speaker striking his singing staff to the stone floor of the stage. It made not the sound of a wooden staff striking stone – it instead of rang from every stone surface in the entire building, calling absolute attention to Speaker: “Most of you good ponies here followed us from Nexus, and many of you have seen us shed blood both with and for you. On this day you will get the first of the many planned rewards we have for you all. Everyone else who’s here are just lucky – now please pay attention”

With her essence sight charm, Shimmer marvelled as Speaker spoke more than words. With essence he made images and diagrams appear, but even they had invisible essence subtly woven into them, which imbued the images with profound meaning.

Of course, what surprised Shimmer the most was the quiet. No pony spoke, no pony made noise: Everyone was absolutely spellbound by the information Speaker was imparting… and no wonder… for Shimmer knew damn well that most mortal ponies barely even dared dream of ever attaining enlightened essence. Such was a gift usually only reserved for the exalted, for those chosen by the gods.

As the lesson concluded Speaker very quickly left, namely by reaching towards the skies and igniting his ruby pinions. He flew from the theatre on wings of golden fire, leaving the crowd silent and awestruck, sans the few with enough wherewithal to applaud him ringing out the sounds of their hooves clapping together in the theatre.

Shimmer followed suit, in her warform – that she might have the strength to carry both her own weight and Speaker’s with her wings, as well as actually having wings – the lunar inquired: “So… now what?”

“Now we find Cash and get him to fly us to Lookshy. I have an old promise I need to fulfil there, and I want to get that done before our enemies realize that we’ve just shut down most of the city for three weeks”

Chapter 16 A Bone to Pick

The Celestial Fire Dragon stylist orders her soup cold, then heats the soup by burning its essence from within.

…

Cash Charmer was all for a quick visit to Lookshy: “We need to maintain the charade that Sunhill is operating normally – I can think of at least four bandit gangs and maybe two warlords who have enough forces close enough to Sunhill to pose a threat, and we don’t want any of them learning of this until it’s over – because right now we cannot mount much of a sustained defence”

It wasn’t difficult for Shimmer to imagine the kind of damage someone exploiting the reduction of active-duty Sunhill guards-ponies: “True. My village elders have told me a lot of stories of other tribes that got attacked by slavers or pirates who had learned when they would have a big religious feast, allowing them to strike the next day when everyone was tired from all the dancing, drinking and long rituals”

“Exactly. That’s why Sully left to mess with the warlords to the east of peach ridge, and Sunrise said she would start talking with the local spirit courts again” Cash noted, yanking the reigns to the yeddim as it flew in to land at the Lookshy aerie.

Looking over the side of the howdah, at the many ponies in the aerie, Speaker felt himself stir with a strange mix of nostalgia, patriotism and the kind of satisfaction that a good doctor gets when he’s about to cure someone of something that’s slowly killing them.

The general staff was quickly rounded up and briefed on the latest and greatest offer from Sunhill – which at Speaker’s insistence, and to Cash’s great chagrin, was to be for free for the first round – and they readily accepted it, knowing from hard-earned experience that Sunhill always delivered as promised. Their greatest issue was that Speaker wanted it done right then and there…

“Please, give us some time to assemble our forces so you can enlighten as many as possible in one go” Maheka Feldspar implored, the old unicorn mare’s haggard and battle-hardened features lending a stern undertone to her otherwise straightforward request – she clearly saw the strategic value in what was being offered, and wanted to exploit it maximally.

Cash shook his head, his beautifully coifed blond mane bobbing side to side seductively: “We just did this to two thirds of Sunhill – we need to get back as quickly as possible before word spreads and our enemies strike at us. The same goes for Lookshy. You can easily make something up about a three week exercise, but if you assemble an entire field force for that? That will attract attention”

There was a bit more bickering, but in the end the general staff understood that as lords of Sunhill, they couldn’t afford to leave their realm undefended. To this end every Gunzosha legionare present in Lookshy were summoned to a large parade ground where some very hasty bleachers had been set up.

Cash and Shimmer looked on as Speaker did his thing, the lunar looking rather puzzled: “They’re… lumpy?”

“I’m sorry they’re what?” Cash casually wondered, while legion recruits trotted around the parade ground, lighting braziers as the sun set.

Shimmer gestured at the hundreds of ponies sitting on the parade ground bleachers, all of them listening with rapt attention to Speaker: “All those gunzo-things – they’re… lumpy. The regular troops they pulled in for this aren’t lumpy”

Now, while Cash Charmer were a lot of things, then he was not a military pony. He knew Lookshy as a trade partner and a military ally, in the context of him being the lord of a city state which was allied with Lookshy – but his knowledge of specific Lookshyan military units, and why some of them might be lumpy? No, he had no idea: “Have you tried looking at them with essence sight? Only thing I know about Gunzosha troops is that they wear magical armor”

“That… that actually explains a lot. I can see all the lumpy legionnaires have things in them that draw their inner essence out… must be how they can attune to magical armor as mere mortals” Shimmer noted, her eyes glowing with a cobalt blue light from her essence sight charm.

Thinking for a moment, Cash nodded: “Right, makes sense: I remember Speaker talking about how his brothers in arms would ‘take the stones’ and how it would drain their life in the process. Something about making them age faster. Having your essence drawn out of you sounds exactly like that – no wonder the general staff were all in on having as many troops as possible enlightened”

“Wait, it drains their life? That explains why some of the lumpy ones smell like old ponies, but sit with young smelling ones… no wonder Speaker wanted to help them with this, if all his old army buddies died of old age around him” Shimmer mused, finally figuring out the connection between Speaker’s yearning to enlightening Lookshyan troops.

Cash merely nodded, seeing no sense in correcting Shimmer in that most of Speaker’s old retired-for-advanced-old-age buddies actually died in the riots during the attempted coup in Lookshy two years prior. Such senseless violence... but at least he was happy that the current general staff seemed far more enlightened and sensible.

Shimmer was about to ask Cash why his expression had turned sad, when a rainbow-hued messenger sprite appeared, half-shouting a hoarse message at him: “Massive casualties detected in Sunhill in four hours. Chance of deathlord and undead influence: Overwhelming. May Blossom”

Cash sighed and shook his head: “Oh lovely, sounds like another barge full of zombies”

“Should… we be worried about that?” Shimmer wondered, not really sure what to think of such a message, nervously adjusting Deep Wave as it hung around her neck like a large somewhat-alive pendant.

Cash explained that it wasn’t uncommon for their sidereal allies to message them whenever their auguries and future forecasts found something that threatened Sunhill: “…and in May Blossom’s case its usually also to curry favour with me, because I’m the only pony she knows who can bend the ears of others better than she can”

“So… Sunhill will be attacked in four hours?” Shimmer reasoned, now that she had cause to actually believe the message.

Craning his neck and looking to the peaceful sky: “No, probably sooner. But ponies will start actually dying in four hours, meaning our forces will be tired and worn out by then. That’s the problem with fighting the undead: They don’t ever tire, while we do”

“Then we should leave immediately! We can pick up Speaker later” Shimmer stated with great urgency, only to see Cash gesturing at her to calm herself.

Taking a deep breath, Cash urged for calm: “Speaker will be done soon enough, and we’ll be home via yeddim with plenty of time to spare before things turn sour. For now, relax and prepare yourself. Did your tribe have any rituals or traditions for when they knew they were about to go into battle?”

Shimmer recalled her tribe’s old songs of battle’s eve. At Cash’s suggestion she began to quietly sing it to herself, its initially sombre lyrics calling out to the spirits of the tribe for protection, before rising in tone to become a forceful declaration of fury and might. Cash listened quietly, imagining how well the song would actually work if sung by a whole tribal war-band, perhaps with music from drums and woodwind instruments.

A long hour later, as the daystar began to hang low in the sky, Speaker left the parade grounds to find Cash and Shimmer up on a yeddim outside the facility, having a lively argument with a group of local justicars – Lookshyan military police – though from the looks of things, Cash had already spun enough yarns to twist both their ears and brains into knots.

“There you are – these three were just entertaining us” Cash shouted from atop the howdah.

Speaker effortlessly leapt from the ground up to the side-mounted cargo harness on the yeddim, and from there up to the howdah, nodding to Cash and then shooting Shimmer an amused look: “I trust you’ve been keeping Cash out of trouble?”

“I convinced him to not actually seduce all of them Lord Bright”

Speaker wasn’t sure whether he should laugh or just shake his head as the yeddim flew off towards Sunhill. While enroute, Cash and Shimmer caught Speaker up on the message they had received, and thanks to Cash making the yeddim stride through the air at a speed quite simply boggled the mind, they arrived so quickly that trouble hadn’t even started yet. Speaker quickly did a sweep using the Sunhill manse hearthstone, spotting several barges approaching the city via the canal leading to the harbour. Contacting Sullen Hoof, the ninja chef quickly investigated the barges, his charms respectively of investigation and the arts of larceny and quickly making him aware of the double-layered cargo holds in the barges, which were stuffed full of armed zombies

Landing at the Sunhill aerie, the three quickly moved to organize the city’s defences: Cash moved to clear out the harbour without severely impacting city business, while Speaker just sat down outside the aerie, still using the hearthstone to communicate.

Shimmer looked on, feeling annoyingly useless, but as Speaker got up and looked to her, she felt her heart flutter – even more so when he asked: “So, Last Shimmer, will you ride with me into battle?”

“Oh, just try to stop me Lord Shimmer!”

The two galloped to the harbour, just as the barges pulled in. The trap had been set expertly, Cash having cleared away the usual deck-hooves and other dock-workers, while four teams of field-medics had arrived from the Sunhill hospital, shielded by a phalanx of heavily armed and armored troops led by Fire Orchid out in front.

The zombies never had a chance.

On Speaker’s directions, Shimmer quickly swooped in and used her essence-webbing to pull away the sailors on the barges, the instant that the zombies stirred and started to break out.

Fire Orchid marched her troops up to the docks, bottlenecking the zombies as they poured out, turned the place into a meat-grinder. The zombies were legion, having been stuffed liked sardines into the hidden holds of the barges, and so they kept pouring out, but none of them ever got past Fire Orchid – none of them even got to stick around long enough to hurt anyone, Fire Orchid darting along the shield-wall, lobbing off zombie limbs and letting her troops chop the remains up into small enough bits that none of it moved anymore.

Meanwhile, thanks to Shimmer’s expedient rescue, the sailors and captains from the barges were quickly interrogated by Cash Charmer – none of the mortal ponies were able to withstand his charms, quickly informing the circle that the barges had come via Nexus… but there the crews and captain had been swapped out, so none of the ponies there knew where the barges had come prior to that, a common Nexus ploy to cover up stolen, pirated or smuggled goods – not that they cared, for they had all gotten paid quite well for the delivery.

“Clever, covering their tracks” Shimmer noted.

Speaker sighed: “It’s how the deathlords usually do it. We know they have hidden jungle facilities, staging grounds where they collect zombies and custom builds barges like this – but we’ve never been able to find them”

Shimmer looked in the direction of the barges while Deep Wave cleaned zombie blood of its blade-form tentacles, the din of fighting from Fire Orchid and her troops still ongoing, her eyes narrowing on the waters: “So… you need a tracker?”

“Sullen Hoof is a pretty good tracker, but with ships his charms don’t work that well – if you can track a ship that we know has been moored in Nexus for possibly weeks, back to where it came from, please do” Cash quickly noted, his tone betraying no small amount of annoyance.

It was clear to see that the lunar pondered the challenge for a moment, but then she looked back at the fighting: “I should go while the scent is fresh then – but what about the zombies? I can still hear thousands of those things in the barge holds”

“We have a procedure for that – we scuttle the barges and let Sunrise handle the rest, she’s on good terms with the local gods for piranha fish. You should probably swim off to track the barges before we start on that… piranhas aren’t picky eaters nor easy to control once unleashed” Speaker said, as he brought his magical chakrams forth.

It was with a strange sense of pride that Shimmer broke into a gallop towards the docks. Shifting into a her warform, she leapt over the shield-wall, held aloft by her wings. Diving into the water, she quickly activated the charm she knew that let her breathe underwater and protected her from the pressures of the depths. The scent of the barges came to her quickly, for they were all wrought of the same strange wood, and the unique zombie-good infused pitch used to waterproof left a nasty smell in the water – this all just made them easier to track, but probably quite difficult if you remained above water.

Quickly swimming off towards the canals, Shimmer just barely managed to dodge a massive school of small fish. Her ability to understand animals told her to stay well away from it – for each and every one of those fish were crying out for flesh!

Back at the docks Speaker threw Gift and Homage, his magical chakrams, making them saw and burn their ways into the hulls of the barges. These didn’t sink the ships – but they did cut holes in the barges that let Speaker jump down into them, letting him apply the simple but brutally effective charm known in the first age as the Pillar-Breaking blow, an attack technique that had seen countless temples for the yozis crumble in an instant.

The bottom half of the barge exploded, Speaker quickly swimming around to use the same technique on the bottom of the second barge. It exploded upwards, zombies raining down all over the docks – but Fire Orchid had already ordered her troops spread out and to hold their shields up over their heads.

The final barge got a slightly more side-ways blow, dispersing its undead cargo into the harbour basin, instead of sending them up in the air.

Getting out of the water, Speaker emerged to a lot of sniggering and spread laughter. That he was festooned with a bit over forty piranhas probably had something to do with. Trotting up to Fire Orchid, Speaker asked if anyone had gotten hurt while he cleaned himself up.

“On my watch? I think the most hurtful thing here is you making that insinuation. No pony under command has been injured” Fire Orchid stated with a mock laugh.

The harbour basin churned for hours until Sunrise emerged from her shrines with a report from the local piranha spirit who had guided that school, that it had nothing left to eat. The spirit was thanked for its service, given a written commendation, and after that it guided the school out via the canals, back to the rivers where they usually swam.

Later that evening, with Shimmer still off in unknown waters trailing the scent of the barges, the rest of the circle held a meeting and made a status check. Cash reported that the dock-workers had hauled the last large chunk of broken barge out of the harbour basin, while divers had collected most of the rest: “They’ll do some drag-nets in the morning, but the harbour is ready for business again”

“Perfect. Now, do we know exactly who sent these ships?” Fire Orchid asked, her eyes burning with the need to strike at whoever had attacked Sunhill.

Sadly, for all the interrogation Cash had done of the crews of the barges, none had actually known where the things were from – the crew-swap in Nexus had ensured that – and the paperwork for the barges were obviously forged.

“It’s either the Mask of Winters or the Walker in Darkness – we don’t have any other deathlords active in this part of Creation that we know of” said Heath Rose, having appeared out of nowhere, adding that they’re only ones the sidereal host know with a history of mountain overt assaults who was still around, now that the Barbate Arbiter was gone.

Sullen Hoof, stepping out of a shadow and somehow managing to spook Heath Rose, chimed in: “That’s not true – the First and Forsaken Lion mobilized quite a lot of troops in the southern underworld, they just never made it to Deep Rot – this could be an operation his forces set up”

Heath Rose sighed deeply in Sully’s direction: “Can I tempt you to put what you know about that into a written report for me?”

“If you get me another bottle of celestial wine” Sullen Hoof said with no small amount of delight in his voice.

Groaning, Heath Rose appeared to consign herself to handing out a lot of favours in Yu-Shan to procure another such bottle.

“But seriously, what’s next on the list? The mask seems like an obvious target, while we still don’t know where the walker operates from” Sunrise stated firmly.

The circle agreed that when Shimmer returned, depending on the information she would provide, they would call a grand war council, ideally with representatives from Lookshy and Great Forks as well, since taking out a Deathlord would likely involve them at the very least.

Sunhill quickly settled back into a relatively calm routine. With two thirds of the city spending most of their time at home, or in parks or other calm places, meditating on the grand revelation Speaker had had granted to them, the city was notably less noisy than usual. There was less business going on, though the circle worked hard to make sure that things didn’t slow down too much, each of them doing the work of dozens to keep the wheels of industry and public services spinning.

Four days later Shimmer turned, proudly wearing a host of new scars and a ghoulish necklace of bones as trophies. When she erupted from the harbour basin and landed on the docks in her warform there was a bit of a commotion, but everyone recognized the lunar quickly, and calls for the other lords of Sunhill quickly went out.

“Alright, lay it on us” Fire Orchid bid, as the circle stood assembled around their war room table.

Using the maps on the table, Shimmer traced the route she had sniffed out from the barges: “I found a tributary to the grey river, it’s not very big, barely enough room for a single barge to pass down it, but it led deep into Thorns territory. That’s when the water turned foul, for the river came from a lake surrounded by hills, all of it in a shadowland. The shipwright, the zombie warehouses, it’s all there”

“Did you… do anything to it?” Cash wondered, sounding very much as if he actually wanted Shimmer to say no.

Shimmer wasn’t slow to pick up on Cash’s innuendo, nodding: “Whenever I peeked above the water… there were things there, scary things made up of animals and ponies sewn together and animated with dark sorcery – I wouldn’t have had a chance. I figured it would be better to just get back here fast”

“A wise choice – and now we finally have something to present to the Confederation Council. The Mask won’t be able to weasel out of this. Shimmer, if you’ll accompany me there to bear witness, then we can probably force a vote and finally destroy the Mask’s diplomatic ventures across the scavenger lands” Cash said, his tone frankly scaring Shimmer, since she found him speaking in much the same way that a predator would talk about a herd of frightened and tasty prey.

Sunrise cleared her throat, to get everyone’s attention. A second’s pause later, she finally spoke: “We will need greater means to strike at the Mask. He is a deathlord after all – so defeating his diplomatic ventures will only be a setback for him, it won’t defeat him. We need something better”

The rest of the circle agreed on this – to which end Speaker reluctantly raised a hoof: “I think I have a solution…”

The expression on his face said it all: It wasn’t a solution he liked, because reaching it would require terrible sacrifice: “With the meditation and essence purification I did on my journey to Shimmer, I can probably shape solar circle sorcery at this point. Shimmer, you used to know sapphire circle sorcery, so we can probably find another lunar or maybe a sidereal who’ll initiate me up into that – but for solar sorcery? I have no idea how to get there, and I dread what I’ll have give up to achieve it”

For a few seconds, everyone looked around, expecting Heath Rose to appear out of nowhere and tell them how to solve that issue, but nothing happened. With the lack of any immediate solution presenting itself, the circle decided that it was tea time instead.

“Wait, like poison tea time?” Shimmer wondered, sounding clearly worried.

Sullen Hoof, his magical golden helmet not at all obscuring his voice, laughed: “Heavens no. We have friends up in Yu-Shan, some of which have a standing tea-time invitation extended to us. It’s our excuse for getting into heaven and asking around. The celestial lions that guard Yu-Shan don’t allow ponies in unless you have a valid invitation or escort, solar or not – but since we all work for the convention of Deathlords, then this would actually count as official work, if we’re going after the Mask with it”

A magical message was sent to Heath Rose, asking that she come pick up Speaker, Shimmer and Sunrise for a meeting with the convention of Deathlords – plus it worked as a heads up to call together the rest of the convention members.

Shimmer stalked the forests outside of Sunhill uneasily, the thought of going to Yu-Shan, to heaven, weighing heavily on her. Stalking undead horrors was one thing, for such horrors could be destroyed with enough use of claws and blade, but gods? Gods were scary, and grammy had always warned of the vindictive nature of cruel spirits and gods… for they had divine powers and patience, and could wait for you to be weak and inattentive.

That evening, when Heath Rose arrived, Shimmer steeled herself.

The sidereal led the two solars and lunar to a Yu-Shan gate just south of Great Forks, explaining underway that it was not a good time to meet the convention of deathlords.

“Why not? You’re in it, right?” Shimmer asked, finding Heath Rose’s recalcitrance rather odd, for she had remembered Heath Rose’s scent as that of a trusted friend and ally.

The sidereal made a series of arcane gesture towards the wooden spirit gate structure: “The convention chair is in, that’s why – I hate dealing with him”

With a quick glance at Speaker, Shimmer confirmed to herself that Speaker and Sunrise weren’t looking forward to meeting this chair-pony, to which end she chose not to ask for further details. Focusing on the magical portal opening within the spirit gate, the gleaming light pouring through from heaven looking ever so beautiful.

Stepping through the shimmering portal, the circle found itself in a large square – in heaven.

Shimmer was at first struck by the oddly soft sound her hooves made against the cobble. This was quickly cleared up, because upon looking down, she saw that the cobblestones were made of gold, with cloud as mortar between them. No wonder it felt as if they were floating ever so slightly.

…and that was just the cobble. All around them were impossible palaces of crystal, diamond and materials that Shimmer had no words for. Buildings made of pure light, of living shadows, of the most fragrant flowers, or things that simply defied description.

It was only by Speaker tugging her along that Shimmer kept up with the others, as Heath Rose summoned a cloud rickshaw and paid the air elemental driving it in a coin made of solidified prayer wrapped in golden foil.

They zoomed across the sky of heaven, past countless palatial office buildings and divine residences, towards an imposing structure with gleaming jade roofing and orichalcum pillars the size of a large city. This was a display of wealth that Shimmer had never imagined before – and the immaculate lawns and towering office structures surrounding it gave the whole place a magical air of stately graciousness. Indeed, Shimmer didn’t feel humbled as they approached the landing platform – but she did feel as if a benevolent god had graced her with the vision of the place.

Of course, Shimmer could not have imagined the havoc she was to witness, as they stepped inside: Untold legions of messenger spirits flitting back and forth with scrolls and writs like a blurry cloud of frantic motion, office-despots issuing poisonous memos, and the god of toxic work environments stalking the halls like a haunting spectre.

“What… is this?” Shimmer simply had to ask.

Heath Rose sighed as she led the group deeper into the madness: “The bureau of heaven is a sub-division of the bureau of celestial concerns and abstract matters. You’re looking at gods of abstract concepts constantly vying for more control over more concepts, to gain more power. It’s ugly, petty, and if you try to stop them, they’ll have you audited to within an inch of your life”

Shimmer didn’t like the sound of whatever an ‘audit’ was – and at Speaker’s urging made sure not to touch anything, or bump into anyone.

In a truly cavernous meeting room, the four met with a lone pony. The stallion sat at an enormous table, and Shimmer instantly felt his withering gaze as the door closed behind them.

“Carjack, you’re early” Heath Rose called out as they approached the table.

A scurrying of wood signalled four lesser spirits that moved chairs up to the table for the new arrivals to sit at – and once everyone was seated, they even moved the chairs up to the stallion, with Heath Rose next to him, then Sunrise, Speaker and finally Shimmer.

Shimmer beheld the stallion: She didn’t even need essence sight to feel the power radiating off the pony. His well-kept long beard wasn’t that different from Speakers, though he was bald – and he had those star-filled eyes: “Rose, you’re late”

“Well, since you deigned to change the time for the meeting, I would wonder why you didn’t notify me – good thing we arrived four hours early” Heath Rose said, with such a level of venom in her voice that it seemed to corrode the stone table before her.

A very awkward silence followed, for it seemed that none of the other gods and ponies scheduled for the meeting had been notified of anything having been changed.

The first arrivals were a group of sidereals, none of them known to the circle, and after that a group of gods, foremost amongst them being Hran-Tzu, the raven king, the god of decay. The instant that the pony-formed arrangement of empty funerary garbs ‘saw’ Speaker, Shimmer and Sunrise it seemed to perk up, striding towards the three in bounding leaps, leaving a trail of raven feathers.

Shimmer, having never seen a ghost or anything like that, found this visage of the god of decay approaching quite terrifying, to which end she shrieked in terror.

Everyone looked at Shimmer, who’s grey coat burned bright red on her cheeks out of embarrassment, and Ketchup Carjack adding in a snide comment: “Do control your pet Lord Bright”

“Right back at you, old timer. We met Anys Syn a week ago – you really should have her on a tighter leash, she almost made a complete fool of herself… again” Speaker said, returning fire.

The face of Ketchup Carjack soured, appearing quite annoyed of having been reminded of the absolute embarrassment that Anys Syn – his former protégé – had been to him, when the circle had testified against her and incriminated him as well in her wrongdoings.

“Can we actually get on with the meeting?” one of the other sidereals inquired, sounding about as non-plussed as she looked.

It thus came to pass that Sunrise presented the circle of Sunhill’s plan of striking at the Mask of Winters by having Speaker learn an adamant circle sorcerous spell that would let him straight-up close shadowlands, both to combat the deathlord, and to help protect the circle’s domain of Sunhill, wrapping up her presentation by politely requesting the aid of heaven and the convention of deathlords in getting Speaker initiated into the higher circles of sorcery.

Hran-Tzu was all for it, enthusiastically supporting the idea: “Oh this is perfect – this can really get things moving!”

Heath Rose equally supported the motion, though the other sidereals seemed… unsure, all of them looking to Ketchup Carjack, who ultimately shook his balding head: “I see no reason for heaven’s resources to be wasted on this”

“And how exactly would having an asset in creation who both can and wants to close shadowlands at a whim be a waste of resources?” Hran-Tzu quickly asked, ravens of dark mist and black feathers forming around him and glaring angrily at the old pony.

Heath Rose equally looked as if she was about to say something similar, when the old stallion made an imperious motion with his hoof and spoke up: “Why should I fund the arming of a gold faction supported solar with the most potent sorcery in creation? Why arm a foe with a weapon we can’t counter?”

“We don’t have to be foes” Speaker said, though his smile looked a tad forced.

Ketchup Carjack merely shook his head, ignoring the question from Hran-Tzu, instead throwing a dismissive glance in Speaker’s direction: “Now that’s just sad, he’s delusional too? As chairpony of the convention of deathlords I am vetoing this proposal on the grounds that the asset to receive proposed aid would become too powerful to control and does not appear mentally suited to wield such abilities. This meeting is dismissed”

With a firm hoof Ketchup Carjack struck the table, every servant spirit in the room instantly beginning to disperse – they weren’t getting paid to attend meetings that had officially ended. The other sidereal and Carjack all got up and left the room, leaving Shimmer, Speaker, Sunrise, Heath Rose and Hran-Tzu who appeared to positively seething.

“That slimy little shit…” Hran-Tzu grumbled, somehow managing to give off the impression that he was pouting – despite having no real face, only the form of hollow dark funerary robes wrought of raven feathers.

Shimmer could easily sense how Speaker was seething – but Sunrise seemed calm, which was nice, and Heath Rose did not look surprised at all: “Rose, what’s our next move?”

“Now we party” Heath Rose said with a smile, throwing Shimmer for a loop.

Speaker gave the sidereal a disapproving look, as only an old pony could, but the sidereal cheerfully got up: “Come on Speaker, did you honestly think Carjack would ever have cooperated with us on arming you with access to the most powerful sorcery in creation? Of course not, but Ayesha Ura is hosting a grand social event where we’ve managed to invite several gods who know a thing or two about sorcerous lore… you might be able to charm them into helping out, that’s the plan anyway”

Sunrise got up from her chair and shook her heard at Heath Rose: “Why even have this meeting then? Why not forewarn us that we shouldn’t expect anything?”

“I would have liked a bit of a forewarning too – I had my hopes up here for some proper cross-factional cooperation here!” Hran-Tzu stated, sounding cross.

Heath Rose bowed her head to Hran-Tzu: “And I apologize deeply for deceiving you as well – but you know how the bronze faction has tightened access to Yu-Shan. Getting friendly solars up here has never been this difficult! The bronze faction would have the lions toss them out the nearest gate”

“Alright, so what kind of party is this going to be?” Shimmer wondered, trying to steer the conversation into a slightly more positive direction. Heath Rose seemed to play along on this: “The fun kind, we’ve got the goddess of party canons and cupcakes doing the planning – but… there’s a catch”

Everyone looked at Heath Rose, as she sent a pensive look around to gauge her audience.

“It’s nothing bad – it’s just that we had originally thought that Carjack would try to yank our chains by dragging this meeting out for days with endless negotiations. The party isn’t set to happen for another couple of days” Heath Rose explained.

The issue was thus that the three would have to find a way to explain and justify their presence in heaven for two more days – or as Heath Rose put it: “…so you can dodge the bronze faction spies who are sure to be follow you around and report you for loitering”

Chapter 18 Celestial Secrets

The Celestial Air Dragon needs no bowl for soup. The stylist contains the soup as a vapor in the air. Soup rains down into the mouth of all guests in the restaurant.

…

In the bureau of heaven, in the office of the head of the department of peculiar matters of special import, the implacable Shinning Barrator sat and grumbled. Oh, how he was furious. The discovery of a cleverly disguised listening device in his office, hidden in his favourite mosaic… oh this would not stand.

This required extreme measures.

“Get me the Green Mare. We need outside help for this” the deep baritone voice of the golden lion spirit stated through gritted fangs.

Oh, how such a statement was dangerous – and he knew it – and he knew a recording of his voice was zipping through the refined demon-thread wire to an arcane relay device, where two solars and a lunar stood ready to track the magical message that the relay would send out.

Shimmer instantly picked up the scent of hot essence working in the machine: “It’s working! Speaker, you got it working!”

“Perfect. I’ll message Barrator that he can stop repeating himself – you two track the spell. I’ll join you with Barrator and more lions”

Shimmer’s nose for magic led her through a swift chase into several nice neighbourhoods, with quite a few celestial lion sentinels questioning the two ponies what they were doing and why they were galloping around like that.

“Talk to the badge – we’re sent by Shining Barrator” Shimmer said, barely paying attention to the lion as she sniffed the air.

The celestial lion snarled: “No you listen here little pony – this is a nice neighbourhood, and you two running around on noisy hooves is causing a nuisance! There are rules to follow here!”

“Shimmer, you said the message spell descended. That means it closed in on a recipient. Is it close?” Speaker wondered, looking at the buildings surrounding the square. The gleaming lapis lazuli roofs on the nearby pagodas gleamed from the bright yellow stars dotting the sky, indicating that the mare of Journeys was ahead in the game of divinity.

The lion fumed as it sensed that it was being ignored: “Now wait just a minute! You two aren’t going anywhere!”

Giving the lion a brief look, then shaking his head, Speaker scanned the area with essence sight: “I can see the trail – it’s going in there”

Shimmer looked at the building Speaker was eyeballing. It didn’t look nearly as palatial as the other buildings in the area, but still absolutely luxurious compared to what one could get in creation. The sign out in front, set in softly glowing purple crystals, read ‘Sun-Blood Corner-club’

At that point the lion was getting really pissed: “Foolish mortals! You do not disrespect a celestial lion and live!”

“What part of us having been deputized by your boss Shining Barrator, don’t you understand?” Shimmer wondered, carefully keeping the lion in the corner of her eyes as she followed Speaker towards the corner club entrance.

The lion quickly bounded over in front of the two, blocking the entrance: “One more step and you’re dead!”

“Really? Ponies deputized by your boss? Then again, it’s the second time you’ve threatened to kill us – and you haven’t done anything yet – so I don’t think you’re going to do anything” Shimmer said, feeling confident that she’d figured out the lion’s game.

It quickly became apparent that the lion hadn’t really expected to end up a situation where it had to actually explain why it was guarding the place – why it didn’t want the duo gaining entrance into the club. Shimmer quickly circled the place, spotting the few other exits the place had, and thoroughly blocking them with her essence webbing.

By the time Shimmer got back to Speaker, who had been having fun trying to weasel an explanation out of the celestial lion – who had turned out to be curiously reluctant to actually turn to violence, probably because it would attract the attention of other celestial lions that weren’t in on whatever scheme this lion was part of – she saw Sunrise, the towering form of Shining Barrator, and a dozen other celestial lions approaching them.

The lion guarding the door looked positively terrified as it saw its boss approach – and Shining Barrator in turn looked none too pleased: “Explain yourself! I have no record any assignment to guard this estate – and baring my deputies? You are in for a thorough audit!”

Speaker saw the lion eye the closed gates into the corner club once more. It had done so, many times already while he had questioned the lion – but the gates were closed, and whoever was on the inside probably didn’t want to let the growing crowd outside in anymore.

Under the baleful glare of Shining Barrator the lion, its head bowed and its golden skin somehow exuding less of a lustre, stepped aside. It was rather interesting to see Shining Barrator next to the shady celestial lion: Barrator towered above the lion, standing almost a yard taller than his underling.

“Open up!” the great lion roared, looking eager to pound the gates down.

The gates did not budge.

“They’re whispering on the inside… I can’t hear what they’re saying, but they’re whispering” Shimmer noted.

His eyes alight with golden flame, Shining Barrator reared up, putting both of his mighty front paws on the gates and pushed. Each paw was the size of an adult pony, each orichalcum claw like a large curved dagger, scratching deep grooves in the solid jade gate: “Open this gate right now!”

The gate, despite being made of magical materials, groaned – but it held.

“Shall I? Speaker offered, Shining Barrator looking oh so pissed.

Just as the giant golden lion got down on all four again, and stepped back to let Speaker have a go at the gate, two sidereals came in on aerial rickshaws. These were not sidereals that Speaker had ever met before, but he had his essence sight on, so he instantly identified them for what they were.

“Shining Barrator, what’s going on here!?” one of the sidereals called out.

The large lion nodded at Speaker, then turned to the sidereals: “This is an active investigation, there’ll be a report for the bureau once it’s over – stay out of my way”

“An investigation with solars? What is this nonsense” one of them, a mare with a northern accent, said. The tone of her voice made it clear that she did not approve of the situation.

As the lion chief and the sidereals argued, Speaker brought the gate down with his pillar-breaking blow, the jade gate and the jade-steel hinges groaning and heaving. It was obvious that they would not hold long.

“Speaker, I can feel my webbing straining – whoever is inside is trying to flee!”

Shining Barrator’s ears perked up, having evidently paid attention to what Speaker and Shimmer were saying, quickly breaking from his conversation with the sidereals to bellow orders to the other lions with him: “Circle around and arrest anyone trying coming out of this place!”

The gates finally came crashing down, revealing the contents of the courtyard inside…

It was a lot of celestial lions. What the hell.

“Traitors!” Barrator roared, as he launched himself at them. The melee that followed was swift and brutal, Speaker, Shimmer and the two sidereals joining in to subdue all the spirits inside the compound. The place itself didn’t have much of a chance: Tables, lion-sized lounge chairs and couches, everything got smashed as enormous enforcer-spirits were flung about left and right.

The celestial lions were made by Celestia after the primordial war to be tough, to be strong and powerful enough to put down rogue gods and anyone else making trouble in Yu-Shan. This of course also meant that subduing a band of rogue lions was no easy task, compounded by the fact that celestial lions were trained in strong team-work for take-downs, meaning that even with lion on lion fights the wrestling was brutal and difficult.

Shimmer quickly realized that she was hopelessly outclassed in any kind of direct fight, instead supporting Speaker with her essence webbing, tangling his foes as he used his magical martial arts to throw celestial lions many times his size up into the air. The lions could do a lot of things, but they could not fly – and once they landed, they were securely cocooned. Speaker found their teamwork delightfully efficient.

“Here’s another!” Speaker called out, his speech a bit slurred from repeated blows by angry solid-orichalcum lion spirits, but he heaved and bucked the lion he was tussling with up into the air. Ready and well-aimed, Shimmer sprayed the lion spirit with her webbing, spinning the lion around in the air as it was wrapped up tight.

By the time the dust settled, over a dozen celestial lions had been taken down – a few had been outright killed, chiefly the ones that the sidereals had engaged, as well as several that Shining Barrator had torn limb from limb in his rage. The whole area was quickly cordoned off, and the surviving captives were interrogated in short order.

While he would much have preferred to have tended to the wounds of the loyalist lions and sidereals, Speaker was asked to assist the interrogations with his lie-detector charm, allowing Shining Barrator to quickly sus out who was lying… which was everyone.

“You shouldn’t happen to know a charm to compel them to tell the truth?” Barrator inquired, having finally calmed down, even though his massive claws were still unsheathed for all to see.

Speaker shook his head, his long beard swinging from side to side: “I… I’ve seen how mind-control charms can lead you to a very bad place. I try to stay away from them – I prefer charms that let me earn the trust of others, and let that truth be what makes them cooperate”

“Such humility. I will be sure to mention that in my final report on this. But thank you Bright Machine Speaker, for your help” Barrator replied, taking a deep breath and somehow making his golden mane shake without moving his head.

Arrangements were made for Speaker, Shimmer and Sunrise to crash in the guest quarters of the god of criminal investigations. The god, who appeared as a living flurry of paper for its body, magnifying glasses for eyes and other investigator tools for its limbs and other extremities, was very accommodating. If anything, it was a little too eager to hear of what other investigations the trio had partaken in, delighting in hearing Shimmer retell her story of having sniffed out the corpse barge port in Thorns territory, or back when the circle had tracked the rice thefts in Chung Do, or when they had pursued the demon rapist of Harlotry district in Nexus.

For Shimmer it was a bit odd, once more hearing stories of old adventures she had been part of in her past life. At first they sounded strange, alien, but as the evening progressed her memories of the events became much clearer: “And that was when Cash Charmer, the eclipse caste of the circle, was dumped outside the castle with the tendons in his legs cut by the gang he had gone to negotiate with. He was so pissed after Speaker had healed him”

“Few criminals are worth negotiating with. I assume they were dealt with eventually?” the god inquired, its magnifying lens eyes spinning around to zoom in on Shimmer as she told her part of the tale.

Feeling a bit unsure, Shimmer looked to Speaker and Sunrise, who both gave her encouraging nods, after which she continued her tale, as the night grew long – the moon shining bright in the sky of heaven, with Luna ahead in the game.

The next day Shinning Barrator called the trio to his office once more, but he was in a much better mood. The giant lion spirit was down right purring as he debriefed the trio on the aftermath of the lion bust, explaining that it seemed to have been a conspiracy of corrupt celestial lions who had wanted to keep tabs on him, chiefly to avoid him ever assigning them work that they couldn’t profit personally from.

“Profit personally from?” Sunrise asked, her train of thought not being sneaky enough to recognize a euphemism for taking bribes.

Barrator explained that upon a brief audit of the arrested lions and their work schedules, then it seemed that they had managed to snag positions as bodyguards for gods they could extort, or as security for businesses or institutions where they could exact entry fees or tolls from visitors.

“And here I thought that the celestial lions were incorruptible” Speaker said, shaking his head.

Sunrise quickly noted that ever since the usurpation heaven had slowly declined, much like creation: “More and more gods going out of work, they turn to theft, extorsion or other forms of organised crime to maintain their luxurious lifestyles. Some celestial lions even fall to this despair, choosing to enrich themselves or overlook the crimes of others for a bribe”

“Indeed – and sadly, because of all this I don’t have anything to put you three to work with today. You will have to find some other means of justifying your presence here in heaven. I am sure there are other corrupt lions who will now stalk you to find any excuse of throwing you out of heaven, as a way to strike indirectly at me” Barrator noted, not sounding happy about, but equally sounding confident that the ponies in his presence would be able to handle things for themselves.

“I do believe I can think of something. Thank you, for the opportunity to bring justice to heaven” Sunrise noted, motioning for Speaker and Shimmer to join her in leaving Shining Barrator’s office. Bidding their goodbyes, two quickly joining Sunrise.

Outside the fortress precinct, Sunrise explained her plan: “We only need to keep ourselves busy until later this afternoon – and I know just the thing: Speaker, do you recall my briefings about the spiritual status of Sunhill?”

Shimmer perked up, having been trained much of her life by her village shaman to eventually take over that role. Sunrise explained that despite all the nice things that Sunhill had, then it lacked one crucial thing: “Despite having been a functioning city state for well over a year, Sunhill does not have a god”

“Wait, you mean a god for the city, or a god for all of Sunhill’s territory?” Shimmer wondered.

Sunrise frowned: “Both – and I have been working with the gold faction to arrange meetings with the heavenly committee that assigns such gods. The bronze faction has been stalling it for ages, because with a god for the city and our lands we’ll have a much more direct connection to heaven, as well as a spiritual ally who can detect and warn us of bronze faction loyal spirits coming to spy on us”

“So, what’s the plan?” Speaker wondered, thinking that a bronze faction loyal god assigned to Sunhill could spell all kinds of trouble just the same.

From her robes, Sunrise floated out a scroll: “Through covert means the gold faction secured a few celestial signatures, inviting us to join a commission meeting. They take place quite frequently, so I believe one is scheduled for today”

“When is the next meeting? Wait, Today? Can we get there in time?” Shimmer wondered, absolutely loving the idea of getting a say of who got to be the god of Sunhill.

Sunrise nodded, noting that they would have to hurry.

Generously paying the air elemental controlling their aerial rickshaw, the trio arrived at the central offices for the bureau of pony affairs. Sure, the grand and gleaming sign of jade and crystal read “The Divine Witnesses of Mortal Works and Deeds” – but it was the celestial bureau of pony affairs, managing all things relating to pony life and civilization. The department of pony habitations managed and oversaw the gods of cities and other such things, including roads and paths, farms, and anything else pony-made. From the lowliest wood-carved toy to the most majestic city, the bureau assigned and oversaw the gods for all such pony-made things.

“We must be careful here” Sunrise noted: “This is where every rogue city and road god that extorts ponies back in creation have their friends in high places that watch over them. Like every other place in heaven, there is corruption here, and I don’t know the exact nature of how the bronze faction is stalling the appointment of a god to Sunhill”

The invitation that Sunrise had procured got them most of the way, but the bureau was vast and byzantine, so at several points various gods demanded bribes or even shrines built for them in Sunhill, before they would assist with directions or permit the three exalts to pass through their offices.

Sunrise gave them no quarter, shaming these corrupt gods verbally with righteous fury. With essence she made sure that each of them felt the greatest of regret and shame, and each of them ultimately recanted and repented, begging for her to end her torrent of harsh words, for her charms denied them the ability to simply ignore her harsh words, demanding retorts that none could muster.

Shimmer found the display of Sunrise’s verbal quite intimidating: “She really doesn’t do things like Cash does...”

“No, he’s far more subtle – plays into the vices of his foes. Sunrise just shows no mercy and demands you answer for your misdeeds” Speaker replied, as the two of them followed after Sunrise down a hall, away from the sound of a sulking god in the office they had just left.

At the correct meeting room, which really stretched the definition of ‘room’ well into the realm of ‘colossal banquet hall’, the trio entered to find a dozen or so gods well into a shouting match.

It was very difficult to hear what anyone was saying, for with a dozen divinely loud voices yelling and screaming at each other, all sounds just blurred into each other, becoming a singular wall of head-ache inducing noise.

Sunrise quickly took a step back and quietly closed the door to the room, looking at her two peers: “That… will be difficult to work with. Suggestions?”

“I saw a lot of guards and retainers in there. Looked like a lot of them brought their muscle in case a fight breaks out” Speaker noted, having spent the few seconds the door was open to scan the room visually.

Shimmer had a ponder: “If I turn into a sand newt I can squeeze in under the door and scurry in under the table – I could provide a good distraction from under there, if need be. Could be to give you two the word”

“That won’t be necessary – but sneak in none the less. Can you change into something small and unseen to spy on someone’s notes without them noticing you?” Sunrise replied, appearing to be putting a lot of thought into how to work the meeting without anyone among the three of them getting assault charges. Being on good terms with Shining Barrator could only help one out of so much trouble.

It only took a second for Shimmer to consider her other forms: “Oh I can do more than that – as a western fish-hawk I can fly around quietly up high and check everyone’s notes, fish-hawks have amazing vision”

Nodding, Sunrise put a hoof to the door and opened it quietly.

The three entered the room, but Shimmer entered unseen as a tiny sand newt, scurrying off to shift into her fish-hawk form. Sunrise and Speaker approached the cacophony, Sunrise pulling down her hood and shaking out her effortlessly beautiful fox-red mane.

Taking a few steps back, so as to not get caught in the worst of the charms she was about to unleash, Speaker observed through essence sight that his fellow lord of Sunhill began piling charm upon charm onto herself, until her very anima – the light of her soul – erupted around her:

“What is the meaning of this?” Sunrise spoke with only a mildly raised voice – but thanks to the power of her charms, hers was the only voice heard despite all the shouting. Such was the power of her silver-tongued nightingale style of martial arts, for it held the power of sound.

It took a second or two before all the gods noticed that nothing they said could be heard – that’s when another of Sunrise’s charms kicked in, one that demanded great conscious effort not to simply shut up and pay attention to her.

Silenced and for the most part paying attention, Sunrise quickly reprimanded all present gods that such infantile behaviour was unbecoming and demeaning for divinities of their station: “…now, who here is in charge of who gets to speak?”

A small spirit huddled up in a corner perked up, raising a dainty limb of folded cloth and rune-inscribed velum. Sunrise left the table and walked over to the spirit, calmly placing a reassuring hoof on the spirit: “You may speak”

“Thank you – I am officially in charge of the speaking order, but I don’t have the authority to ask any of the committee members to actually wait their turn to talk” the meek little spirit said, standing up on its three spindly legs of many-colored silk silk.

Nodding, Sunrise threw a quick glance over to Speaker who had been checking to see that none of the committee member gods did anything stupid. As he nodded back, signalling that it was still safe to proceed, Sunrise spoke: “Such a lack of decorum is atrocious. I am here to put a stop to that. Would you permit me to assume your duties here temporarily? I shall see to it that you are still paid for your services”

The tiny spirit looked at Sunrise, tears in its many eyes, for such a kind offer was clearly the first it had gotten in a very long – if ever: “I… I would gladly, but I must work less I tire”

Sunrise knew perfectly well what this meant. So did Speaker. Shimmer, high above, did not – but Sunrise said that the spirit’s mental wellbeing would also be ensured, to which end the spirit gladly consented to Shimmer taking over control of the meeting.

Speaker quickly approached the spirit and retrived a purse full of celestial ambrosia coins from his saddlebags. In handing the purse over, upon touching the spirit’s open hands, Speaker also imbued the spirit with an infusion of willpower, refreshing the heavenly clerk’s weary mind.

The spirit quickly left the room, singing happily to itself.

This left the rest of the committee at the mercy – or lack thereof – of Sunrise Glow. She quickly laid down the law, using her strange silence-inducing charm to deny anyone any ability to get a word in edgewise. Speaker only needed to step in once to stare down a martial-looking spirit that had been waved over to its master at the table, to prevent any kind of fight or attack on Sunrise breaking out.

Once her initial verbal browbeating was done, Sunrise let each god speak up one by one, which took quite a while. It was a curious display, for without anyone else being able to shout over them, it quickly turned out that none of the gods present had much at all to say… for they were clearly all there for entirely self-serving reasons. The various departments they represented all knew that having a god from their department serve as the god of Sunhill would grant them great prestige and power, and between Sunrise and Speaker’s charms then the gods on the committee quickly learned that they couldn’t lie about that.

With the committee members thoroughly dressed down, and now standing with their self-serving agendas laid bare, Sunrise looked to Speaker: “Do you have a preference?”

“I wouldn’t mind a god from the sub-department of hospitals to manage all of Sunhill. Would make sense in my opinion. What do you think Shimmer?” Speaker mused, gesturing for Shimmer to come down and land.

Flying down and landing next to her solar mate, shapeshifting back into the form of a pony, Shimmer pondered the question for a moment. In her years of training under her tribe’s shaman, she had learned to take a lot of things into consideration when finding a spirit to beckon and ask for protection: “I don’t know… I think it all depends on what the god in question demands in exchange for its services. Sunhill is rich, but I don’t think Cash would be happy if a new city god demanded a huge share of that wealth in sacrifices”

Sunrise nodded: “Sensible. And a god who prioritizes the hospital does make sense – do we have proposals from such a department?”

This was the first time the rest of the committee had been freely allowed to speak – but the gods seemed understandably afraid of speaking up. One god raised a crystalline limb, its body of swirling gems clad in transparent silks looking quite impressive, but its eyes of lapis lazuli looked fearful under the baleful gaze of the zenith caste solar.

“You may speak” Sunrise declared.

The god nodded: “Thank you. I do not believe that we have any such god currently listed, but I can produce a list of suitable candidates and have it submitted to you for final selection and approval”

A number of the other gods at the table looked quite unhappy that they hadn’t been the one to speak up first.

Sunrise looked to Speaker and Shimmer. The lunar nodded, satisfied with the proposal, while Speaker had a comment to make: “We’ve seen the legions of unemployed gods that roam the alleys and abandoned sections of Yu-Shan. I would prefer an unemployed god be given this position”

The gods found this preposterous, several of them pointing out how unemployed gods invariably go insane: “It would be madness – it would invite destruction upon Sunhill to have a mad god in charge”

“Sunhill is a place of healing. Speaker is the finest healer in all of creation. Send us the god – we will fix it” Shimmer pointed out, having figured out Speaker’s plan.

Sunrise nodded in approval: “That would also ensure that our god isn’t tainted by your inter-departmental rivalries. This god shall be ours, and we shall shape her in our image. I will expect a slate of potential gods delivered to Sunhill within a week. This meeting is adjourned”

Following Sunrise from the meeting hall back out into the maze of celestial offices, Speaker had to wonder why the priestly mare had cut things short: “What’s the rush?”

“Time. We need to be at the party soon – we’ll need time to freshen up. May Flower has outfits ready for us at her residence” Sunrise quickly explained, guiding the trio to an elevator platform and paying the spirit controlling the platform a few gold-wrapped ambrosia coins for its service.

At a landing platform the trio was picked up by an aerial rickshaw, letting them speed across the sky of heaving. While enroute the sky changed many times over, switching from sunlit day to moonlit night sky, to a dark night sky with various sets of colorful stars, be they yellow, green or red.

“Ok, seriously – what is up with the sky here?” Shimmer exclaimed in confused frustration.

Speaker tried to explain how the sky of heaven was defined by a game that the highest gods, Celestia, Luna and the five mares of destiny, played: “Whoever is ahead in the game gets the sky. Sun out means celestia, moon out means Luna… but I’ll agree with you: It’s very strange to see it switch from day to night six times over in a minute”

“We’ll address the issue of the games of the divinity in due time. Right now, you should think of how you want May Flower’s servants to clean you up. Have your choice of soaps and scented oils in mind when we land, we are short on time” Sunrise noted, as the aerial rickshaw came down among verdant hills dotted with glorious mansions and exquisite palatial gardens.

Shimmer pondered the mystery of what exactly soap was as she gawked at the magnificent mansion that this May Flower pony lived in. To not all that much surprise, Shimmer found May Flower to be a pony mare bouncing around in a beautiful silken garb, with her mane done up beautifully while wearing a most eye-catching silver diadem: “Oh there you are – come quickly. I have baths drawn up and ready!”

Sunrise didn’t resist as a swarm of celestial servants spirited her away, and Shimmer seemed genuinely curious at what was in store for her. Speaker found himself halted before the baths by May Flower.

Looking curiously at the sidereal, Speaker wondered what the chosen of secrets wanted: “What?”

It was with a pained expression that the mare, clad in her decidedly royal garbs, beheld Speaker in his thoroughly faded old military uniform: “You seriously need a wardrobe upgrade”

“I honor my past, the fallen and their sacrifice, and my own first age legacy by wearing this” Speaker answered succinctly, his expression one of having had this conversation more than once already.

The mare frowned: “You aren’t just a retired legionnaire anymore Speaker, you’re a lord now. You really should dress accordingly. Your appearance conveys the power, the brilliance and future promise of Sunhill… come on, work with me here”

Shaking his head, Speaker threw May Flower a disapproving look. Of course, his look quickly turned into one worry as the sidereal advanced on him: “Oh no, not this time”

Chapter 19 Heavenly Enlightenment

The Celestial Wood Dragon saps the life out of her soup, leaving it harmless but delicious

…

“Wow Lord Bright, you look like a boatload of coconuts!” Shimmer said, as the trio reconvened in one of the May Flower estate’s magnificent tea salons. Her tribal compliment might have sounded a tad uncivilized or strange, but Speaker knew her well enough to get that she meant that he looked rich – though he had other things on his mind.

The solar doctor and artificer looked… annoyed – but he also looked like an actual lord for once, robed in fine gold-embroidered silks. Shimmer was strutted around in her white and blue garb replete with moon-themed decorations and gemstones, while Sunrise… was in her usual white robe, though it did look newly washed and smelled of wild flowers and orchids.

To get to the party they loaded up into a fancy carriage levitated by elementals, May Flower joining them: “Oh I wouldn’t miss this for all the brandy in Lord’s Crossing – this is going to be great!”

“We are here to network and make connections with gods that can help Speaker initiate into adamant circle sorcery, and find a specific spell relating to that – not to engage in unbridled merriment. Do be so kind as to not embarrass us” Sunrise stated in her usual firm tone.

Clad in a green outfit riddled with emeralds and other green gemstones, as well as a beautiful green dragon-tear jade tiara, May Flower casually dismissed Sunrise’s admonishment: “Oh live a little – you’re here to have fun. This party will be full of gods partial to the gold faction, plus a lot of gods curious about throwing in with us”

“Are you in the gold faction?” Shimmer wondered, looking at the sidereal with some curiosity.

The sidereal gave Shimmer a coy nod: “I wouldn’t be housing and bathing you if I wasn’t. No, I was born in House Nellens. I grew up knowing just how rotten the realm and its nobles are, so the bronze bozos that tried to recruit me had a hell of a time selling the idea of maintaining the realm and propping up that bullshit – plus, with you lot back in the game things are just so much more fun!”

Shimmer looked to Speaker and Sunrise to get a hint of whether that explanation was good or bad, but Sunrise’s hood obscured her face, and Speaker just shrugged.

The party was held at a celestial banquet hall that really stretched the term ‘hall’ to its limits. It had to be several miles long and wide, to the point that you couldn’t see the other end over the horizon. This wasn’t just a small gathering… it was a huge party…

“Oh, don’t mind the size. There are like seventy separate parties going down here, plus half that many party-crawls. We’re joining this one” May Flower declared, bounding out of the carriage with regal elegance.

From where the carriage had parked, up to the entrance into the titanic banquet hall, was a four hundred or so yard stretch, covered in the softest of red carpeting. Along the length of it were gilded fenceposts connected with velvet ropes, keeping curious onlookers at bay.

The instant that the two solars and lone lunar stepped out, the crowd erupted. This was clearly the first time for a lot of spirits to see exalts other than sidereals – or at least the first time in a long time – and it showed. From lowly servitor spirits that looked nothing more than barely sentient arrangements of hooks and shelves, to gods wrought of perfumed puffs of coloured smoke and silk-strands.

“You could have warned us that there would be… fans?” Speaker said, looking from side to side cautiously.

May Flower chuckled: “Where would the fun be in that? But if you really want to see them go nuts, flare your anima banner”

Speaker frowned, but Shimmer quickly caught and spun him around: “Come on – it’ll be fun! Let’s show them that there’s new hope for creation!”

His young lunar mate’s enthusiasm was infectious. Both of them flared up fully, Speaker’s golden aura of three sets of glorious feathered wings ringed by an infinitely detailed gear rotating around them lighting up the blue-starred dark sky. Shimmer’s anima banner similarly erupted, the image of a protean bird erupted around her and flapping its wings. Speaker noticed the difference, for he remembered Shimmer’s former anima banner… but then again, new incarnation, new soul with a new personal expression.

The crowd went wild, spirits and gods alike cheering, howling and swooning. Shimmer seemed to enjoy the attention. For Speaker it was more of a curious experience: He knew from Sunrise and Cash that spirits and gods in Yu-Shan had very little spare time, so to see this many of them spending their precious time off work to come and see them? It impressed him.

Inside the cavernous banquet hall, Speaker finally understood why it was so big: The place had been built to house primordials partying hard, though it had clearly been rebuilt a fair bit since that. It also seemed that what May Flower had said was true about there being several different parties and social events going on, since the party they had entered into was segregated via thick rows of potted hedges and other bits of deployed scenery, as if the whole place was an office cubicle farm but for parties. Somehow, probably via a kind of celestial magic, then the noise from other parties did not filter through.

“Shimmer, since you’re new here again, come I’ll introduce you!” May Flower said, bounding off with the lunar, leaving Sunrise and Speaker to fend for themselves.

“Do you know who we’re supposed to meet here?” Speaker wondered, figuring May Flower galloping off with Shimmer as a ploy to ensure that only he and Sunrise met… someone.

Sunrise took a second or two before she answered, carefully observing the gods and elemental dragons mingling around them: “I know that there is no god for sorcery – but there are probably many gods for occult lore, or perhaps the gold faction has attracted the god of all things lost, to help us find lost knowledge”

“No, Madam Marthesine is well known for her divine neutrality when it comes to factional politics. There isn’t a god or sidereal in heaven who wouldn’t want to rummage through her sack of lost things – and she knows it, plus rumour has it that she’s a little preoccupied as of late” a pony said in a northern accent, as he strolled up to the two solars.

Looking at the stranger, a stallion pony with a cornsilk-blond mane tied into a long braid down over his back, Speaker noted that the pony’s garb of embroidered silken robes with a high collar seemed neither familiar nor indicative of any specific point of origin in creation.

Seeing that Speaker had lost himself to pondering, Sunrise cut in: “And you are…?”

“I am known as Shepherd of the North Star, chosen of Mercury – currently assisting a few gods of certain notable libraries with finding some solars looking for sorcerous lore” the stallion said jovially, his accent strangely indeterminate, coming off as surprisingly trustworthy… probably due to some charm-based trickery.

Made suspicious by the frank nature of the sidereal, Speaker turned on his lie-detector charm: “Really? And you are gold faction I presume?”

“Not at all. I follow the example of my sifu, staying out of that kind of politics – such petty intrigues bore me. Now, the gods looking to meet you are over by the fountain of sparkling wine – and might I add: It is a pleasure to finally meet you two” Shepherd said, smiling.

Detecting no falsehoods in the Shepheard’s statements, the two followed the sidereal to a beautiful marble fountain that indeed seemed to be flowing with the finest of sparkling wine. When they arrived four gods were swimming around in it, drunkenly singing to each other in a manner increasingly off-key.

“Ah, looks like our librarian gods have helped themselves while waiting – terribly sorry about that” the sidereal professed, looking no small amount of awkward and apologetic.

Sunrise stepped up to the fountain: “Are you four the library gods we are meant to meet?”

“Are you the whore meant to suck me off? You look pretty enough for it…” the nearest of the gods, a being of alabaster forms in the smooth and featureless shape of a pony, clad in utterly soaked silken robes.

Speaker could feel Sunrise’s inner anger rising – but no reaction could be seen on her, other than she took her hood down, revealing her absolutely beautiful rusty-red mane: “Speaker, would you be so kind as to sober up these present divinities”

“Careful – no rough play” the sidereal commented, sounding more worried about the solars causing a scene that required celestial lions to break things up.

Speaker nodded: “Don’t worry, I know just the trick, watch”

It wasn’t the first time Speaker had needed to quickly sober up someone quickly – Cash had shown up plenty of time to the weekly meeting of the lords of Sunhill still half-drunk. Of course, Cash would usually be cooperative, while these gods… weren’t. Still, Speaker had solutions to that as well: Withdrawing his singing staff and the rosined bow he used to play it with, he quickly played a single note on the staff that blocked the fountain’s piping that fed it wine. A moment later the fountain basin was dry, leaving the soaked and drunken gods down at the bottom.

“Oh, come on, we were just having fun…” one of the gods whined.

Speaker shrugged and jumped down to them, going from god to god and using his medical charms to sober them up with but a gentle touch. This worked instantly, but the last one kept shying away, apparently thinking it funny to play catch: “Tag you’re it!”

“How can a library god be that infantile?” Sunrise asked Shepheard, finding the display quite shameful.

The sidereal bobbed his head from side to side: “A god’s domain doesn’t have to reflect their personality. Trust me, I’ve met plenty of strange… wait… what did Speaker just do?”

Down in the drained fountain – which honestly was more of a swimming pool – Speaker was standing over the last god who was sound asleep. With a hoof wreathed in golden essence he purged the god’s body of alcohol and any other poisons it had traces of in its system, before finally awakening the god with another touch and a smidge of essence.

With his singing staff Speaker reopened the fountain’s wine nozzles, letting everyone float up to the edge of the fountain. The gods, soaked once more, but sober, all cooperated and got out of the fountain, Speaker following suit.

Once out, a team of very courteous fire and air elementals provided breezes of warm air to dry everyone off, while the sidereal gave Speaker some very suspicious looks: “How did you put that god to sleep?”

“It’s a charm I figured out a while ago while traveling at sea, it’s quite simple” Speaker mused, while the library gods began summoning their clerks and servants with reading lists and books relating to the topic at hand.

“But that charm… did you learn anything else related to it?” Shepheard wondered.

Looking at the sidereal, Speaker found the odd look he was getting a bit disconcerting: “Three other charms – they helped me remove a nightmare from my lunar mate once – why are you asking about this?”

“Because it means that someone has visited your dreams and taught you Quicksilver Hoof of Dreams style sidereal martial arts… and it is a grave violation of celestial law for a sidereal to do that” Shepheard said, his words notably cautious, as if he wasn’t even sure if he should inform Speaker of the rule violation.

“Do you know who taught you these charms?” Sunrise inquired.

Feeling suddenly put in a very precarious situation; Speaker tried to recall the dreams where he had struggled with the strange dreamland intruder: “No… it was as if battling a nightmarish phantom”

“Interesting” Shepheard noted, taking a deep breath: “Considering the good work you’ve done, and what you’re trying to achieve here, then I won’t report this… but sooner or later someone will catch wind of this, and the bronze faction will hound you on this. You haven’t done anything wrong, but they’ll demand to know who taught you, and will likely try to pin a charge of obstructing justice on you for not giving them what they want”

“Could it be a setup by the bronze faction?” Speaker wondered, considering what Shepheard had just said.

“I don’t know – but be careful. I would hate to see all your work be for naught – you’re bringing a lot of different ponies in creation together, and I’m all for that” Shepheard said, trotting off into the crowd of gods and spirits.

Speaker looked to Sunrise, who returned his worried look – but that was when the library gods were ready.

The library gods had brought their very best of ancient occult lore, the finest copies of tomes of sorcerous lore, plus a number of very worn scrolls and books that Speaker repaired with his charms of artifice. The information they had was interesting: Auto-biographies of first age solar sorcerers, telling of how they had been initiated into adamant circle sorcery, construction blueprints and instructions for first age temples meant to be used for sorcerous initiation – it was all quite promising. Notes were taken, and vouchers for VIP entrance to Sully’s restaurant were given in return, as payment for service rendered.

With all that done, the rest of the party was left open to Sunrise and Speaker to mingle and network. Many curious gods and spirits wanted to bend their ears, some had questions about what the solars were looking to do in creation, others had questions about what they were looking to do in Yu-Shan, and then there was the one that came running past Speaker, crying for help.

There had been several other drunken spirits who had hooted and hollered – but Speaker knew the different between cries of joy and cries of panic. When he caught up with the spirit in question he found it in tears, being dragged off by some surly golden lion-dogs: “Hold up, what is this spirit crying about?”

The spirit, not just in tears, but looking as if made of tears – probably some kind of water elemental – looked at Speaker: “It’s terrible… my master was attacked”

“That’s no excuse to bust into a private party and causing a scene” one of the lion-dogs grumped, pulling at the goopy spirit.

Oh, the joy of bureaucratic enforcers. Speaker sighed: “Good lion-dogs, it seems that we have a report of a crime. Could I tempt you to disregard this slight offense and instead investigate this assault?”

Speaker was sure that Sunrise would have been able to simply talk them into doing it, while Cash would have figured out the perfect bribe. The two lion-dogs just scoffed at Speaker and continued dragging the spirit towards the nearest door, all the while the spirit wept at how her master was no doubt dying or something.

His heartstrings thoroughly tugged, Speaker sighed and approached the lion-dogs: “Alright, sorry for the interruption – carry on your duties then”

With light and polite pats on the muscly golden shoulders of the lion-dogs, the lesser spirit versions of the celestial lions, Speaker saw the lion-dogs walk off.

The weeping spirit looked on in confusion, as the lion-dogs walked off without her. Speaker motioned for the spirit to remain silent until the lion-dogs were gone.

“There we go, now – tell me what happened” Speaker said, helping the spirit up.

The watery spirit, its form clearly ponyform, but wrought of clear watery liquid with eyes of aquamarine crystal, struggled to compose herself: “I… I was with my master. We were outside, hoping to see if other solars showed up. We were ambushed, attacked!”

“Show me” Speaker asked.

Leaving via a side entrance, the spirit showed Speaker to a location behind the velvet ropes where onlookers were to stay behind. There were very few left, and a bit from the rope barrier the spirit pointed out several scorch marks on the ground: “They came at us with bright fire, tried to boil me, and lit my master’s robes on fire”

Speaker’s investigation charms quickly deduced a trail of silken ash, revealing the spirit’s master’s path of escape. It also showed hoof-prints in the ash, someone else’s prints…

“Ok, this is serious – why didn’t you get a celestial lion or liondog?” Speaker asked, as the two began following the trail.

The spirit groaned: “I did – the closest ones were inside at the party!”

Of course. Speaker shook his head. The ash trail was fresh – there were still embers in it, but there was something off about the smell of the smoke coming from it.

Two blocks down the trail, the two finally found the god they were looking for… or rather, his remains. It was a brutal crime scene: The god was aquatic of nature, that much was obvious, like a large bipedal fish – but the poor thing had been gutted, and Speaker’s mastery of anatomy and the occult quickly told him that something was missing from inside the god. Indeed, the god’s remains looked unnaturally pale and withered.

That was when a roar behind Speaker signalled the ambush. The ambush for Speaker. The ambush where something tried to attack Speaker… but to his surprise a Lunar in warform tackled the attacker.

As far as Speaker was concerned, he just heard the roar, spun around, and saw Shimmer slamming a bloodhound demon into a wall with such force that the bloodhound’s skull and left shoulder was utterly shattered, smearing the wall in acidic viscera as its corpse slid down once Shimmer released it.

Quickly running over to Shimmer, Speaker called out her name: “Shimmer, are you ok?”

It took the lunar a few seconds to respond, at first simply turning her head and glaring at Speaker with murder in her eyes as they glowed with pale moonlight, but as the light faded and her battle-rage reduced she responded: “I… yes, I’m fine. I was wondering where you were, and sniffed you out to here, and ran to find you once I tracked your scent to the crime-scene… and then I spotted this demon about to attack you”

“Fair enough” Speaker began, about to say some more things about what he had observed so far, when two celestial lions came bounding in.

“Where is the demon!?” one roared, the other quickly spotting the remains of the demon smeared against the wall next to Shimmer.

The lions quickly inspected the remains of the demon: “Very well – we can go back to patrol”

“No hold on, a murder has happened here! You can’t go without investigating this” Shimmer called out, gesturing towards the dead god.

Speaker couldn’t help but notice that the two lions appeared more annoyed that anything else, as they sauntered over to the dead god: “A demon attacked and killed him, clearly, and you killed the demon. Case closed”

“No, look at these marks on the corpse. This god was… autopsied, mined for starmetal, and not with bloodhound claws, but with a razor-sharp blade” Speaker pointed out, carefully using minor essence illusions to highlight and point out things on the corpse without disturbing the corpse, using a charm he normally used for modelling buildings or things he was planning on making.

Once more the lions looked anything but pleased: “Solar, you appear to already have taken lead of the investigation. You clearly don’t need our help”

Not believing his eyes as the celestial lions walked off, Speaker stood dumbfounded as Shimmer approached him: “You think they were part of the conspiracy against Shining Barrator Lord Bright?”

“Maybe? Or maybe they were in on this and don’t want to be near the corpse? I’ve never heard of a celestial lion that didn’t want to investigate a crime…” Speaker said, greatly confused.

Shimmer’s feathers rustled, a wave of essence washing over her, cleaning demon blood off her warform: “True… hey Lord Bright, hold on, what’s that?”

Looking to where Shimmer was pointing her talon on the corpse, Speaker inspected the forehead of the dead god’s skull: “That… is that writing?”

Etched into the skull of the god, with charred edges that spoke of something very hot burning the letters into the celestial bone, was written a line of old realm glyphs. The line was… disconcerting.

“It reads ‘Mandate of heaven’. Why would anyone burn that into a god’s skull?” Speaker wondered out loud.

The weeping spirit sniffled loudly: “It… the killer… his voice was horrible, said it was revenge”

“So… a solar did this?” Shimmer suggested, not at all liking the implications of that idea.

Speaker shook his head: “No, there’s traces of demonic essence here, not solar essence. This was done by the pony I tracked here in the trail of the god’s ashes. Spirit, do you remember anything about the pony who did this”

“I… no, I’m sorry. It happened so fast, it was so scary… it was just a nightmare” the spirit wept, trying to put words to how the traumatic experience had clearly obscured its recollection, despite being an eye witness.

“A nightmare? Of course! We can still solve this!” Speaker declared, sitting down and focusing intensely. A short while later Speaker’s medicine bag was retrieved from elsewhere, and from it Speaker withdrew the dreamcatcher he had made to help Shimmer get rid of her nightmare.

Shimmer looked at Speaker with the dreamcatcher somewhat dubiously: “What are you planning?”

“Our spirit friend here knows what the killer looks like, but can’t put words to it – but we can see it ourselves, if it dreams about the event” Speaker said, removing Shimmer’s nightmare from the dreamcatcher and gently touching the spirit on the brow.

The spirit instantly slumped over, asleep. In mere moments the spirit was writhing, clearly having a nightmare – but a second later the spirit was awake again as Speaker withdrew the nightmare from the spirit into the dreamcatcher: “There, now we just need to find someone who can inspect this dream, because I made her dream of the moment when her master was killed”

“You did?” the spirit said, somewhat confused, as the spirit had no memory of having dreamt anything at all.

Speaker reassured the spirit that it was perfectly safe: “Plus, now that we have your testimony in the form of the dream, you can go on your way. Find a new master, ideally one with fewer enemies”

The spirit nodded, saying it would first organize a proper burial of her former master. She was given ambrosia coins for her trouble, and told that the god of Sunhill – once one had been found – would likely need spirit servants, so a position there could be an option. The spirit gratefully thanked the two exalts for the job offer, and left for the Violet Bier of Sorrows, whatever that was.

“So… where do we find someone who can look inside a dream?” Shimmer wondered, poking a the dream catcher as she shapeshifted back into her normal pony form.

Speaker took a deep breath: “We find Sunrise and then we cause a scandal – that’s how”

Returning to the party, finding Sunrise turned out to be very easy. It was all about finding the trail of god-tears, as Shimmer was in the middle of a group of divinities where she was verbally destroying a drunken god, by laying bare the god’s sins and shaming the divinity quite public ally for it… except everyone were laughing?

It turned out that Sunrise had found the god of insult comedy, who had taken a great liking to her very blunt and direct form of criticism, and via her song-based martial arts she was having a friendly sparing match with the god, flinging insults back and forth to the joy of all who could hear the exchange.

“Sunrise, we have a situation” Speaker called out, holding the dream-catcher aloft.

Sunrise nodded, then turned to her foe: “It seems this exchange must end, which only is right. Good jokes have fled you, and rhymes taken flight. After I leave, for your audience I would fear – you should drop off your lyrics at the violet bier”

The god of insult comedy dropped to its five knees, its eyes in tears of joy: “Oh you beautiful mare, I concede defeat! We will be poorer for lack of your company… but please come visit me and my peers one day at the cerulean lute! A standing invitation for you and your circle!”

“I’ll take that invitation in writing – have it sent to my secretary in Sunhill. Farewell” Sunrise said, as she trotted off to join Speaker and Shimmer, the god hastily ripping someone’s shirt off and penning an invitation that he had a messenger zip up to her with.

Quickly catching the zenith caste solar up on what had happened, the mare quickly put two and two together: “So… we’re looking for a sidereal master of your strange new martial art who can look into this dream?”

“Exactly – but that will also reveal that I know that kind martial arts, and the bronze faction will be all over us for that” Speaker noted.

Shimmer perked up: “Hold up, in Great Forks, just south of Sunhill – aren’t they ruled by a god of dreams? Can’t we just go to her Lord Bright?”

“Certainly – Dreamer of Dreams of Victory would help us with something like this in a heartbeat, but that would require us going back to creation. This crime just happened; the killer can’t be far away. Finding a sidereal master would be a lot faster” Sunrise chimed in.

Seeking out nearby sidereals turned out be a bit of a challenge. Well, finding May Flower wasn’t difficult – all Speaker had to was say “Gee, if this gets out it would cause all kinds of drama” while inside the cavernous banquet hall.

May Flower was there before he had finished the sentence.

The trick was convincing her to help them out: “Oh no… no no no – do you have any idea how much trouble I’d be in for helping you find a sifu for that? You shouldn’t even have been taught those charms – or know of that style!”

“We’re not looking for someone to train Speaker – we’re looking for someone who can look into the dream he’s extracted so we can find this murderer” Sunrise admonished.

The sidereal looked very uncomfortable: “I know that… but that doesn’t mean I won’t get accused of the other thing. Ugh, alright – I’ll take you to Master Lupo. He’ll know what to do, even if he doesn’t know the style”

A quick trip in an aerial rickshaw later saw the trio of exalts plus sidereal meeting with the vaunted Master Lupo. Sunrise and Speaker recalled having briefly met him a while back, but this time the previously jovial and spunky sidereal with his short but wild black mane and light brown coat was anything but cheerful: “What do you mean he got the dreams!?”

“You know what I mean Lupo. He got the dreams and he learned – and worse yet he’s been using the charms too!” May Flower explained to the elder sidereal, the tea salon where everyone was in looking quite nice.

Speaker felt really awkward, his memories of the first age regarding sidereals being generally quite pleasant and cordial, and his interactions with sidereals so far in this life having been reasonably nice too – but this? He already felt as if he was under some kind of investigation, as if he was about to be punished. Shimmer seemed to sense Speaker’s unease, while Sunrise remained silent through most of it.

In the end Lupo flat out refused to refer the trio to a sidereal who knew the martial art – but he didn’t mind pitching in for the investigation: “May Flower, take them to Moistened Sheets. She can examine the nightmare Speaker pulled from the spirit – that way no pony has to use any dream charms”

“I was under the impression that it’s not illegal for a sidereal to use such martial arts” Sunrise chimed in.

Lupo shook his head and sipped his tea: “It isn’t – but as May Flower explained to you, then if either of us refer you to a master of the style we risk being accused to helping facilitate Speaker getting a trainer. It has been illegal by the laws of heaven since… just after the usurpation, for sidereals to train anyone other than sidereals in such martial arts – plus its dangerous to use in general”

“I’m sorry, dangerous to use?” Speaker simply had to ask, not having seen any danger in the ability to put others to sleep with but a touch.

The expression on Lupo’s face grew grim: “You have already mastered your Thousand Wounds Gear style – so you understand that celestial and terrestrial styles focus on emulating great forces and beings”

Listening intently, everyone just nodded as Lupo continued:

“Sidereal martial arts do not emulate the strength of the tiger, or the sage wisdom of monkeys, or the power of machine repetition. Sidereal styles go for abstract concepts, allowing you to master things like love, health, sanity… or in the case of quicksilver hoof of dreams style, dreams and their endless potential. The problem with quicksilver style is that it is the only style where we have no record of who made it… because its use comes at a terrible cost!”

Speaker was absolutely horrified, Shimmer equally so, as Lupo explained that using the charms of the style carried a great risk of the martial artist becoming as a dream and thus fading from memory of those around him: “Every time you use one of those charms, you risk someone forgetting everything they know about you, even fellow exalts, lovers, or your own family”

The implications of this revelation were immense, but Lupo wasn’t quite done: “The style is immensely powerful, and very difficult to defend against – being able to put any foe to sleep with but a touch can render even the greatest monster or most powerful blade-master helpless against you – but every time you it, you risk someone forgetting about you”

“How much would someone need to know of Speaker before they can be affected by this?” Sunrise inquired.

Lupo’s brows furrowed like an over-tilled field, like two shield-walls colliding in a great battle: “Anyone who has ever encountered him. You don’t have to know his name. It could be a random pony you passed while traveling, just as easily as it could be your first-borne, or… you Last Shimmer”

“So, we can play the odds by spreading Speaker’s name far and wide? Untold thousands know of him in Nexus, and the entire population of Sunhill knows him quite well too” Sunrise continued, appearing determined to find a way around this strange curse.

While Lupo agreed that spreading Speaker’s name far and wide would reduce the chance of loved ones or peers forgetting him, then he couldn’t emphasise enough how dangerous it still was: “This style even affects sidereals – which is one theory on why we have forgotten the original master who developed the style. As sidereals we’re used to our arcane fate, but this style makes us forget each other – that is why it is so dangerous”

Thanking Lupo for his ominous advice, the trio left, giving their aerial rickshaw instructions to take them to the office of Moistened Shoots.

“So… we’re going to the god of bed-wetting Lord Bright?” Shimmer wondered.

Speaker shrugged and nodded, the obscenely luxurious cushions of the aerial rickshaw making one want to drift away into dreamland: “Could be – a lot of gods hold dominion over multiple domains if they’re related. I could easily imagine that the god of nightmares also has domain over bedwetting”

Indeed, the rickshaw brought the trio to the bureau of pony affairs, where Sunrise’s brute force verbal onslaught saw every spirit secretary or obstinate desk-rider nearly murdered by words if they tried to halt them on their righteous quest.

The office of Moistened Sheets was a classy affair: Black marble with bright white veins, black jade columns interspersed with white jade columns, and generally a lot of black and white decorations, all of it cast in stark shadows from eerie pale lights. At the towering front desk of the office sat a ghoulish looking spirit who beheld the trio of ponies approaching with a palpable disdain: “Go away”

Well that certainly set the tone.

Shimmer quietly shifted into a small bird and circled high above, while Sunrise attempted to pierce the absolute wall that was the secretary’s dismissive attitude – to no avail.

“Moistened Sheets is a busy god with a full schedule. Go away” the ghoulish spirit stated once more, sounding very much as if it had no interest in saying it again.

Shimmer came down, landing next to Speaker: “That’s funny, because the schedule you’re sitting with there’s nothing written down – doesn’t look like he has any meetings at all”

Looks were quickly exchanged between the trio, Speaker turning on his lie-detector charm, while Sunrise narrowed her line of questioning down and sharpened her rhetoric: “Do explain why you’re lying about your master’s schedule”

“I don’t have to explain anything to you” the spirit said, its voice practically dripping with venom.

On one side Speaker was a bit curious why the spirit was so adamant about keeping visitors away – but on the other side they had legit business to conduct: “Perhaps – but you can explain to Shinning Barrator why you are refusing to cooperate with a murder investigation. If you get audited, how many legit petitioners have you turned away while your master had an empty schedule? What’s the punishment for that?”

The spirit balked at the accusation: “You didn’t say anything about a murder investigation!”

It was with no small amount of hesitation that the spirit led the trio to the door to its master’s actual office… for it turned out that Moistened Sheets was stoned out of her mind on some kind of alchemical drug distilled from the twisted dreams of drug users.

Speaker quickly sobered the god up with his medical charms, and even purged the god of his addiction, for doing so was quite easy and quick with his powers. Shimmer helped by restraining the struggling divinity, for its panicked howls oozed with nightmares. Sunrise wrapped things up by preaching fire and brimstone at the god, shaming it for its actions and using charms to instil a desire to improve one-self: “Your nightmares are an important part of creation. They remind ponies of what they fear to lose, of what they dread to admit. Be proud of your job, don’t cheapen it by wasting your time on frivolities”

With all six eyes in tears, the god pleaded for mercy, swearing that it would do better, Shimmer finally being able to release her squid-hold on the divinity.

Once the dust had settled, the god was quick to agree to help with the investigation, between repeatedly thanking the trio for ridding it of its drug habit. Displaying the nightmare before the trio, the three saw the scene of the attack, with the image of the pony who committed the murder clear for all to see: It was a stallion, with a slim but powerful form, and a wild emerald-green mane – but most telling were the insect-like antennae or growths from its brow going back over his head and the strange caste-mark looking thing on his brow: A dark disc so black that it hurt to look at – a shadow of all things.

“Perfect. We can bring this to Shinning Barrator, he can issue warrants and have all the lions, scarabs and lion-dogs look for this fiend – and then we can go home” Sunrise said.

Indeed, Shining Barrator was thankful for the information, though he found it quite disturbing to hear that two celestial lions had refused to investigate a murder, saying that he would look into that quite carefully. With their obligations fulfilled well beyond their call of duty, the trio returned to Sunhill with the thanks of Shining Barrator, taking an aerial rickshaw to the Yu-Shan gate that would see them return close to Great Forks.

Upon returning to their city, the three exalts found it still standing – which was nice, not that they had been gone for very long. As they parted, Sunrise tended to the city’s administration in the Sunhill manse and spiritual wellbeing, as well as preparing the city’s administration for receiving a list of potential city gods, while Speaker and Shimmer returned to the hospital section of the pyramid manse to check up on things.

It turned out that there was a bit of drama going on at patient intake: A heavily mutated pony in a tattered cloak was flailing around wreaking havoc, Speaker and Shimmer quickly leaping into to action to restrain the pony.

Shimmer once more shapeshifted her limbs into long octopus tentacles, wrapping the mutant pony up, while Speaker quickly surveyed the emergency room to triage the other injured ponies.

“Eww, he’s leaky…” Shimmer said, her octopus-limbs shivering.

The heavily mutant pony was only able to make eerie and very strange clicking noises.

Having organized the doctors and nurses to tend to the wounded, Speaker approached Shimmer and the mutant pony: “Let’s have a look, yes… there are some strange fluids here – I think whoever this is, he got lost into a wyld zone”

His diagnostic charms revealed a long list of mutations on the pony: Much of the pony’s body had been magically hollowed out, turned into strange insect hives – and indeed, it had been those insects which had swarmed and attacked the other ponies in the emergency room when they had tried to examine the pony. Other parts of the pony had similarly been turned into insectoid counterparts, and there were multiple insect mouths across his body, all which drooled or leaked quite a lot – hence what Shimmer had observed.

Shimmer found the whole experience really creepy. She had met a lot of mutant ponies at the Western Dam, but all of them had come there to hide, fleeing from their tribes since it was common practice in the west to kill mutants on sight. Judging from the frightened looks of the staff and other patients in the emergency room, then that sentiment wasn’t all different here – but the twist was that here everyone seemed to know that Speaker could cure such things, which was probably also why the pony had sought out Sunhill after having mutated.

Indeed, as Speaker laid his hooves upon the craggy hive-flesh of the pony, golden essence washing over the poor mutated creature, the pony’s tissues quickly reverted back into normal flesh and bone, as the stallion’s head shed its chitinous plates and antennae, letting the poor soul breathe freely once more. The stallion was quick to apologize and thank everyone for saving him, swearing prayers and endless thanks.

And that was it – the stallion was brought away for after-patient care and a psych-eval – and Speaker sauntered off as if nothing had happened. Shimmer found it quite strange, though the weirdest thing was the black ‘scoreboard’ over on a wall where a clerk with a piece of chalk added one more to a counter of how many emergency saves Speaker had made that year. This was something these ponies were used to… something she would have to get used to.

“Lord Bright, what just happened back there… does that happen often?” Shimmer asked as the two ascended up the lift platform to their private penthouse levels of the golden pyramid.

The solar drew a deep breath. Shimmer did not like one bit that he couldn’t give her a quick answer. When he finally spoke up, Speaker gave her a hopeful look: “It should happen more often. Most ponies here in the east fear mutants as much as they’re feared in the rest of creation. It’s always the risk that the mind has been twisted as much as the body”

“Lord Bright, does that mean that you also have stories of ponies getting warped by changelings and leading them back to their villages in order to lure more ponies to their doom?” Shimmer wondered, as she followed Speaker into his office.

Nodding, Speaker recounted several such stories from his childhood: “…but now Sunhill stands as the lone shining beacon of hope to those touched by the wyld. We can help them, but we have to spread the word and make sure it is possible to get here. It’s just another reason to spread the light-rail network”

Smiling, Shimmer couldn’t help but think that this was exactly the kind of larger-than-life compassion and help that solars should be known for: “Agreed Lord Bright. So… now what?”

“Now? We get back to work. I’ll send some message spells out to check on the others, and then we wait until they come back. We have a lot to think about, considering what we learned up in Yu-Shan with this strange new martial art I know and Sully should be on the lookout for hidden demon cults” Speaker said, sitting down at his desk and starting to leaf through the paperwork his secretary had left for him.

Looking at Speaker as he started to sign documents, Shimmer shook her head: “Hold on Lord Bright. What is my work here?”

Peering up from his paperwork, Speaker raised an eyebrow at the lunar: “You are a lord of Sunhill. Your job is to protect the ponies here, and do that as best you can – maybe get better at it too”

Ok, that… that she could work on. Returning to her own quarters, Shimmer looked through the shelves there for things like a journal. Sniffing around, she honed in on a book that carried the same scent that her bed had: the scent of her previous incarnation.

Cracking open the book, Shimmer found that the inside of the wooden hardcover was scratched up with lunar clawspeak: “If I am reading this, then I am either reminiscing or have reincarnated and seek guidance. If the later, go to page forty-six for the good stuff”

It was difficult for Shimmer not to smile at how her past self had been clever enough to figure what a future Shimmer might need the most. Flipping to the right page, Shimmer quickly skimmed the text then closed the book, making a beeline to the nearest window.

In seagull form, Shimmer south out of the city, seeking the lunar that her former self’s journal had spoken of for more training.

This left Speaker to get back to his paperwork, putting down his hearthstone now that he felt sure that Shimmer had found something productive to spend her time with. Well, there wasn’t much paperwork left – so instead he set himself to ponder the one challenge they hadn’t found a solution for yet: Where to find the actual sorcerous lore needed to learn the spells he needed. The solutions he came up with were… interesting, and came to him quickly. Taking note of it, Speaker moved on to the hospital, finally having time to properly flex his newly improved essence for greater medical charms for greater medical miracles.

It was thus that a few weeks later Shimmer received a magical message, asking her to reconvene in Sunhill, as the others had returned. She came back to find a bitter and frustrated Speaker, while the rest of the circle had wrapped up their fact finding and scouting missions, both in Creation and in the underworld.

“What’s got you down old friend?” Cash wondered, having perceived of Speaker’s grief without the older pony ever having given voice or face to it, as he met his fellow solar and his lunar mate in a hallway within the Sunhill manse.

Shimmer perked up, not having caught Speaker’s frustration yet. The twilight caste solar in turn looked at the cheeky diplomat, frowning: “I thought my essence was strong enough… but it wasn’t”

“Speaker, I usually don’t have to tell you this, but use more words to describe your situation please?” Cash noted, finding the gloomy doctor quite out of character.

As they walked the halls of the manse, Speaker voiced his frustration. He had attempted to learn a first age solar charm, one that would let him finally carry out a promise he had made to his former brothers in arms in Lookshy, about helping the rapidly aging retired gunzosha troopers. The charm was one that would turn back the clock on them, restore them to their youth: “I thought it was enough… but I guess I was wrong… I just… I want to help them”

Seeing her solar mate in tears, Shimmer wanted to help, but she couldn’t see how. Cash quickly turned to her: “Oh don’t you get all pouty too – we’ll figure a way out. We’re exalted! We’re supposed to be able to do the impossible! Now come on, me and Sully have a lot to tell you”

Up in the council chamber of the Sunhill lords, the rest of the circle met the three. Sunrise looked like she usually did, with her off-white hooded cloak, and Sully with his orichalcum helmet encasing his head completely, wearing his coolie hat, though Fire Orchid was wearing a very nice Lookshyan-style dress uniform, which was a big change compared to her usually far more utilitarian garb.

“What have you been up to? You look like you’ve been embracing your Lookshyan highborn legacy?” Cash inquired, shooting a bemused look at the mare.

Fire Orchid nodded: “I met up with my family again, celebrated that I’d gotten my memories back”

“Perfect. I’ve been messing around Stygia with Sully, collecting information on Thorns and the Mask of Winters. He still has an impressive operation going on in the eastern underworld, but with the destruction of Deep Rot he’s been forced to scale it back and devote a lot more resources to maintain his holds. It’s hilarious messing with shipping manifests to make sure that weapon shipments going to him are swapped out for crates full of manure” Cash explained, adding that because of the Mask’s focus on the world of the living, then he didn’t actually have that much going on in the underworld anymore, at least not outside the underworld of the scavenger lands, which he still dominated where relevant.

Sunrise frowned: “That doesn’t tell us anything. Did you find anything useful for us from all that?”

Cash shot Sunrise a silent sigh, then explained that it meant that the Mask didn’t have any peripheral operations that would be easy to strike: “Like the other deathlords, after Deep Rot was destroyed, he tightened up his operations”

Sullen Hoof nodded: “Same goes for his abyssals. The Mask has a reputation for being a massive dick who likes to play mind-games with his underlings – but after Deep Rot he’s tightened the leash on his abyssals. I was able to confirm that at least three have left him since then, stealing their monstrances away while at it. He guards the remaining monstrances for the abyssals he has left jealously”

“I’m sorry, a monstrance?” Shimmer wondered, finding that the term sounded familiar, but without being able to clearly recall what it meant.

A quick introduction to the horror that was the monstrance of celestial portion, the necromantic iron-maidens that abyssal exaltations could be stored in, or in which a solar could be corrupted into a deathknight, followed. Shimmer was understandably horrified: “Holy shit, and the deathlord at Deep Rot tried putting you in one?”

“If I hadn’t been able to bring Homage in with me, to cut my way out… I don’t want to think about what the Barbate Arbiter would have done with me” Speaker noted.

Sullen Hoof continued his part of the briefing, explaining that while the mask had lost some abyssals, then he still commanded several circles of deathknights: “Indeed. Speaking of which, The Mare of the Mirthless Smile has been reincarnated, plus I suspect that a couple of the late Barbate Arbiter’s abyssals sought refuge under the mask’s banner”

“We’ve beaten them before, we can take them again” Sunrise stated confidently, everyone else nodding – Shimmer even caught herself nodding, without quite understanding why.

Sunrise followed up with her report, talking about hers, Speakers and Shimmer’s adventure in Yu-Shan: “…I’ll let Speaker explain what we learned about his new magical martial art”

Fire Ochid in particular looked at Speaker with great curiosity, but she saw how Speaker wasn’t exactly looking happy at the mention of the topic. Taking a deep breath and stroking his long beard, Speaker briefed the circle on the nature and power of his quicksilver hoof of dreams style, explaining the danger of using it: “…so when using the most potent version of the charms then even ponies who know me intimately, like any of you, might suddenly forget about me”

“That’s horrible. And you think it might be a setup by the bronze faction?” Sullen Hoof said, his voice clearly carrying his anger and suspicion.

Speaker nodded: “As much as the gold faction has helped us, then I don’t see any of them granting me a power this dangerous without gaining my consent first. They value us as assets and allies, while the bronze faction can exploit this to audit us or anyone from the gold faction they accuse of having taught me”

An eerie quiet settled over the meeting room. The essence-hardened crystal windows kept all noise from the outside out, as well as preventing anyone from eaves-dropping, making for a deathly silence that lasted all but a few seconds too long for comfort when Cash spoke up: “…so what you’re saying is that it’s a non-issue”

“A non-issue? Cash, we run the risk you forget who I am if I use one of these charms! If our enemies find out that I know these charms, they’ll likely try to engineer situations to force my hoof, to trick me into using them” Speaker said, quite terrified at the prospect.

Cash shook his head at Speaker, smiling confidently: “Speaker, friend, you’re not looking at the big picture here. Half of Nexus knows your name. Every merchant who sets out from our harbor spreads word of Sunhill and its miraculous Doctor Machine Speaker. You are probably the most well-known pony from Sunhill in all of Creation at this point. The odds of your martial art targeting one of is miniscule”

It was difficult to argue against that – as was Cash’s usual style, but that wasn’t all. The blue-clad merchant and statespony beamed with calming certainty: “Hell, we’ll spread the word that our enemies has laid a curse on you that makes random ponies forget who you are every now and then. The public wont question that, considering the deathlords up against us, and that way we can simply condition ponies to help each other spot anyone affected, to remind them and bring them back up to speed. This isn’t a problem, it’s a minor annoyance at best”

Ok now that actually sounded like a pretty solid solution, but why would the sidereal host then be so afraid of the style? After a moment of thought, Cash had a quick answer to that: “It’s because it is on top of their arcane fate. Everyone in creation already forgets them… that greatly limits the number of ponies and other beings who can forget about them via the martial art, making it infinitely more likely to be fellow sidereals or gods in Yu-Shan. They’re very vulnerable to that, we’re not. I’ll have our merchants spread your name farther and wider than ever. There’ll be too many random ponies for any of us to ever get affected by this”

“I could attempt to broker a deal with the god of luck to twist fate so we cannot be affected?” Sunrise suggested.

Nodding, Speaker thanked his friends for the solutions they had provided: “This is great – if I start using these charms, I can help dream-eaten ponies so much faster, or pull nightmares out of ponies. I can help so many more with this”

Everyone agreed this was ultimately good news, to which Fire Orchid seized the moment and gave her report: “I spoke with a lot of merchants, and ponies who had spoken with merchants who had been to Thorns recently while I was in Lookshy. The Mask is trying to open up a lot of trade, selling everything he can loot from the city in order to raise funds for who knows what. I kept getting told that he’s been trying to make friends, but everyone seems to know about the thornguard troops at the battle of Deep Rot, so nobody is buying what they’re selling, at least not at full price”

“Interesting. I was told by some ghosts in the underworld that a few weeks ago a group of unicorns snuck into the city to start a resistance movement” Cash added.

Fire Orchid didn’t seem terribly impressed: “As if the Mask needs an excuse to kill more of his subjects... but at least that means we might find some allies there”

The left the topic of what Speaker, Sunrise and Shimmer had actually been sent to Yu-Shan to achieve: Seeking a way to get Speaker initiated to third circle sorcery.

Shimmer explained what they had learned from the gods: “…and if we rebuild some altars and shrines like that, it should be possible to recreate the rituals. The only problem remaining is that we don’t have anything that can teach us the spells”

“Oh, I fixed that pretty quickly after we get back home here” Speaker chimed in.

Everyone looked at that bearded doctor. Speaker explained: “I sent a magical message to the god of libraries over in Great Forks. He confirmed to me that Sperimin still stands, which means that the book of three rings is still available”

“…and that is?” Cash wondered, his sorcerous lore being very low on his list of priorities.

With a magical gesture of the hoof, Speaker used his shadow-puppetry charm to conjure an essence illusion of a fancy looking book: “In the first age, after the primordial war, the solar deliberative created Sperimin as a university city for newly reincarnated exalts. It was a place where you could truly learn everything, and it quickly became a clearinghouse for all knowledge in creation. The university of Sperimin, the centre of the city, is a massive manse with endless libraries… including the book of three rings, which was the master tome for first age sorcery. All spells ever made went into the book, and the book was made to be indestructible, and able to copy itself endlessly”

“…and none of you will ever get to it alive” Heath Rose said, stepping forth from the shadows.

Turning to the sidereal, Speaker shot her a disapproving glare: “Why not? Has someone rewritten the book into demonic poetry of self-immolation or something?”

The sidereal stepped up to the large table that everyone else were sitting around, pointing out Sperimin’s location on a map at the far end of the Maruto river, far to the east, deep in the everfree forest: “No, but because most of the libraries of Sperimin were emptied out during the shogunate, shipped off to private libraries all over creation, and after the great contagion the area was claimed by none other than Rakshi”

“Are we supposed to know that name?” Fire Orchid wondered.

Cash quickly pointed out that Shimmer was looking like a deer caught in a bright light: “I think she does”

Indeed, Shimmer had heard the story of Rakshi – and after a polite request to do so by Speaker, she regaled: “She’s… she’s one of the oldest still living lunars. She exalted mere days before the usurpation, fled into the wyld like the others. Honestly, I don’t know that many specifics, but my elders spoke of her with reverence, for since then she became a powerful sorceress who helped develop the moonsilver tattoos all lunars get. All lunars are in her debt… but why would her controlling Sperimin be a problem, Heath Rose?”

Seeing the lunar look at her quizzically, the sidereal returned the gesture with an apologetic look: “Short answer: She’s not sharing. She took Sperimin after the great contagion, and since then has worked to become the most powerful sorceress in creation. If Speaker comes knocking, asking for access to the book of three rings, she’d kill him on the spot out of jealous rivalry”

“Right, sounds like she’s about as much bad news as Ma-Ha-Suchi” Sullen Hoof commented.

With these dire warnings, the circle and their sidereal advisor laid a plan. The fact that Rakshi likely wouldn’t be friendly to them wasn’t enough to deter them: They had laid low a deathlord – an ancient lunar wasn’t that much more intimidating... right?

Initially Cash wanted to take a yeddim down to Sperimin with Sullen Hoof to scout the area. This would be for the obvious casing of Sperimin, but also to check the river routes there, for further expansion of the light-rail network. Fire Orchid really liked this: “If we can expand the network to Sperimin we can move troops in all the way from Lookshy. I’m certain they would love to help take Sperimin”

“No Fire Orchid, I don’t think Lookshy would want that. Rakshi is too far away from anything important, and she’s not planning on destroying Creation… I think they would be fine leaving her alone and sparing their troops and resources, especially since they wouldn’t gain much from this” Speaker noted, not sounding terribly happy with his own strategic analysis, but certain none the less.

Cash said that bringing in Lookshy might not be needed, urging for a more calm and measured approach: “Let’s check the place out first – when we have an idea of what kind of forces Rakshi has to protect the place, then we can start talking what forces we’ll bring to take the place”

“I still want to spend some time reaching out to Lookshy. Even if they don’t want to help us freely, then we can still easily afford to pay them for it. The seventh legion of Lookshy still rents out armies if you have the silver” Fire Orchid noted, speaking like a true mercenary warlord.

Cash insisted that he be part of any final negotiations for army rental, urging Fire Orchid to instead train up more forces locally in Sunhill.

The next morning Cash and Sullen Hoof flew south, while the rest of the circle did some more research on Sperimin and the territory around it. Good maps of the Maruto river and its tributaries were few and far between, it reaching far into the eastern everfree forests and jungles, beyond the hundred kingdoms. Most ponies in the east knew those territories between civilization and the elemental pole of wood as wild and untamed lands, rife with tribes of savage ponies and mutants. It wasn’t a place you went if you valued your health.

This of course didn’t mean that the rivers that led to Sperimin were any safer – they went right through the heart of the hundred kingdoms, through dozens of waring territories, princedoms and warlord holds, none of which were likely to be friendly. The problem was that the geography of the region didn’t give one much choice.

The sun shined brightly as Shimmer looked at the river maps of the east: “So each pin here is a toll point along the river?”

“Basically, a blockade of warships that only lets you through if you pay up – there are so many… and frankly none of those princedoms will likely permit a light-rail connection being set up in their lands, simply to spite their neighbours” Speaker said, shaking his head.

The lunar looked at the map, the small colored outlines with the sidereal host’s latest intelligence on where the various territory borders were at the moment making for a mish-mash of color. Most of the territories were set along the rivers. Anywhere more than sixty or so miles from a river simply wasn’t claimed – with the dense forests of the east, maintaining inland roads was expensive, while river-based transport and trade routes maintained themselves. This let Shimmer to a novel idea, floating up a ball of string and pins to mark out a new route: “How about this… we’ll only need to negotiate our way through three territories this way. For the rest we can plop rail-columns in the river where no warlord can claim ownership of it. We’ll dodge all the farhold tribes fighting loggers and warlords this way”

Speaker looked at the new path: “Going down the rolling river, then cutting in over land? Could work. Crossing the sandy river, then connecting to the Maruto just north of Meresh? Could work… though I think a little addition would be warranted here”

Shimmer wasn’t sure why Speaker was putting markers down to extend a branch from her route further south down the sandy river: “Why would we want the network down there? That’s going into Denansdor”

The knowing look Speaker gave Shimmer said it all. Her eyes widened, gasped: “No way… can you get inside the dead city?”

“We already did that once – I was hoping you could remember that. But yes, with a fast connection to Denansdor we could explore the place more often and once we get the book of three rings, I can learn the spell that’ll end the miasma that makes the place inaccessible. We just need enough troops ready to secure the whole place” Speaker noted.

Enough troops to secure all of Denansdor and its surrounding lands? You’d need an army – a big one – or several of them. Shimmer briefly recalled what she knew of how many troops they had in Sunhill: “We totally do not have enough troops for that”

“Not yet… but that is our long-term plan, to reopen and take Denansdor. The factory cathedrals there are just waiting for us” Speaker said, his eyes twinkling with ancient dreams of artifice.

Looking at the map, Shimmer scrutinized the points she’d set down in the wilderness between rivers, chiefly between the Sandy and Maruto river: “Do you know what’s between here? The map doesn’t say”

“Tribes, small kingdoms – anything without access to a river is a minor player at best here in the east”

Nodding, Shimmer figured that she had enough information to work with: “Alright. Was there anything else, or would it be ok if I run off to get training in before Cash comes back?”

Chapter 20 Building Bridges

The Celestial Water Dragon stylist commands the fluid of the soup, and the soup of all those around him. You only get to eat soup when the stylist permits it.

…

It took another week before Cash was heard from, a messenger spell of his heralding his return later that same afternoon. It made for a bit of a spectacle as Cash and Sully flew in, not on a yeddim, but on a badly bruised river dragon which Sullen Hoof summarily decapitated the moment they landed, bathing their landing area at the docks in an ocean of blood and spinal fluid.

With Cash immaculately clean thank to the magical artifact he owned which constantly kept him perfectly spotless, while Sully was absolutely soaked in blood, Speaker nearly had a heart attack when he arrived. The rest of the circle was quickly gathered, Shimmer flying in from Great Forks in her seagull form straight into the war room atop the golden pyramid.

Cash presented the circle with some very well-made maps him and Sully had drafted, revealing that the lands around Sperimin proper were completely overgrown, though at night Sullen Hoof and his amazing sense-enhancing charms, had spotted hundreds of camp fires and heard songs in tribal languages beneath the canopies around the city – so there was still a lot of ponies living down there.

“Alright, but no visible huts or structures from on high?” Fire Orchid wondered.

Sullen Hoof nodded: “No, not really – they all mainly live in burrows and can’t make anything more than stone tools and weapons. I snuck around most of the tribes around the city checking that. They’re all pretty heavily mutated too, living that close to the elemental pole of wood. They all worship Rakshi from the looks of it, but that wasn’t the worst of it: A few times I saw groups of large monkeys and apes approach some of the tribal villages. They actually wore clothes and had metal weapons – and spoke in their own language, but one of them, an officer or priest or something, also spoke the language of the tribal ponies. They were there to collect tribute I think, because every time it was a mother and her new-born or very young foal that was offered up and taken back to Sperimin”

“We know from… old Shimmer… that it’s not unheard of for lunars to use their charms to uplift or breed intelligent versions of animals to serve them out in the wild. I didn’t dare fly the yeddim too close to the city, since we didn’t know what kind of defences they might have, but one night at the camp I had made a few hundred miles from the city I was attacked by monkey soldiers. I killed them all before they could flee, but they managed to kill the yeddim before I got the last of them. That they were able to track me all the way that far from the city says a lot about how well they have their surrounding territory patrolled” Cash explained, sounding more annoyed than anything else – sure, he had set up a yeddim breeding ranch outside of Sunhill to keep him supplied, but still it was an expensive operation, so losing a yeddim was never fun, especially not when it stranded you in enemy territory.

Sullen Hoof nodded: “I actually found a report about that attack once I got into the city. No ponies live in Sperimin, only the various intelligent monkeys and apes. They were clearly specialized by breed. I don’t know the name of the different species, but each one was doing a certain kind of work. The large gorillas are the size of bloodhound demons, and they appear to make up most of the armed forces. Didn’t seem too clever to me, and seemed to fight a lot amongst themselves. The priests were orange furred apes, and I could from the look of their eyes, they’re smarter than the gorillas, they seemed to be in charge of the place. Finally, there were the apes doing all the menial labor, with brown and grey fur, bright red flanks, looked like baboons, they confused me…”

The rest of the circle looked at Sully quizzically. The solar culinarian explained: “Common logic would have it that menial work goes to the least intelligent – but these baboons were doing their work so much better than the orange ones, and way better than the gorillas. They have their smartest doing the lowliest of work, and my profiling charms kept telling me that they hated their silver mistress for it”

“Interesting. Did you get an estimate of their numbers? Can we exploit the discontent?” Fire Orchid inquired, looking as if she was already trying to cook up a plan in her head.

From what Sullen Hoof had seen, then the baboons were by far the most numerous of the intelligent creatures in Sperimin – but they weren’t the most numerous of creatures: “Around them were wild monkeys, like, perfectly normal jungle monkeys – and their numbers were legion. As for the gorrilas, I’m guessing some thousand, based on what I saw. Not sure about the orange ones, but I’d say four or five times as many baboons as gorillas”

“What about fighting capability? You saw the gorillas with weapons and armor, but also fighting among themselves?” Speaker inquired.

Sully couldn’t really say. He had seen the gorillas with crude bronze spears and the orange ones carrying symbols of office, like whips or fans or staves – he had not seen enough of the place before another lunar sniffed him out. They apparently do not permit ponies in the city at all – only apes, monkeys and other creatures.

“Well, against a couple of thousand armed gorillas, a few extra lunars – honestly, I think we can take that. The main problem will be dealing with Rakshi” Cash said, sounding confident.

Shimmer quickly cut in: “Oh we’ll face more than that if it comes to open battle. You’re forgetting about the tribes you mentioned around the city. They might not be much more than auxiliaries and skirmishers, but they’ll know the surrounding jungles by heart – they’ll have ambushes everywhere. And the wild monkeys in the city would also be something Rashi and the other lunars can herd around like a swarm of wild predators – and Rakshi is a sorceress, so summoned demons, even summoned second circle demons if she has any around, can’t be ruled out”

Fire Orchid nodded to this, adding: “I wouldn’t put too much stock in the lesser apes. If they’re nothing more than wild animals herded around, then they’ll be very easy to break – and fighting a sorcerer isn’t difficult, just keep the distracted so they can’t shape any magic”

“Just keep her distracted? Right, because a lunar who’s what… several thousand years old, is just an old fuddy duddy right? It’d probably be easier to fight her sorcery, rather than fighting her combat charms” Shimmer shot back, not sounding terribly impressed at Fire Orchid’s analysis.

The circle continued discussing how to best wrangle Sperimin and deal with Rakhi well into the night. Food was brought in, and the midnight oil was burnt. By morning they had some basic ideas, though depending on what they could work out, then there were still a few unanswered questions.

The primary issue was that Sunhill, on its own, simply didn’t have that many troops to deploy, even with Fire Orchid and Speaker training new troops as often as they could. This was compounded by Sunhill’s bad standing with the guild, since that meant that hiring guild mercenaries was out of the question. Fire Orchid would have to check with Lookshy, for whether Sunhill could rent a field force, but if that didn’t work out then the circle would have to find support somewhere else.

The secondary issue was dealing with Rakshi. A powerful lunar, even if she wasn’t all that combat focused, then she was bound to know how to fight far better than any one of them, even if only by the sheer might of her essence. The only ally the circle had to match Rakshi would be Lilith, but according to Cash then she was off exploring Creation and reconnecting to pony-kind after her millennia of self-imposed exile, now that she was satisfied that Cash wasn’t evil. Other options discussed were things like simply dog-pilling her, trying to exploit the circle’s numerical superiority combined with Rakshi supposedly not being all that martially inclined… well… supposed not.

As if to remind the circle of why they sort of were in a bit of a hurry, then the next morning they all found themselves awoken just before dawn by the sound of alarm bells ringing. Another corpse barge had arrived, though this one had run aground along the canals just before reaching the city, hundreds if not thousands of zombies spilling out into the plantations south of the city.

After a clean-up operation that lasted well onto noon, the circle reconvened to check their notes from last night. Fire Orchid wasn’t impressed: “If Thorns manages to sneak another barge into the harbour, if we’re not here to help contain it… what if we’re off at Sperimin or somewhere else?”

The rest of the circle agreed. Cash noted that the ideal solution would be to send out messengers into the surrounding territories, issuing a call for recruitment to raise a proper army – but… “Our neighbouring warlords still hate our guts. They’ll dice any messengers we send like that. That I’ve talked them into accepting our merchants is a miracle already”

Everyone agreed that this state of affairs was far from optimal, but Cash looked as if he had a solution in mind – because he wasn’t frowning: “Come now, our solution is obvious! We expand the light-rail network and recruit from those points. We don’t need to recruit locally once the network starts growing”

“Now that sounds viable” Fire Orchid said, noting that she would like Speaker to draft a proper military encampment. An army would need space to train. To absolutely nobody’s surprise, then Speaker said he already had that kind of plans ready: “Then the only thing I’m missing for the encampment is a proper geomantic flair for it. Anyone can design a small fortress. I want it to be able to do something special”

Shimmer pointed at the map on the table with the marking for Sperimin: “You said this place was a first age university that had all knowledge in creation. Wouldn’t what you’re looking for be in there?”

The smile on Speaker’s face as he looked at her, made Shimmer’s heart flutter.

It thus came to be that the two of the four state owned construction companies of Sunhill were given new orders to start clearing a large plot of land north of Sunhill in preparation for making a fortress to defend the city. The two other ones were tasked with starting to haul out the warehoused light-rail column pieces and prepare their tools and materials for transport.

The next day the circle sallied forth, Cash flying a yeddim south with the very first rail-column to be set up outside of the city. Next to the two canals going up to Sunhill, Speaker played his singing staff to create a solid stone foundation on the shores of the yellow river. The pillar they set up was particularly tall, for its reach had to be a lot longer than a normal pillar. Cash, controlling his flying yeddim, used the beast like a living crane, making the construction of the column surprisingly fast.

By noon the pillar was up and running, its glowing top showing that a viable link to the Sunhill network had been established. The next pillar was called in via the network, and Cash flew it across the river to Great Forks. At the harbour outside the city walls, on a large square that had been cleared in anticipation of the construction project. An absolutely massive crowd gathered to see the flying yeddim hoist stone pillar segments into place, and the cheers that rang out when the column lit up were deafening.

The three ruling gods of Great Forks even came to officiate the opening ceremony of the Great Forks to Sunhill light-rail connection, the city putting on its grandest fanfare. They knew quite well that this would turn Great Forks into a much more attractive trading location, since now over-land goods could be moved almost instantly across the yellow river from there. Cash looked pleased as punch. Speaker found the ceremony touching just the same, his old dream of restoring first age infrastructure to creation finally starting to come true.

The next day the project continued, though the pillars set up south of Great Forks weren’t nearly as big – they didn’t need to have their reach stretch across a massive five-mile-wide river and be tall enough that the light-rail would flow above the masts and sails of passing ships. Instead, the pillars only had to reach above the canopies of the everfree forest, and even that was quite easy, since the path of the pillars laid out followed the sandy river, which had famously sandy shores along its length, making for nice open spaces to set up pillars upon, especially when shored up with stone foundations.

The small river-side kingdoms along the sandy river, just like Great Forks, had been contacted well in advance by Cash about the pillars. Sure, not all the sites had been cleared in advance, but that was quickly handled by the construction crews coming along on the flying yeddim, or via Cash bribing the odd fisherpony to haul his nets down the beach a bit.

Shimmer found it hilarious to see Cash throwing around money like that: “Why even bother paying ponies to move over? He can buck that fishing boat a hundred yards down the beach”

“Sure, he could – but he isn’t here to make enemies. Vengeful locals make projects like this very difficult” Speaker noted.

Furrowing her brows, Shimmer considered the counter-argument. Her own tribal mentality was still very much that if you could take it, it was yours – so this idea of kindness to strangers, diplomacy… they were still alien to her. The dull thud from the pillar segment as Cash lowered it into place barely registered to her.

Over the next week they expanded their light-rail network south for hundreds of miles. It was slow work, since each time they ventured into a new territory or hold they had to clear things with the local rulers – and on several occasions then the lords or princes that Cash had brokered a deal with had been killed, conquered, or in some other way been replaced – and their replacements didn’t always play ball.

In the meantime, Sunhill and Great Forks saw a huge influx of merchants from the places that the circle connected. A week of travel down-river could be replaced with but a few hours zipping over the jungles on a sunhill-made transport carriage, dodging river pirates and the likes. The system Cash had developed for how others could use the system was as simple as it was ingenious: With the push of a button on a crystal panel at the base of a pillar, a pony could request a small currier pod. These small rail-pods moved at blinding speeds, reaching anywhere on the network in minutes. On these a pony could deposit payment and mark off what they were requesting, the pod zipping back to sunhill to drop off the money at rail-network control. Depending on what was paid for a suitable carrier would then be sent in return, which would be pre-programmed to work for one or more journeys, again depending on what you had paid for.

For merchants this meant no longer having to spend money on paying mercenaries and caravan guards to watch over their goods as they travelled, because they could zip around from market to market – and indeed, many principalities wisely set up markets and new harbours near their pillars. For the lords of the territories and holds with new pillars they similarly found it much easier to move troops around – both for good and for ill. It was only four days after the network had been expanded south that an enterprising princeling sent six hundred armed troops up the network towards Sunhill… well, she tried to – only to find that rail-network control monitored all rail traffic, leaving the force stranded up above the trees as their carriages simply stopped shortly after leaving when it was detected that it wasn’t freight being moved about.

After a while the circle reached the point where it wouldn’t make sense extending the network further south – they had to start going inland, in the deeper parts of the untamable everfree jungle, away from settled territory.

Here the circle split up, in accordance with Speaker’s plan to connect their network to the dead city of Denansdor. Cash took yeddim and the construction crews, flying east, leaving Speaker and Shimmer to head south.

“Are you loaded up?” Speaker said, watching as the flying yeddim shrank into a dot in the sky.

Shimmer caught her breath and shook herself, her warformed body’s feather quivering all along her length: “Yup, finally got all the pillar pieces put elsewhere – those things are heavy”

“Big chunks of solid stone will do that to you. How are your mental defence charms?”

Nodding, Shimmer said that she had a few options: “…but I’m not keen on staying in Denansdor for too long. I’ve seen too many ponies back home west who got caught at sea in wyld storms”

Speaker could see his lunar mate’s point, to which he simply stated that the faster they hurried, the faster they would be able to leave: “Plus we only need to reach Denansdor’s own rail-network – and we don’t have to work slowly like Cash did so the construction ponies could keep up”

“That was working slow?”

It turned out that it was. Conjuring his flying cloud, Speaker flew the two of them south. From the cloud, Shimmer was able to drop pillar pieces out of her elsewhere stores like one, two three – raising pillars with lightning speed.

A few days later, quite a distance further south, the jungles began to thin out. Shimmer quickly found the cause: “The insects… there’s no bugs here. Is that Denansdor’s miasma doing that?”

“It most certainly is. On the plus side, this open terrain will let us space the pillars out even more – so we can do this even faster” Speaker said respectfully, understanding Shimmer’s unease at the unnatural quiet.

With no birds or other wild animals, the landscape was stilll wild – but at the same time without insects then very few plants were able to grow or at least polinate properly. A few patches of trees here and there grew… and that’s when they felt it: The wave of unnatural fear and terror. It was a powerful impulse to simply drop everything and run away. The ancient magical weapon that had been activated deep within the city, to ward off an oncoming swarm of changelings… at the cost of the sanity and life of every living thing in the city.

Speaker stood firm up on his cloud, using his illusive dream defence. The wave of magical terror crashed upon the shores of mind, but achieved nothing. Shimmer handled the experience differently, a visible shiver racing down her spine to her tail, then back up again, until she twitched and turned to face in the direction of Denansdor, shouting: “No!”

“You feeling, ok?” Speaker inquired, finding Shimmer’s response somewhat odd-looking, worried that she might fall off the cloud if she made any sudden moves.

Shimmer shook off her jitters, taking a deep breath: “I think so – not running away or going insane, right?”

Satisfied, Speaker motioned for his magical cloud to start flying towards the city, when Shimmer put a hoof to his shoulder. “Hold up – something’s coming”

Unsure of what she was talking about, but none the less trusting Shimmer’s judgement, Speaker looked around. Without the sensory enhancement charms she had, Speaker couldn’t hear the distant sound of galloping hooves – but after a bit she pointed to the horizon: “There, someone or something is galloping this way”

It took a bit of squinting, but Speaker finally saw something. A small plume of dust in the distance. Whatever it was did not appear to be running towards the two, but it was beelining out of the city.

It was a strange sight that came to, as the dust plume approached. There were a lot of shades of green, some red… it looked an awful lot like a stampede of vines and flowers.

“Ok I know we were supposed to put pillars up, but… lets go have a look at what this is” Speaker said quizzically, directing the cloud to descend.

Shimmer kept her ears peeled as they closed in on the strange phenomena, but it didn’t slow down: “Just be careful – this is not natural. Could be changelings”

“The miasma was set up to ward off changelings – I don’t think they would ever come here willingly”

Closing in on the strange tangle of moving plants, the two trailed the floral procession to the edge of Denansdor’s miasma. There the plant tangle slowed down, revealing a pony who had been riding atop the pile of highly mobile plants.

Landing next to the strange thing, the duo found the pony atop the pile of now immobile plants asleep, snoring loudly, fully entangled to the point that one could barely see a few tufts of mane poking out of the leaves and vines.

Speaker looked to Shimmer, unsure if they should try to wake up this strange pony on its bed of moving plants. Shimmer in turn carefully examined the plants, Deep Wave tentatively poking the seemingly dormant vines it’s with own moonsilver tentacles: “I think he’s hibernating… which is really clever when you think about it”

“Hibernating in Denansdor? How does that make sense?” Speaker said, finding it hard to wrap his head around such an odd move.

With a clever smile, Shimmer nodded: “I’m pretty sure this pony is a lunar. I know this kind of hibernation, it’s a lunar charm. If he was leaving Denansdor and didn’t want to deal with the miasma, then shutting down like this is really smart, assuming that he had something or someone to carry him out of there”

The pony stirred, and the vines drew away as if they had a mind of their own, revealing a brown-coated pony replete in moonsilver tattoos. He was a broad-chinned squat stallion, not particularly tall, but with thick and muscular limbs, a short-cropped mane and eyes with that extra fold that marked him as either a westerner or from the blessed isle. With a yawn, the stallion looked at Shimmer, clearly seeing her own moonsilver tattoos. With a smirk, he spoke to her in sea-tongue: “Well now, a young-blood from back west. Is someone looking for me?”

Shimmer was quite surprised to hear the lunar speaking sea-tongue: “I… no, we just saw you come out of Denansdor and wanted to see what it was”

With a quick glance and a flash of silver in his eyes, the lunar nodded at Shimmer: “A lunar and a solar in faded red? What’s Sunhill doing here then?”

It didn’t surprise Speaker much that the lunar had heard of him. Cash hadn’t exactly been subtle in using his likeness to promote Sunhill, even less so after what they had talked about with Speaker’s new memory-loss inducing martial arts: “Bright Machine Speaker, twilight caste, good to meet you. We’re rebuilding creation. We’re setting up a new light-rail network, and we’re trying to connect it to Denansdor”

The stallion smirked at Speaker: “You want to open up first age mass transit into crazy town? You trying to kill a lot of ponies or something?”

Speaker glanced at Shimmer, chiefly to check that she wouldn’t start saying too much. Revealing that they were building a light-rail connection to the dead city was probably bad enough, but they already had dozens of pillars further north up along the sandy river, so it wouldn’t have been difficult to figure out what they were doing – it was the why they were doing it that shouldn’t necessarily be shared. Cash might still claim that Speaker hadn’t quite learned to shut up and let better speakers do the talking, but he had at least learned when to shut up: “No, this line of the network is closed to the public – but it will let us get into Denansdor very quickly, so we don’t have to waste essence protecting our minds simply getting into the city”

“Easier looting? Can’t argue against that – but I do have a request to make: Don’t touch the Evergrowing Lotus commune. I’m doing important work there” the lunar said, his words firm as to underscore that it wasn’t really a request, but a warning to stay off his turf.

Eyebrows raised, Shimmer stepped up between Speaker and the lunar: “Shouldn’t be a problem, but how about you tell us who you are and what you’re doing there?”

“Sunhill doesn’t need to know about me – you don’t use slaves” The stallion replied, not sounding smug, more disinterested.

Speaker shrugged: “A project about slavery? Are you working with Iron Will of Many on something?”

The lunar smield, clearly recognizing the name of the somewhat infamous bull-totemed slaver-killing and slave-freeing lunar: “He has supplied me with a lot of resources for what I’m working on. I used to be like him, but I’m looking for a different solution”

“Something with strange plants that can move around on their own?” Shimmer asked, examining one of the vines from the lunar’s tangle of dormant mobile flora.

The lunar nodded, and began to mount his strange flowery creation: “Not unlikely – and who knows, maybe we’ll meet one day”

Speaker pondered furiously what the secretive lunar was doing. The Evergrowing Lotus Commune? Denansdor had a lot of artist colonies around its periphery. What kind of artists had gathered at that commune? It took a bit of essence to plumb the depths of his first age memories, but the instant he made the connection it not only made sense, but the solar saw an opportunity: “You’re using the old genesis labs! Flowers that walk, a project about slaves? You’re trying to make plants that can move on their own, to replace the need for pony slaves!”

Looking impressed, the lunar bowed his head to Speaker: “Exactly – and that’s why what I’m doing isn’t relevant to Sunhill”

Looking from the lunar to Speaker, to the lunar again, Shimmer’s mind raced: “But it is. We can connect the commune to the network, make it easier for you to get there – and we’re looking to make a move on Sperimin. The old libraries there are bound to have all kinds of information on what you’re trying to make. Help us free Sperimin, and you can get all the information you need on genesis workings”

The lunar stopped his climb up his tangle of vines and leaves, instead quickly jumping down to Speaker and Shimmer: “You have my attention”

A brief but energetic discussion on the potential contents of the Sperimin libraries followed, concluded by the lunar finally pointing out that going against Rakshi was suicide.

“A bit over a year ago we stormed the underworld and destroyed a deathlord. By we, I mean the circle I’m part of – we’re five solars and Shimmer” Speaker pointed out, carefully observing the lunar’s expression to judge his reaction.

A deep breath and a thoughtful expression from the lunar convinced Speaker that the stranger at least believed that their plans on Sperimin might be possible.

Five light-rail pillars later saw the weatherworn remains of the northern-most pillar of Denansdor’s own light-rail network link up with the network of Sunhill. Crashing Wave, the lunar stranger, also finally revealed his name during that process, as he managed to talk the duo into linking up the artist colony he used to the new network – not that he needed to ask very much to make it happen. As Cash would have put it, then it was cheaply earned political capital.

Once it was all over Crashing Wave offered to host Speaker and Shimmer at his lair, to show them his work. They gladly accepted, Speaker because he was too damn curious about the lunar’s strange plant experiments, Shimmer because she saw a potential new teacher and ally in the lunar.

The lair, dug deep into the eastern jungle, far from any river where other ponies might take notice, Crashing Wave had set up a crude but very functional laboratory focused on breeding special plants. Speaker found the lunar’s approach to various simple laboratory solutions incredibly novel, like the strange breed of lizards the lunar had bred to lick everything clean with a special saliva that left everything sterile and perfectly clean. Where dozens of servants would normally be needed, Crashing Wave had bred animals or developed new strange sort-of mobile plants to do the work instead. His work was by no means finished, but the lunar had clearly spent years on some very interesting work. There were plant-ponies acting as servants, butlers, waiters, dish-washers... all of them doing simple menial work, though none of them able to switch between tasks either. They could only perform the one duty they had been made to do – that was the limitation of them not really having a mind one could oppress.

Shimmer rejoiced in seeing how Speaker found it all so interesting. Crashing Wave enjoyed the scholarly sparing, Speaker drawing on his memories from the first age of working all kinds of strange and exotic genesis projects. It made for spirited and constructive discussion. Oh, how her elders would have loved to see her having finagled her solar mate into aiding a lunar project – well, that’s how she would present it in her report to her western elders.

Several days later, with Speaker feeling that his mind had grown many times over on the topic of how to create raw life out of primordial soups and various flavours of essence, between Crashing Wave’s homebrewed hooch and various strange experiments in plant grown and floral or fungal quasi-intelligence, a magical message fluttered into being before Speaker:

“Hey, we’re at the outskirts of Sperimin. We need you here. There are other lunars with Rakshi. Shit is going down” the message read, Cash’s voice being quick and succinct, with no punchlines or jokes, as if to hammer home how serious the situation was.

Chapter 21 Monkey Business

The Celestial Thriller stylist dances vigorously while consuming his soup, making everyone else around him dance along, as if they are mindless zombies. Any fool who tries to ignore him and eat soup gets slapped with a sequined glove.

…

Speaker and Shimmer quickly shook off what drink they had in their bodies, using essence in their own ways to purge themselves of such simple toxins. Crashing Wave, their new friend lunar, took a few more moments to clear his mind – but he none the less quickly called for his troops to be assembled… or rather, he called for his servant plants to gather up the seeds for his warrior plants.

“You have warrior plants?” Speaker said, sounding ever so slightly impressed.

Crashing let out a belly-rippling laugh: “Do you have any idea how many flesh-eating plants there are here in the everfree forests? I can barely leave my lair to take a piss without some nasty plant trying to nibble on me”

“Sounds more like horny wood elementals” Shimmer joked.

Crashing Wave chuckled at Shimmer, noting that he usually only entertained those when he got lonely: “…but seriously, there are plenty of large predators around here. You live in the cities; predators don’t go there. I’ve developed several types of plants to help defend myself and the burrows where I conduct my experiments”

“Fair enough. Can you bring some of those?” Speaker wondered, looking around the den they were in. The earthen walls, decorated with elegantly woven roots and lit with brightly luminescent mushrooms and fungus, not featuring any visible ‘plant soldiers’ or anything similar to that.

Poking around some of piles of barely organized chaos, Crashing Wave apparently not being much of a fan of desks or shelves, the lunar retrieved several different pouches of seeds: “Here, this should work”

The three left via flying cloud, heading to the nearest light-rail pillar. At the pillar they found some local tribal ponies painted with green paints dancing around the pillar. They seemed to think that the stone column with its glowing light at the top was some kind of holy thing. Staying out of sight while up on the cloud, above the tree canopies, the three managed to call in a carriage and zip away without the ponies on the ground noticing.

Tracking their path east on the self-arranging crystal display, Crashing Wave marvelled at the speed they were going: “This is very impressive”

“We have an eclipse caste member of our circle who says this will revolutionize trade here in the east” Shimmer said proudly.

Crashing Wave agreed whole-heartedly: “As much as I respect the thousand streams project, then stuff like this will without a doubt help a lot… but I can easily imagine that a lot lunars will object to this, on the grounds of it making the ponies of creation dependent on exalts”

“True, but that’s why Cash – our eclipse caste solar – he insisted that we teach the ponies of Sunhill how to make light-rail pillars by themselves. This is something they can do now, on their own. At best we’re speeding up the construction of the network, but they’re doing all the work making the pillar parts and cutting and etching the gemstones that go into the gizmos on top of the pillars” Shimmer explained, feeling that it was probably her former self who at least inspired – if not outright convinced – Cash to ensure that the mortal population of Sunhill could do it all on their own, even if slower than with the aid of the exalted host.

Speaker found the discussion between the two lunars spirited but overall quite positive. A few hours later their rail carriage descended to a large clearing south of the maruto river, far to the east. Speaker instantly spotted the parked yeddim, with a nice tent set up next to it that bore the banners of Sunhill.

In the tent he found Cash having a lively debate with what turned out to be spirit emissaries from the regional gods of the jungles. They seemed quite frightened at the idea of being connected to anything that ran counter to Rakshi’s designs, but at the same time none of them appeared to object to getting rid of Rakshi – something that Cash used to push and pull the spirits into pledging various forms of aid to the forces of Sunhill.

It took about half an hour of quiet watching until the negotiations were done, Cash appearing to have been working the spirits over verbally for quite some time already. The deal he finally struck didn’t give Sunhill any kind of direct military aid, but the elementals of the divine jungle courts would perform a long list of services when called upon.

The spirits faded into nothing upon the conclusion of the negotiations, Cash instantly turning to Speaker who had waited in the doorway of the tent: “There you are – you two finished connecting to Denansdor?”

“Yes, the network there wasn’t as degraded as I had feared, so we didn’t have to stop for repairs – though when the time comes to actually travel to the dead city, I would be very surprised if we won’t have to service some of the pillars further into the city” Speaker noted.

Cash nodded, his expert charms of social deduction and observation having told him long ago that Speaker had something more to say – to which end he only nodded, and awaited Speaker’s full report.

Telling Cash about the lunar they had met and the lunar’s strange plant-worker experiments, Cash quickly found his mind reeling with the possibilities of using such things to expand Sunhill’s industries: “He sounds like someone we need to invite over to give a demonstration once this is over”

“Sure – by the way, where are the construction crews that came with you?”

“I sent them back to Sunhill. We’re just under fifteen miles from the outskirts of the tribal territories surrounding Sperimin. Fire Orchid has messaged me that she’ll have an army ready for us in a few weeks, Sunrise and Sully will arrive with her and the troops” Cash stated, drawing a deep and concerned breath at the end of it.

His brows furrowed, Speaker inquired: “Something bothering you?”

“I’ve tried to open diplomatic connections to Sperimin…” Cash said, shaking his head instead of putting words to how badly that had gone.

“That bad?” Speaker said, as he walked off and struck a nearby tree, making the trunk explode into several comfortable wooden chairs.

Replacing the makeshift furniture in the tent with nicer ones, Cash lamented the hostility he had experienced while trying to make contact with the tribes around the city, and Rakshi’s government itself: “The tribes operate on a very strict variation of ‘If it’s not one of us, we kill it and take its stuff’, and that makes it rather difficult to approach the city to talk… and Sully saw enough magical air defences to make me not want to just fly in”

“So… we’ll have to sweep some of the tribes first?” Speaker pondered, thinking whether Sunrise would be able to project her mass mind-control charms through the thick jungle.

Shrugging, Cash said that sneaking in was another option: “…but all things considered, then all that would do is give us trouble when we have to run away”

It thus came to be that Speaker and Shimmer spent the next two weeks mapping out the local jungles on their side of Sperimin. This inevitably also involved running into hunting parties and patrols from the local tribal ponies, and as Sully had reported then they were indeed quite mutated.

Cash looked quite curious at the three tied up tribals that Shimmer hauled out of her elsewhere-den, begrudgingly noting that they had shit and pissed everywhere in it: “Oh that is just filthy…”

“Did you leave them in there for that long?” Cash jokingly wondered, quickly being informed that the prisoners had only been in there for a few hours. That clearly indicated that they had put actual effort into soiling the place, out of spite perhaps?

Cash said he would find out, looking quite curious at what exactly he would be able to gleam from them. The next morning Cash was able to report that he had made all three of the tribals into his very best friends, loyal to a fault: “…and I’ll be really honest, then I don’t like what they told me”

“Is it that bad?” Shimmer wondered, leaning in over the wooden table Speaker had made, while jungle birds sang freely around them up in the endless canopies.

Cash nodded and told the two what he had learned: “They’re a strange mix of tribal and feudal serfs. The orange apes, the orangutangs, they come to them as priests of Rakshi to dictate what the tribes should do, when the next offering is and so on. Whole place seems to run like a very primitive theocracy, with Rakshi at the top – though they don’t call her that”

“What do they call her?” Speaker said, curious at what cover identity Rakshi had chosen to use for interacting with the tribes.

The expression of the business-pony soured a bit, as he admitted that even with his powerful translation and linguistic charms, then he honestly wasn’t entirely sure if he had understood the tribals right: “They speak of some strange form of royalty, a king of the jungle – but that’s what the local gods of the jungle also call themselves… but they do worship Rakshi, no doubt about it – I showed them images of her, and they instantly tried to throw themselves to the ground for prostration”

“Could be that she presents herself as male to the tribes? That’s a pretty simple shapeshifting trick” Shimmer commented.

Cash nodded, taking notes, adding that he recalled old Shimmer having said that: “True, but point is that they worship her – and when I asked what her dogma was, and then explained what dogma meant, then they just said that it was all about doing whatever she said. There doesn’t seem to be any actual scripture or properly defined religion in this. It’s just a cult, with the orangutans as clerics, and her as a god-king ruling by decree… and it is the greatest of sin to defy her”

Shimmer noted that the expression that Speaker made was not a happy one. It was not quite one of disgust, no, it was just a tad more subtle and nuanced. Revulsion perhaps? Either way it was clear that Speaker was at a loss for words for how much he didn’t like any of it, so she cut in and asked: “Well that sucks - but Cash, what should we do in the mean time?”

A deep breath and some careful thought later, Cash looked at the two exalts before him: “You can start work clearing jungle around this place. We’ll need a camp for the army Fire Orchid is bringing in, with room enough to muster and march out”

“Exactly how big an army are we taking?” Speaker wondered, feeling a yawn creeping up on him, it still being early in the morning. The noise of all the wild animals in the surrounding jungle had erupted at dawn, leaving no real quiet to be had.

The duo found Crashing Wave wandering the jungle surrounding their camp, planting his special seeds. They quickly informed him that he should retrieve anything he had planted and coordinate with them so his seeds would grow outside of the fortified encampment they were planning on building. The next few days saw a large clearing made, the two lunars using their great strength to pull up trees, roots and all, while Speaker played his singing staff to build the foundations of a jungle fortress with a wide two hundred yard no-pony’s-land between the jungle and the wooden palisades.

The light-rail pillar was in the middle of the new fortress, made for a very shiny centrepiece – Cash was certainly quite impressed, though Shimmer and Crashing Wave both quickly started catching tribals from around Sperimin lurking at the edge of the jungle.

Cash didn’t worry: “It was never the plan to be sneaky about this. Now, I got a message earlier this morning – I’m needed back in Sunhill to help organize the last few details before the army arrives. You three will have to hold down the fort until then. No monkey-business”

Speaker groaned at Cash’s monkey joke, but accepted that there probably were some loose ends that the business-pony needed to tie up to keep things going in Sunhill. It was the weakness of a society ruled by solars: It depended on solar brilliance and charms to keep going at peak efficiency. Sure, the goal of Sunhill was to make a society that could operate well enough without solars while they were gone – but well enough wasn’t the same perfect.

Crashing Wave poked Shimmer as they looked at Speaker while he was lost in thought: “Does he do that often?”

“Pretty sure he does. Gets lost in his own thoughts. By the way, how far are you on planting your seeds around the fortress?” Shimmer replied, her voice signalling a calm acceptance of Speaker’s quirk.

The older lunar smiled: “The cleared no-pony’s-land around the fortress has been fully seeded. Anyone walking in there will be lunch. Only clear path is in front of the main gate, but it’s lined with long-stalked snapdragons. I’ve also seeded much of the surrounding jungle, though local bugs and critters are eating some of them… back at my labs I’ve wrangled the local animal spirits to make them steer the wildlife clear of my special seeds, haven’t been able to do that here”

“Clever. My circle told me that I negotiated similar deals with the local forest gods around Sunhill, when we moved in there – makes sense, bringing them to hell and having them work together with you” Shimmer mused, nodding in agreement.

A few days later the army began to arrive. For almost two days the rail-network dropped off ponies non-stop, each of them quickly filling out and setting up tents within the fortress grounds. Fire Orchid arrived half-way through, barking orders left and right, the troops around her quickly and efficiently doing as she commanded.

While it pleased Speaker’s Lookshyan side to no end, then he did find the whole thing rather odd, because by his count then at least three thousand ponies had come through already, which was far more than what Sunhill had ready to field: “Fire Orchid, where did you find all these troops? I mean, they’re not in Lookshyan colors or under a mercenary banner”

“Not any more – remember, until just before I arrived at Sunhill I had worked for a mercenary warlord” Fire Orchid proudly declared, beaming with pride as she oversaw the next rail-carriage drop off fifty-some more armed and armored ponies.

Speaker frowned ever so slightly: “So they are just mercenaries you hired? Where’s their commander?”

“You’re looking at her. I challenged that old fool and smeared him across the town square we had met at – claimed the whole army right there, and gave the troops an offer they couldn’t resist” Fire Orchid proclaimed, just as an officer with a scarred face came up to her.

Speaker looked at the officer, recognizing her as one of the few ponies who had originally come with Fire Orchid to Sunhill, though he didn’t know her name as she spoke to her: “My lord, half the Sunhill Legion has arrived. The rest will be here by noon tomorrow. We should be ready to deploy by evening tomorrow”

“Thank you Berry Petal – Now return to Sunhill and liaise with Lord Cash and Sunrise. Remember, you speak in my name” Fire Orchid said, waving a hoof over Berry Petal’s brow, making Sunrise’s sunburst caste mark appear on her brow briefly before fading.

Speaker recalled that charm, having seen Cash use it every now and then. It marked a pony as a trusted emissary of a solar, making one’s caste mark appear on their brow when they spoke in your name – a great way of verifying that such a messenger spoke for an actual solar.

The burgundy-coated mare with the scarred face and light barding quickly turned and galloped to the rail-pillar, getting up on the carriage that had just unloaded another group of ponies as it moved to return to Sunhill to bring more ponies to the fortress.

“Impressive. Now what kind of offer did you make to these ponies? I hope you didn’t have to use mind-control charms on them” Speaker said quietly, not wanting any nearby troops to hear him.

Fire Orchid let out of a deep laugh: “Ha! No, I offered them the three things I could give them as a lord of Sunhill: Citizenship, the healthcare of Sunhill, and once we’re done here at Sperimin… enlightened essence – and also a home. They won’t have to wander and scavenge anymore now”

Speaker mused on the offer for a moment. It made sense, but at the same time it didn’t exactly guarantee the loyalty of the troops… or had Sunrise had a go with them to preach to them as well? “I guess that’s not out of the question – but we talked about the danger of enlightening a bunch of mercenaries”

“They’re not mercenaries anymore – Sunrise and Cash had a go at them, don’t worry. Plus, I’ve trained them hard, they love how well they work together now” Fire Orchid explained, setting Speaker’s worries at ease.

Satisfied, Speaker brought Fire Orchid up to speed on what him and Shimmer had done, as well as introducing Crashing Wave to her. The lunar was at first a little apprehensive, unsure if the martially inclined mare would be his solar mate, but once he was sure she wasn’t they got along well enough.

Fire Orchid found the idea of plant-based traps interesting, having seen a few princelings surrounding their castles and fortresses with poisonous thorny vines instead of motes, if they didn’t have easy access to water: “Can’t wait to see how they look in action”

“You don’t have to wait; we’ve got monkeys massing north of the fortress!” Shimmer shouted as she came galloping.

Alarms were quickly sounded, archers quickly lined the northern wall of the fortress.

Now, the fortress itself, its shape, was a five-pointed star. It was an old first-age design Speaker had recalled, made to bottleneck attackers at every turn. Attacking a star-point meant that defenders could quickly barricade and bottleneck attackers at their point of entry. Attacking a deeper section meant that archers could fire on their flanks as they approached. The mix of earth-walls and thick hardwood-palisades also made for tough walls that would resist most siege weapons. On the northern side of the fortress two points of the star jutted out, one to the north-west and one to the north-east. Archers were positioned all along the line on the battlements.

“What are we dealing with?” Fire Orchid barked, as she, Speaker, Shimmer and Crashing Wave arrived up on the battlements.

The officer in charge quickly saluted, then reported that they couldn’t see anything yet.

Turning to Shimmer, Fire Orchid shot the lunar a look that without words asked what exactly she had seen.

“I have an essence-web out around the fortress, extending out into the jungle. I’m sensing about three dozen larger-than-pony creatures approaching from the north” Shimmer said.

Crashing Wave quickly chimed in, having sniffed the air a bit: “I can smell them. Big apes, bronze weapons and armor, poison on the weapons and bananas on their lips”

It wasn’t long after that the tree-line began to rustle. Large blood-hound sized gorillas in bronze armor with green lines painted on them began to appear, howling and hooting nervously. One gorilla, with a helmet outfitted with bright green feathers – clearly an officer – came forth, first screaming something at its gorilla troops to shut up, then calmly looking at the fortress.

“Interesting…” Speaker said, his eyes glowing with golden essence as he carefully observed their equipment.

Fire Orchid equally looked keenly at the troops, but she was clearly not seeing the same that Speaker was: “Disciplined, but not that well equipped. They wield their spears like clubs, and they aren’t forming up into much more than a loose formation. Makes sense if you’re fighting in dense jungle, but with the cleared area around the fortress… useless, except their leader”

It was a bit shocking for Speaker to see Fire Orchid with her eyes blazing with golden fire – indeed he hadn’t really pegged the old mare for someone capable of such thorough analysis, and then there was her comment about the leader of the gorilla troops: “What do you mean their leader?”

“Observe” Fire Orchid said, leaping from the battlements and quickly galloping across the no-mans-land to approach the gorilla troops.

With no prior warning, a lot of the pony troops cried out in surprise at the sight of seeing their commander leap forth and charge at the enemy troops all alone. Speaker found the display quite surprising too – but with even Cash having said that he had managed to fight off an ape ambush, then he wasn’t afraid for Fire Orchid’s safety – but he was curious at what she had been wanting him to see.

Drawing her steel blade from elsewhere as she approached, the very finest masterwork of edged steel that the blacksmiths of Sunhill had been able to produce, Fire Orchid flicked the blade around quickly in the air as it floated around her. As the sword was twirled and flicked, slicing air, it sent out razor waves of essence as the cuts of each swing shot forward – each magical cleave felling an ape.

It happened so quickly – the officer gorilla with the fancy feathered helmet almost instantly finding itself standing alone, surrounded by the corpses of the troops it had been leading.

“Surrender!” Fire Orchid shouted in old realm, loud enough that even Speaker and the other ponies on the ramparts could hear her.

The archers on the rampart seemed a little confused about what she had said, but Speaker quickly figured it out: “She’s speaking in the old first age tongue – and look, the ape is saying something to her. It makes sense… their mistress is a lunar from the first age, so that language is her native tongue”

“Right, so that’s what she taught them to speak – I guess it beats speaking monkey” one of the archers joked to another.

Nodding, Speaker agreed, adding that if the language barrier was that steep then it would likely make it needlessly difficult to defeat them: “…it’s hard to negotiate their surrender when you can’t speak to them”

“You that sure we can defeat them?” another archer wondered out loud, quickly getting a hoof over the head by a nearby sergeant who corrected the archer with stern words and an icy glare, explaining in the unkind words of a harsh junior officer that Speaker was to be addressed as Lord Bright, or at the very least ‘sir’.

Oh, the joy of military discipline – though Speaker did find himself oddly satisfied that the sergeant hadn’t beaten the archer. In Lookshy, for a lowly trooper to fail to properly address a senior officer could get one the lash or the rod in the worst case, depending on how offended the officer in question was – and the realm was, according to the stories he’d heard and wounds he’d treated following the battle of Mishaka, even worse, their feudal societal structure making absolutely no room for ponies at the bottom to ever speak out of turn.

This did make Speaker think for a moment. This model of no corporal punishment was something he had instituted with Sunhill’s meagre defence force. He didn’t recall briefing Fire Orchid on those policies, but he did take note that he would have to thank her for choosing to continue using them now that she had taken over training Sunhill’s troops.

“Lord Bright, Lord General Fire Orchid is returning with the gorilla prisoner!” another nearby archer called out.

Fire Orchid and the gorilla slowly made their way around the edge of the no-man’s-land, making Speaker wonder if she had told the gorilla of how the cleared buffer zone had been mined with Crashing Wave’s seeds.

At the main gate Fire Orchid brought the gorilla into the fortress, the number of ponies inside clearly startling the great ape, even more so as troops were still arriving via the light-rail network.

Cash quickly swooped in and took control of the situation, drawing the gorilla’s attention and ensuring that only the correct things were said to it.

It seemed that Fire Orchid had talked the ape into being a messenger, it thoroughly convinced of her strength – though it seemed clever enough to be dubious of Fire Orchid’s claim that Speaker and Sunrise were greater warriors than her. Not wanting the ape to see too much, Cash quickly put together a diplomatic message supposedly simple enough for the ape to remember – then gave up on that as he found the creature unable to memorize it, instead quickly writing up a much more eloquent message for Rakshi, or as the ape referred to her “The Queen of Fangs”.

As the gorilla was led back to the gate, with Cash’s scroll tied to its back, Speaker wondered exactly how well this diplomatic overture would go. Killing the whole patrol… the fortress… none of it was terribly friendly. Speaker found himself doubting their plan, wondering if a more honest diplomatic approach wouldn’t have been better.

A few hours later a cataclysmic roar rolled out of Sperimin, its shockwave causing the entire jungle to quake and briefly fall silent, if not for a host of birds flying off. The lookouts on the highest towers of the fortress saw this radiate out, and indeed Speaker and Shimmer had to act quickly as the wave rolled over them, for those wooden lookout towers snapped like twigs. Some quick thinking and some even quicker jumping around saw the lookouts saved, while Fire Orchid was able to just as quickly shout a series of orders around that saw everyone on else on the ground move out of the way of the falling towers.

“I don’t think Rakshi appreciated my offer” Cash said, sighing deeply.

Fire Orchid shook her head: “Did you even think for a moment that a barbarian warlord would ever share her hoard? Have you ever even dealt with foes like this?”

“Hey, just because she probably doesn’t smell of perfume and soap doesn’t mean she’s a barbarian” Shimmer protested, not at all liking how Fire Orchid spoke of Rakshi.

The old mare groaned at Shimmer: “No, she smells of blood and monkey shit. That ape we just let out? He spoke of Rakshi as his mother”

“No wonder… he had enlightened essence – that ape was a half-caste, explains everything” Speaker commented, nodding to himself.

Shimmer did not seem very surprised: “Right, because we’ve never heard of lunars who bred powerful animals to help them? Halta anyone?”

Right, Halta – the forest kingdom up in the far north-east where ponies and intelligent animals live together. Sunhill didn’t have any official diplomatic connections with the place, but it didn’t surprise anyone that a lunar would be behind such a society. Fire Orchid frowned at Shimmer: “Whatever. Point is that if she wanted to share and have open relations with the rest of creation, then she would have done so a long time ago. Instead, she has isolated Sperimin with a wall of mutant tribes and local wildlife. It’s a pretty clear message”

The last of the troops, along with several groups of crafts-ponies, arrived later that afternoon. Sunrise arrived with the last carriage, reporting that a great feast was being prepared in Sunhill – both to celebrate the expected victory in Sperimin, but also to celebrate that most of the city had achieved enlightenment: “It’s quite impressive really – ponies everywhere are floating things around and doing their work much faster than before, without tiring physically. They are overjoyed”

The elation Speaker felt was only tempered by the impending strife with Sperimin, but the solar healer and educator none the less felt quite happy at this news.

Formally introducing Crashing Wave to Sunrise was quick and painless: Sunrise found Crashing Wave’s plan about plant-based laborers to replace slavery quite promising, while the lunar in turn concluded that Sunrise was not his solar mate and graciously accepting her moral support for his project: “Now I know who to ask for help once the god of slavery starts getting upset at me”

That evening the final battle plans were drawn up, Sullen Hoof having apparently arrived in secret earlier to better scout the jungle between the fortress and Sperimin. This resulted in Crashing Wave meeting Sully at the war council, the lunar once more concluding that the solar in question was not his solar mate.

“Is it really that important for you to find your solar mate?” Shimmer asked as an aside, while the rest of the circle spoke of plans for deployment.

Crash Wave shrugged, scratching his chin: “I wouldn’t mind finding someone like yours. I’ve been working on my project for years, but I’m not an intellectual. I would love to find a solar to work with who could really speed this up”

“Fair enou- hold on, what’s that?” Shimmer said, turning to the entrance of the large tent they were all in.

The commotion she had heard turned out to be a messenger tussling with the guards outside. There were apes at the gate – not to fight, but envoys.

The war council was quickly paused, the circle moving to the gate to see who and what exactly had come.

It was two bronze-armored gorillas, each with a massive spear, flanking an orangutan priest clad in what could best be described as crudely woven and quite poorly bleached cloth that only lightly smelled of piss. It was clear that it was supposed to look like white cloth, but between many green stains from having rubbed up against various plants, and other colorful stains from food and whatnot, then it really didn’t look very white anymore. This gave the orangutan cleric a very scruffy look, which did not in any way help his attempt to loudly declare in broken old realm that the ponies of the fortress where to leave and never come back: “…lest you suffer the wrath of the king of the jungle and the queen of fangs!”

Upon the battlements, overlooking the envoy and its two guards, Cash smirked and quietly noted: “If that’s how she thinks you send a message, then I think she’s misunderstood something”

Fire Orchid shook her head: “Maybe it’s a test – Sully, do you see anything hiding out in the jungle?”

“There are others out there – but they are hiding in the underbrush, too far to come to the aid of these three if we do anything, so that’s a useless gesture… and I would prefer not to think that they’re that stupid” Sullen Hoof quickly stated, his orichalcum helmet shining in the torchlight.

Cash agreed, saying that the ape he spoke with earlier hadn’t been that stupid either: “…but let’s see what they say when we tell them that we’re not leaving”

A call was made, and Sunrise stepped up on the battlements. Raising her voice, she called out to the apes and declared that the forces of Sunhill weren’t going anywhere until the lords of Sunhill were given free and unrestricted access to the Sperimin university grounds and libraries: “Return to your queen of fangs with this message. Our demands will be met, or we will take Sperimin by force”

“Should I ready the troops?” Fire Orchid inquired, as Sunrise jumped down from the battlements.

Speaker looked at the three apes walking away: “No, let them sleep – we’ll need to wait for Rakshi’s reply – but tomorrow me and Shimmer will sally out to start clearing a small path to Sperimin. I’d like the rest of you with me, but you should stay here Fire Orchid in case they mount a sneak attack while the rest of us are gone”

“A small path? We need to move an army through thick jungle – not sneak them through winding paths that invite only ambushes” Fire Orchid protested.

Gesturing for the solar general to calm herself, Speaker noted that this had been planned for: “You don’t need that much space to move parts for a rail column, and Cash struck a deal with the local jungle spirits to make room for us at the city”

Chuckling, Fire Orchid slapped a strong hoof on Speaker’s shoulder: “This is why I let you do the strategizing. I prefer to do my thinking while on the battlefield”

Chapter 22 Victory of a Different Day

The Celestial Centipede stylist samples many soups, and survives each encounter with but minor wounds and scratches, before unfurling its many arms and legs to devour each soup at once.

…

The jungle was suspiciously quiet the next morning, around the Seven Quill fortress – so named for the seven exalts there, and for the colorful parrot Shimmer had caught and plucked for decorations. Shimmer and Crashing Wave both quickly concluded that the silence of the local wildlife was because of the many smaller monkeys sneaking around the jungles around them, both on the ground and up in the tree canopies.

“They’re small though, scouts at best – not warriors – but I’d suggest we keep archers and spear ponies on the battlements none the less. They’re looking for weaknesses to exploit” Shimmer noted, her charms extending her senses out far beyond her own body.

Crashing Wave agreed: “I’d like to take a couple dozen ponies at arms and use the rail pillar to skip back a bit, then circle back around, see what we can rustle up”

The rest of the circle saw no problem with that – for apparently Crashing Wave had led many a raid back home west, making him a competent leader of small raiding parties. An hour later a group of volunteers led by the lunar zipped away on the rail network, while the rest of the circle prepared to sortie into the jungle and clear a path to Sperimin.

Shimmer and Speaker focused on the actual tree-clearing, Speaker using a mix of his magical weapons and charms of artifice to disassemble the thick-rooted trees, while Shimmer bulked up into her warform, ripping out the weakened roots Speaker left for her, while storing the logs elsewhere. This left Cash, Sully and Sunrise to scout ahead and keep a lookout for mutants and monkeys.

“Well, there’s plenty of monkeys, but I’m not seeing any mutants just yet…” Sullen Hoof noted, his charms lending him supernaturally acute senses.

Cash shrugged, using his magical shoes and the claws they could extend to cut through vines and other obstacles: “Perhaps, but we know they’re here somewhere – the ones I had the pleasure of speaking to before you lot showed up didn’t strike me as the sort Rakshi would permit to just watch the coming battle on the sidelines”

“I could try to coax them out with song?” Sunrise suggested, noting that the others would have to put their mental defence charms up first.

Speaker found that Shimmer got quite distracted as Sunrise began her beautiful song enhanced with charms of alure. Indeed many a local songbird and other critter came out to join Sunrise, adding a wonderful chorus of eerily melodic chirps and thrills to the mare’s own heavenly singing. This magical display confused Cash: “How is she able to do that to the animals?”

“Musical martial arts – and a lot of charms that enhance her singing in general, plus I think she the charm on that lets her speak with animals – so I guess her song calls to all of them” Speaker mused.

This continued for a few hours, the circle slowly inching towards Sperimin. On several occasions Sully snuck off into the thick jungles, returning a little later with blood on his orichalcum cleavers – noting that while he was finding tracks and other signs of mutant tribal ponies in the area, then it seemed like the nearest tribal settlements had been cleared out completely.

“Well so much for that plan” Cash said dejectedly, referring to the plan the circle had made earlier of using Cash and Sunrise to flip at least some of the local tribes to fight on their side.

“I’m guessing Rakshi predicted that we would try that” Shimmer pointed out as she folded another log into elsewhere.

Less than half a mile later, which still took several hours to clear, the circle was close enough to Sperimin than they could see the crystal towers of the six-fold campus through the tree canopies. Everyone quickly climbed up – or helped each other climb up – the nearby trees so that they could see the place properly.

Speaker felt tears creep up: “I can’t even begin to recount how much time I spent here, both as a student and as a teacher…”

The grand hexagonal central tower of the university, wrought of gleaming multi-faceted adamant and some kind of metal that hadn’t lost its polish over the many thousands of years since the first age, was capped with a done of orichalcum and was circled by twelve parapets. It was a glorious sight to behold, standing clean and seemingly quite untouched by the ravages of time. Of course, it also stood conspicuously alone: Speaker recalled a sprawling city around it, though only the central campus has been built to be impervious to the ravages of time.

“Honestly, something this close to the wyld… back during the great contagion this place must have been completely overrun by the changelings. They probably tore the place apart” Fire Orchid mused.

Speaker sighed, reluctantly agreeing: “True, and while the central tower stands, then that doesn’t say anything about the contents. We want what’s in the libraries, not a tower far off in the middle of no-where”

“Well then Lord Bright, let’s make room for a pillar here so we can get back to the fortress – I’m pretty damn sure that we’re being watched by a lot of angry eyes right now” Shimmer noted, Sully agreeing that while he couldn’t see anything, then he was smelling a lot of monkeys…

Upon returning to the Seven Quill fortress via light-rail, the circle held its final war council. The assault would begin in the morning, with the circle first going out via the path and setting up the final forward rail pillar and then immediately bringing in troops via it. The risk that there might well be apes between them and the fortress was a risk they accepted, Cash noting that he would handle the rear-guard action. Fire Orchid would be up in front, helming the front line, while Speaker and Shimmer would watch for any surprises and help out where needed, Crashing Wave saying that he could lock down a whole flank on his own. Sunrise was on the most important duty: She would be flinging counter-magic around like it was cheap cookies, to make sure Rakshi didn’t just shape up a spell that would turn everyone to ash, and finally Sullen Hoof would stay hidden to be an ace in the hole.

It honestly hadn’t surprised Speaker that much to hear that Sunrise had initiated into second circle sorcery while he had been away – if anything he had been a little disappointed that she hadn’t really used it for much, though as she had put it during the war council: “Even among lunar sorcerers then there isn’t much available to learn. The immaculates burn any sorcerous tomes they find that do not fit with their dogma, and the sidereals are bound by heavenly bylaws from teaching us – the bronze faction hoarding, hiding or destroying anything with solar circle sorcery just the same. With the book of three circles under our control, this will change”

This brought up another topic, one that was a bit awkward to broach considering Crashing Wave’s presence: Sidereals.

“Can we expect any… celestial reinforcements for this?” Speaker wondered, not sure if passing around hopeful glances to the circle would help.

Sunrise shook her head, her hood trailing her movements: “I asked before leaving for here. While they consider the book of three rings to be of great import, then… they’re afraid. Based on what I was told then a lot of sidereals have tried to access the book over the last several hundred years and very few got away alive. That’s why they have given up on it”

Crashing Wave perked an eyebrow: “Oh, you have contact with the sidereal host as well?”

“You know of the sidereals?” Fire Orchid said, sounding genuinely surprised.

The lunar nodded, explaining that before coming to the east for his plant-labourer project, he had worked with a sidereal back west as part of a circle: “…we also had the twins, two unicorns. They were the face of the circle, I was the muscle, while Teeganak the Solar was the brains of the operation. We did a number on the lintha and a series of demon cults back west before we parted. Good times”

Duly impressed with Crashing Wave’s past exploits, the circle finished up its plans for the attack. The army was given one last night of sleep, while sentries kept watch on the battlements.

In the morning six separate packs of dead monkeys were found at various spots outside the fortress, each having been caught in a variety of Crashing Wave’s defensive plant weapons: Some had been tangled in thorny poisonous vines that had sprouted up around them, others had been caught and crushed by constricting snake vines, the rest having falling to toxic spores from instantly blossoming flowers that had already rotted away come dawn. The sentries hadn’t heard anything – and upon autopsies of a few of the monkeys by Speaker, it was found that the monkeys had gotten their throats and tongues cut in such a way that none of them could speak or make any real noises at some point earlier before their raid, judging from the freshness of the barely healed wounds.

Everyone agreed that carving up monkeys like that to set up a sneak attack was just plain sick. Fire Orchid agreed, but added her own observation: “This means they couldn’t be trusted to stay quiet for their sneak attacks. This tells us a lot about how disciplined this kind of monkeys are… or aren’t”

“Good point. Poorly disciplined troops break easier – Sunrise, keep this in mind, user your song charms to demoralize them completely if you can” Cash chimed in.

Shimmer had an idea: “Hey, maybe we can use this – as a no moon caste lunar, I can do a special form of temporary shapeshifting: If I drink just a drop or two of dead monkey blood, I can shapeshift into that monkey form for a short while… could use it to return to Sperimin and scout out their defences and troop organization here just before the battle”

“I thought you had to perform a sacred hunt to learn something’s shape?” Cash wondered.

Nodding, Shimmer agreed: “Oh that is needed if I am to learn the form permanently – but that’s why doing this is temporary… but I only need a few fish scales, or drops of blood, or bit of flesh, tears – anything from the being I’m impersonating – and since these monkeys couldn’t make any noise anyway, it shouldn’t be that hard to act like a frightened ape”

“Not a bad idea – except you won’t know how to act like the ape regardless. We don’t know how the apes act around Rakshi… you would probably be spotted right away” Fire Orchid noted, expressing that Rakshi might be cocky, but wasn’t stupid.

With a frown, Shimmer saw the logic: “Fair enough – it was just an idea, plus I’ve never actually done it before… but ok, lets ready the troops then”

The army was readied, the frontline units donning their fearsome spiked armour-plated barding, the archers stringing their bows. All of the units got on board the various rail carriages which had been prepared the day before, for rapid deployment.

The circle once more sallied out from the fortress, quickly journeying via the path they had cleared the day before. Well, almost quickly – the path was covered with patches of freshly dug dirt, and exceedingly obviously strung-out trip-wire vines. It was almost sad…

“Well, it does match what Cash said about how dull-witted most of the apes are, plus traps like these probably work just fine in dense jungle – I guess they’re not used to dealing with cleared and open ground” Fire Orchid mused as she cut her way through. The vines didn’t seem to trigger any traps, though the freshly dug spots of dirt did turn out to contain sharpened stake pit traps, all of which were quickly collapsed and rendered safe to walk over.

Approaching the small clearing they had set up for the forward rail pillar, the circle found themselves greeted by a pony there – a moonsilver tattoo-covered pony who stood flanked by a dozen armed mutant tribal ponies.

Cash quickly stepped up, introducing himself politely using charms that ensured universal translation, in turn asking who the pony was.

“I am Dark Eyes, chosen of Luna, and the tribes that live around Mahalanka are my wards. You are not welcome here” the stallion said in old realm, glaring at the circle with some very noticeable dark markings under his eyes. They looked a bit like tribal tattoos, though he bore none of the markings that ponies around him wore, which seemed to be chiefly red triangular markings.

The circle shared a mix of smirks and head-shakes. The lunar certainly didn’t seem happy that his little threat display wasn’t taken seriously: “I am the right hoof of the queen of fangs! You defy me at your own peril!”

“Speaker, threat assessment?” Fire Orchid said quietly, being sure to speak in rivertongue, as she hoped that the lunar wouldn’t understand her.

Exploiting his improved essence sight charm that let him see the mystic essence patterns of reality without his eyes or caste mark lighting up, Speaker beheld the lunar to gauge the exalted pony’s power: “He’ll probably give you a run for your money, plus he has some interesting ‘lumps’ in his moonsilver tattoos”

“That’s probably tattoo artifacts – moonsilver weapons and armor blended into his tattoos which he can deploy at will. You can’t disarm a lunar from those” Shimmer quickly noted, her eyes darting all around as the tribal ponies started to fan out in a not-very-subtle attempt to surround the circle.

Fire Orchid shot the mutant tribals a very angry look, making them halt their encirclement attempt, then she turned to Dark Eyes: “Well that’s good for you, because we don’t have business with the lands around Sperimin, we have business in Sperimin”

“Are you a special kind of stupid? The queen of fangs permits no visitors these days. Leave or die screaming” Dark Eyes said, pointing a hoof at Fire Orchid in a most aggressive fashion, as it dissolved into moonsilver and reshaped itself to feature four sharp claws.

Sullen Hoof appeared behind Dark Eyes from a veil of solar essence, an orichalcum cleaver floated up right next to the lunar’s throat: “Sounds like a good idea. You leave, or die – our issue is with Rakshi, not you. If these ponies are your wards, then tell them to stay well away from the coming battle if they value their lives”

Speaker could see the ripple running down the lunar’s spine with his essence sight, the twitch of fear. The lunar turned his head just enough to see Sully, the angular orichalcum helmet and coolie hat making for a very low-key intimidating appearance: “You… solar?”

Cash chuckled and lit up his caste mark: “We all are”

Everyone lit up their caste marks, Dark Eyes’s eyes going in wide in fear. He clearly knew well enough that he wasn’t ready to face off against that many powerful foes. With a few quick but carefully barked orders at the tribals, in their crude tongue, the tribals began to back off and withdraw into the jungle.

Sully withdrew his cleaver from the throat of the lunar: “You can tell Rakshi that all we want is a full copy of the book of three rings. If she gives us that, we’ll leave”

“She’ll kill you before giving anyone that!” Dark Eyes said, shaking his head at the circle as he backed away from them.

Fire Orchid shrugged: “Honestly, we sort of expected that response. That’s why we brought an army and a lot of solars”

The lunar didn’t bother responding to that, instead disappearing into the thick jungle underbrush.

Speaker quickly instructed Shimmer to pull out the rail pillar segments she had stored elsewhere. With his charms the pillar was quickly assembled, and just as the last crystals slotted into place and the pillar top lit up, a great and deep roar was heard from Sperimin.

The entire jungle shook, and the roar lasted for a disturbingly long time.

“Oh, someone’s upset… and has big lungs” Sully noted.

Fire Orchid chuckled: “I’m guessing Dark Eyes finished his report – Shimmer, are you detecting anything around us here?”

Her eyes glowing with pale moonlight, Shimmer nodded slowly as her hooves held an inviable web of essence taught, feeling the vibrations on each strand: “There are almost four hundred gorillas in the jungle around us – but they’re keeping their distance, and the tribals are long gone, headed north. Hold up, detecting motion from the city coming right at us, its… a monkey?”

A single small monkey, the kind of thing you’d see everywhere in the jungles of the south-east, swung from vine to vine, leaping from branches to land in the clearing in front of the circle – but it was obvious that it was no normal little monkey: Its eyes glowed bright with silvery flames, to the point that the flesh on its face was crisping ever so slightly, as if the little monkey body could barely handle whatever charm or magic had been used to take control of it. As it spoke it also quickly became clear that its throat was bulging somewhat unnaturally, but it allowed it to speak like a pony: “Who dares enter the territory of the queen of fangs?”

“Greetings Rakshi, oh queen of fangs. We are the lords of Sunhill, and I am Lord Cash Charmer, of the Solar Eclipse caste. We are he-“ Cash began, but the monkey suddenly screeched and flung a wee bit of poo right into Cash’s mouth.

The rest of the circle chuckled as Cash sputtered and reached for his waterskin, but then the monkey spoke: “I care not for who you are. Leave or die!”

Quickly composing himself, Cash tried again: “Please, Queen Rakshi, we are here seeking a copy of the book of three rings – nothing else”

This time when the monkey hurled poop at Cash he had his invincible ego shield charm up, making the monkey miss. This only seemed to piss off Rakshi as she somehow remotely controlled the monkey: “Then get used to being disappointed. None may approach the book of three rings until I master adamant circle sorcery!”

Sunrise shot Speaker a frowny face: “Didn’t you say that only solars could initiate into third circle sorcery?”

Nodding, Speaker sighed: “Well, doing the impossible is par for the course for any exalt, but still… there are limits – and that one we never found a way to break, not even in the first age”

“So that is her obsession. My profiling charms agree – she won’t let anyone else get near the book as long as she can’t exploit it fully either” Sullen Hoof said quietly, sounding none too happy about what his charms led him to believe, having exploited that Rakshi had laid her soul bare by possessing or remote controlling the monkey.

Shimmer groaned, her eyes darting between the monkey and the circle: “Are there any lunar elders left who aren’t weirdos?”

The monkey screeched aggressively, pounding the dirt with its tiny hands as it seemed furious over being ignored: “Begone or die!”

In a lightning-quick move Fire Orchid drew a blade and sent a charm-projected slash that split the monkey in half as a response to the monkey’s relayed statement from Rakshi.

The jungle around the circle exploded in howls, the circle quickly bracing itself for an attack, but Shimmer reported that the apes in the jungle around them were withdrawing back to the city.

“Alright, time to start this song and dance – I’ll return to the fortress and start bringing in troops, Cash you do your thing” Fire Orchid declared, reaching an essence-wrapped hoof up towards the rail pillar.

Cash nodded as Fire Orchid’s hoof extended a golden tendril of essence up to the shining rail crystal atop the pillar in an instant, quickly yanking her up and away: “Alright, let’s do this!”

A quick prayer with the specific agreed-upon wording saw the local forest gods summoned before the circle. Cash invoked the oath he had bound the spirits to earlier, and with magical gestures from the divinities made of leaves and vines the entire jungle seemed to shuffle away from the circle, revealing a wide stretch of bare dirt leading right up to overgrown Sperimin.

This left a lot of apes on the ground, looking rather confused, if they hadn’t simply taken along as the trees left. They quickly scattered towards the retreating tree-lines or the city, just as Fire Orchid returned with the first three wings of armed and armored troops. With quickly barked orders, the dawn caste solar had the troops form up the front of a battle line, while the rest of the circle positioned themselves as planned.

As the rest of the army came in and formed up, Speaker ignited the ruby pinions on his shoulders, the wings of fire they projected letting him fly up and survey the battlefield: “We’ve got apes coming out of the city – they’re forming ranks!”

Ahead of the apes walked a certain bronze-armored lunar with blackened eyes, several hundred similarly armed and armored gorillas marching with him. Speaker saw several other large gorilla units file out of the city, fanning out to form a far broader battle-line than what the Sunhill forces was forming. That… was bad. Indeed, Speaker counted thousands upon thousands of gorillas marching out of the city – after about an hour there had to be at least thirty thousand gorillas, to Sunhill’s six thousand ponies at arms.

Being outnumbered was never good – being outnumbered some ten to one by foes three to four times as strong as a pony? Much worse. Speaker began to dread the coming battle… Rakshi hadn’t even shown herself yet!

Flying down to the ground, Speaker found himself summoned by Fire Orchid and Sullen Hoof. Sully had apparently been looking very intently at the lunar, trying to sus out what the lunar stallion’s stake in all this was: “He doesn’t want to be here”

“I’m sorry, he doesn’t want to what?” Speaker asked, finding Sully’s claim rather preposterous.

The night caste solar took a deep breath: “He’s only here because he fears defying Rakshi – his own priorities are elsewhere, with the mutant tribals we saw him with earlier. I think Cash should try to engage him and talk him into leaving the battlefield”

“But if what you’re saying is right, he’ll stick around because he doesn’t want to face the wrath of Rakshi” Speaker pointed out, Fire Orchid nodding in agreement.

Sully agreed, but made one final comment: “That just means we have to force her out on the battlefield so we can deal with her. I’m not seeing any archers among the apes – I don’t think they have the fine motor controls for bows – so if you fly up and use your spooking charm to break the apes, that’ll force her out to defend her territory, while leaving the lunar alone for Cash to mess with”

Speaker had never thought of Sullen Hoof as one with a head for strategy or tactics, but he knew that Sully knew how to manipulate others – and in this case those skills worked well here: “Not a bad idea, I’ll fly back and pick him up”

Flying off again, Speaker made his way over the Sunhill army and spotted Cash guardian the rear and the rail pillar. The pile of carved up monkey corpses next to him told its own story. Speaker quickly landed and told Cash of Sully’s idea: “…also, nice job on the monkeys. You, ok?”

“They haven’t been able to touch me yet – but they had shown up with some basic copper tools. It was clear that they had been sent to take down the pillar, not to fight. Who’ll guard this if I go up to mess with the lunar?” Cash said, looking up at the crystal spires of Sperimin.

The shrill bird call called attention to Shimmer as she approached and came to a hover, her wings flapping hard in her warform to hold herself as the sacks she was carrying up: “I can guard the pillar once I’ve dumped the rest of these seeds around our flanks Lord Bright!”

Speaker nodded as Shimmer flew off again, turning to Cash: “Let’s go”

It took a bit of effort, but Speaker was just able to lift Cash up and get him to the front, just as the apes came into range of the Sunhill archers. As Speaker landed with Cash, Fire Orchid flared her anima banner up and cried out: “Archers, three hundred, loose!”

The hail of arrows that came in over their head darkened the skies, each aimed to strike an unseen target three hundred yards ahead. Before the three solars many a gorilla fell – but they still outnumbered the forces of Sunhill over ten to one.

“Well, that’s a good opening volley. Have them ready for another go, I’ll go chat with Dark Eyes” Cash said with a twinkle in his eyes, galloping out from the Sunhill troops towards the apes.

Speaker flew up again, surveying the battlefield. What he saw looked… worrying. Staying at a height low enough to shout down to Fire Orchid, Speaker relayed that he could see three large units of gorillas breaking ranks and charging. Fire Orchid quickly had the archers target them, breaking two of them before they got anywhere close to the Sunhill line, while the third unit… oh she had to gallop quickly to get down the Sunhill line to lead the unit about to get charged, and as the gorillas broke into a sprint she felled dozens of them via slashes of her blade projected out at them.

“Lock shields!” Fire Orchid roared, as the Sunhill line braced against the gorillas and levelled their spears at them.

Speaker watched the fighting open up, and dove down to assist, flinging Gift and Homage with great force at the apes below. Sullen Hoof similarly appeared in the rear of the ape unit, carving up apes with great expertise and absolute brutal precision.

It was a bit strange that the rest of the ape line had held – and in short order the lone gorilla unit was completely massacred, making for nothing but a bloody terrain obstacle in front of the Sunhill line. Landing, Speaker approached Fire Orchid: “You good?”

“Oh, we’re all fine – these idiots might swing hard, but their aim is like a drunken sailor. Pitiful discipline too” Fire Orchid said, her breathing still elevated and her armor scuffed up and stained with ape blood.

Satisfied that Fire Orchid was still in one piece, Speaker looked towards Cash in the distance. At a few miles away, it was hard to make out details, but the silver-blue anima blazing made it clear that Dark Eyes had started fighting back – but there was no golden anima visible, so Cash hadn’t brought up the big guns… yet.

“With their leader distracted, you should fly out and scare the rest of the army away – go!” Fire Orchid said, as she began to check up on the troops around her. They were harried like her, but equally largely unscathed due to their good equipment and her defensive charms.

Right, that was the next step in the plan to lure out Rakshi. Speaker flew up, looking around. At their southern flank was Crashing Wave in his crab warform, looking very heavily armored, with huge pincers on his forelimbs. Their northern flank was exposed, but had been mined with the seeds that Shimmer had airdropped. At the rear Shimmer was waving back at him, perched up on the pillar, which appeared to have been wrapped up in a giant shimmering spiderweb full of tiny wiggling monkeys. This was going good so far, time for phase two.

Flying towards the northen flank, Speaker swooped in towards the apes. They quickly closed ranks, bringing up their shields – but they could not guard against what Speaker brought upon them: His Mob-Dispersing Rebuke, a powerful fear-inducing shout that saw the whole wing of gorillas turn and scatter in a rout towards the nearby jungles.

Pleased that his plan was working so far, Speaker looked down the Sperimin line at the almost two dozen remaining wings of gorillas. Cash and Dark Eyes were still going at it, but from the looks of things then Cash wasn’t fighting back, merely dodging and likely stabbing at the lunar’s mind with his words instead.

Three gorilla wings routed later, it occurred to Speaker that the internal messaging for the Sperimin forces basically didn’t exist. Nobody was notifying Dark Eyes that a quarter of his forces had run off. Oh, this was great! Taking care not to get too close to the lunar, chiefly by taking a detour back the Sunhill line to inform Fire Orchid of his discovery, Speaker flew around to scare off the southern end of the Sperimin line.

This was great. If the Sperimin numbers could be whittled down like this, before anyone ever managed to do a proper mass charge, then the Sunhill forces would have a much stronger position. While numerically absolutely superior, were the Sperimin forces really this poorly organized?

Speaker thought about it while spooking away more of the ape army: What would these things normally fight, if anything? The tribes around the city would keep all the small fry out, so the apes would probably only be called in to deal with larger threats… if any at all? No, it would be a bit too much wishful thinking to believe that the gorillas were entirely without real combat experience, or so Speaker reasoned, but it wouldn’t sound too unthinkable to have Rakshi use the tribes of mutants as expendable meat shields. This made him wonder where those tribals were… shouldn’t they have attacked in their flank or something yet?

Loud screeching and rustling in the jungle a the northern flank of the Sunhill line suddenly caught Speaker’s attention. Something had fallen in the killer plant traps. Hurrying over there, Speaker only got there in time to inspect the carnage and the sight of a few dozen gorillas fleeing into the open, fleeing towards Sperimin while staying well away from the treeline… for the treeline looked hungry.

Hmm… no tribals. But with a bit more than a third of the ape army routed, Speaker flew to Fire Orchid and suggested that they advance the Sunhill line so the archers could start working on the apes that were still holding back.

“You’ve thinned their numbers enough for that already?” the dawn caste wondered, looking at the ape line in the distance that still looked twice the width of the Sunhill line was offering.

Nodding, Speaker said that if they started to charge he’d still be able to scatter a fair bit of them before they could get to her: “…and Cash is still toying with Dark Eyes. I have no clue what they’re going on about, but if he’s keeping their general from noticing that his army is falling to pieces then all the more power to him”

Fire Orchid shouted the orders, and signal banners were raised. The Sunhill line advanced calmly – not a march, for it was with spears lowered to counter any enemy charge – but none came. Speaker followed along on the ground. The biggest issue was the large pile of dead gorillas blocking part of the line – but the unit commanders knew how to think around problems like that, so with some quick manoeuvring everyone got around the piles of chopped up apes. Still, figuring out the issue caused enough of a distraction for Speaker and Fire Orchid that it was first when Cash shouted at them that they turned to look…

Now, the good news seemed to be that Dark Eyes seemed to be gone – but the bad news was that the entire gorilla army was charging, and Cash was galloping as fast as he could go, barely staying ahead of the charging apes to avoid getting overrun.

Fire Orchid instantly snapped to, barking orders left and right, ensuring that the whole Sunhill line was locked down and braced for the attack: “Come on – our time to shine!”

Arrows rained down over the apes as they thundered over the battlefield, while Speaker flew out to help Cash out: “Fire me a claw!”

Cash’s problem was that to shoot one of his magical horse-shoe claws up for Speaker to grab he had to stop and rear up – which meant getting caught by the bloodthirsty apes. The galloping diplomat managed to communicate this problem back to Speaker using charms, prompting Speaker to instead swoop down and lift Cash up.

…but much like earlier when Speaker had given Cash an airlift to the front of the Sunhill line, then this was not a fast liftoff – but with Speaker floating him up, Cash’s hooves were free for aiming, letting his fire his steel claws at the approaching gorillas, felling just enough that they couldn’t catch him, though several threw their spears. For Cash the thrown spears weren’t an issue, his charms making it very difficult to hit him. For Speaker it was a different issue, since his defensive charms were geared towards simply shielding him once hit – and being hit while flying with a heavy load meant he had to struggle to stay in control of his flight.

That was when some of the gorillas threw bolas, completely tangling Speaker up – despite his magical wings of fire. As the two ponies fell to the ground, Cash’s defensive charm failed to protect him from the fall as the ground cared not to be fooled by his charms, while Speaker’s saw him tumble to the ground unscathed. Both were instantly surrounded and pounced upon by bloodthirsty gorilla soldiers.

For most ponies this would have been a problem – a big one at that – but all Speaker had to do was use his fright charm to cause all the apes to run away, or so they should have, if not for a really big gorilla with a bright grey-brown streak down the back of its head. The extra-large gorilla flexed, the bronze plate armor that covered the great ape looking quite thick over its bulging muscles, making for a potent display of its great power and magical martial arts. The massive two-handed green jade maul the gorilla wielded didn’t hurt either. The ape laughed at the two ponies: “Apes no run while Ajit Slave-Of-Might comma-“

…and that was all that the great ape got to say, before Cash and Speaker attacked the great beast with a coordinated attack, Cashing having communicated subtly through wordless charms to Speaker to set up the sneak attack – and Speaker using his various martial arts charms to strike with the speed of a striking cobra, letting him leap up and pummel the great ape with an essence enhanced armor-shattering strike, that saw the ape’s bronze helmet explode in a shower of rivets and torn bits of metal that felled a handful of nearby apes. Cash followed this attack up quickly with an elegant and high leap that saw him come down upon the ape’s head, striking it like a heavenly thunder-hammer, which resulted in the ape’s head shooting straight down into its body, all of which exploded in a gory shower of blood, bone and bits of blood-soaked black fur, which killed even more apes around them.

The gorillas around them looked absolutely shocked – of the few still alive, seeing the strongest among them so easily dispatched. Speaker caught his breath and used his fear charm again: “This is the part where you all run away!”

The apes instantly scattered, howling in fear and even crawling over each other to get away. This appeared to weaken a broad section of the Sperimin forces that had reached the Sunhill line, breaking its morale and forcing a retreat. As far as Speaker and Cash were concerned, this just meant more apes running past them back to Sperimin.

That was when a mighty bestial roar rolled out over the battlefield like thunder, the very ground quaking.

Chapter 23 Wisdom of Sunipa

The Thousand-Wounds Gear stylist eats all of the soup one spoonful at a time, unstoppably once started. Everyone else around him goes hungry.

…

The gigantic ape that came bounding out of Sperimin was enourmous - easily ten yards tall. It’s moonsilver anima was a dead giveaway: This was Rakshi in her true form, and she looked pissed!

Speaker recognized the Emperor Ox shapeshifting technique, one that enlarges a lunar’s true form to an absolutely massive degree, standing some eight or nine yards tall, even when hunched over as in her giant form. Towering above everything in the battlefield at, even the rail-pillar, the gigantic ape roared and all the fleeing gorillas stopped dead in their tracks.

Oh of course she could rally her troops that way.

Still, this was – more or less – still going according to plan. Now to take down big ugly. Cash and Speaker quickly galloped back to the Sunhill line, what few gorilla troops still engaged quickly falling to the solars attacking their rear.

But the worst was arguably not just Rakshi in her giant monkey form – no, it was that she was not alone. For next to her four enormous horrors manifested, each beyond mortal words, each glowing with baleful green fire or other magical manifestations that marked each clearly as demons of such power that no mortal should ever hope to bear their witness and retain their wits, countenance or courage.

“Where is Sunrise! We need her up front! Demon banishment!” Cash hollered, before seeing Sunrise floating above the Sunhill line on a magically conjured cloud, standing watch.

Swinging a massive limb around, to point an enormous clawed monkey paw at her foes, Rakshi roared: “Get back in formation and attack!”

Quite a few of the gorillas had, instead of getting back in formation, gotten down on their knees to… pray? To nobody’s surprise the apes were worshiping her, loudly chanting “Kong kong kong”, though that ended as Rakshi’s order rolled out over them like thunder, the enormous demon horrors joining the charge just as the first one imploded from Sunrise’s banishment spell.

Rakshi herself glowed with baleful moonlight, extruding two additional pairs of arms, and then each pair of arms began shaping a sorcerous spell, pooling essence and will into glowing spheres of potential and altered reality. Sunrise quickly raised another hoof, projecting a counterspell at one of them.

The explosion from the dozens of motes of tightly wound essence instantly burned all the fur off four of Rakshi’s six arms, as well as causing her to roar in fury, and aim one of the scalded limbs at Sunrise: Her claws erupted from that paw, launching not just as Sunrise, but barraging the entire Sunhill line with five yard-long giant claws as if they were ballista bolts!

Fire Orchid barely had time to order her troops to brace for impact, but it seemed that the troops had already been preparing to brace against the oncoming gorilla army charge – though the giant claws still punched giant holes in the shield wall, as ponies were simply physically thrown back by the mass off the giant claws. Bruised and battered, the troops scrambled to reform the line before the gorillas got to them. Speaker managed to catch one launched claw with his gyroscopic chakrams, holding the disks before him like shields, only to see Sunrise struck up on her magic cloud, which knocked her clean off down to the ground.

“Shimmer, get Sunrise!” Speaker called out, hoping that his lunar mate was keeping tabs on him.

Turned out she was, as a shrill bird cry moments later announced Shimmer’s arrival with Sunrise held in her claws. Sunrise quickly dusted herself off and before saying anything to either Speaker or Shimmer aimed another counterspell at Rakshi, popping a second spell just before it was cast – but Rakshi did manage to unleash the third spell she had been working on, crushing the orb of condensed essence she was shaping and flinging what turned into red strands of essence into the Sunhill army.

Initially nothing happened other than Sunrise was able to refocus onto the charging demons and banish one, but Fire Orchid quickly yelled for the troops to clear away from the spot where the essence had seeped into the ground once she realized what was happening.

That’s when all hell broke loose: Five giant tentacles of glowing red-hot magma erupted, like a volcano eruption given life. The tentacles flailed around wildly, striking ponies left and right, crushing them with both their mass and melting them with their burning heat. Speaker rushed in to parry the mighty blows of the tentacles, flying around to swat them aside while ordering the troops to clear further away from the tentacles and their impressive reach.

As far as Fire Orchid was concerned, the biggest issue of the magma kraken spell as she would later learn it was called, was that it had divided the Sunhill line in two – and it made it rather risky for messengers to run orders down to the split off section, which was quite bad since the gorillas were almost upon them again.

Rakshi seemed content to just watch the carnage unfold and laughing – but the instant she saw the ponies of Sunhill had cleared away from her magma kraken she began shaping three spells again. Sunrise quickly began aiming counterspells at her – but Rakshi was no fool: With a huff thick clouds of iridescent vapor billowed out of her nose and mouth, quickly letting her hide herself completely – though that did give Sunrise reprieve to banish a third demon before she called out.

“I can’t counter a spell I can’t see – Speaker, where do you want me?” Sunrise said in a firm and quick tone, fully understanding that any more magic could wreak havoc upon the Sunhill army.

Speaker threw a glance towards Fire Orchid, who was busy ordering her troops to spread out, so any spell aimed at them would hit fewer targets, then he looked back at Sunrise: “Banish the last big one and go to phase three. Sully should be there quickly, I’ll follow suit”

Nodding, Sunrise guided her cloud down to swoop her up with but a thought, her quickly zipping off towards the gigantic ape, taking her on an intercept course first to the last of the enormous demons that roared at her with six mouths that bled darkness and swallowed light – but each of them closed as she struck it down with a banishment spell. Shimmer looked at Speaker: “Rear is safe for now – you want me to join in?”

“No, but stick around here – help when the gorilla charge reaches us” Speaker said, leaping into the air and flying after Sunrise.

Approaching Rakshi, Speaker found himself in need of his fearlessness charm once he got on the other side of the vapor veil. Standing as tall as a four-story castle, and built just the same with massive muscular limbs, long fangs and just as long claws on each paw – it was hard to tell if this was the warform or true form of the elder lunar, but it really didn’t seem to matter: There was no doubt that Rakshi was incredibly powerful in that form.

The explosion from Sunrise successfully countering another spell blew away most of the vapor, letting everyone see as Rakshi began swinging wildly at the solar on the cloud and the solar with wings of fire flying around her.

Speaker could feel the draft as Rakshi drew a heavy breath once more, but this time no roar came. There was a brief moment as Rakshi seemed perplexed by this lack of sound – for indeed, the roaring din of charging gorilla troops had also disappeared. Rakshi slammed her paws into the ground, again it making no sound, even though Speaker could see the ground quake.

Speaker wasted no time, using the silence caused by Sunrise’s exotic martial arts to fly behind Rakshi and land on her back, at a spot where his anatomical observations had told him that she would have difficulty reaching. Sullen Hoof joined him moments later, leaping in from an unseen location, his cleavers slick with gorilla blood. The two nodded at each other, and quickly began working: Speaker willed forth Homage, his beam-edged gyroscopic chakram, and took a deep breath.

This was phase three: Taking Rakshi down. Part one had been thinning out Sperimin’s forces before any actual fighting began, part two had been straight up fighting against them – each had contained carefully planned elements, most of which had worked surprisingly well up until that point.

Speaker and Sully’s part of phase three involved softening up Rakshi, using their charms and weapons to lower her defences based on what they knew about lunar defensive charms. Of course, they could see that Rakshi hadn’t deployed the bone-armor growing charm… yet… Still, they weren’t going to question good luck.

Sullen Hoof put away his cleavers, readying his hooves, as Speaker struck first with Homage and its edge of pure energy, followed instantly by an application of his aesthetic charm that Rakshi shouldn’t notice she was being cut into. Now, while the beam-edge of the weapon was known to cauterize all wounds, then Speaker had still expected some level of blood from the deep cuts… but it seemed that Rakshi’s giant form came with an incredibly thick and tough hide. Sullen Hoof followed up, carefully punching the gigantic ape repeatedly in a rhythmic fashion that made her flesh ripple and tenderize, leaving it soft and yielding – an artifact of his cooking based martial arts.

Sullen Hoof incidentally gave amazing massages.

Meanwhile, Sunrise and Cash kept Rakshi’s attention locked on them. The two engaging in a very violent, but also very quiet, cat and mouse game.

Sunrise found herself perplexed at how Rakshi was able to keep casting spells, knowing from Sage’s teachings how much one had to strain one’s mind to project enough will and essence to soften and reshape reality for sorcery. This was Rakshi’s seventh spell – there had to be a limit! Examining Rakshi via essence sight, she tried to uncover the elder lunar’s secret, but there was so much essence whirling around the lunar that it was difficult to tell anything apart.

Cash was having similar trouble – but it was more of the ‘avoid being squished’ variety, as Rakshi slammed fist after fist into the ground, each aimed at him. Jumping and dodging left and right, Cash maintained his charms that forced her to focus her attention on him, all the while praying that his ego-shield charm would keep her from hitting him… and if that failed, that he’d at least survive the hit.

Cash learned the very hard way that he could indeed survive such a hit, as Rakshi finally managed to swat him. Sunrise’s essence sight quickly told her that Cash’s soul was still bonded to his body, meaning that Cash was still alive – but he wasn’t getting up again either. This meant that she was next in the firing line, which took no time at all, as Sunrise suddenly found herself trapped in Rakshi’s essence webbing. With no other options, Sunrise used her vocal charms to call upon Crashing Wave – who appeared to have been busy swatting and crushing apes trying to emerge from the southern edge of the jungle. In his form of a giant grab the lunar quickly responded, quickly bounding towards the much bigger Rakshi, his silvery anima blazing. It didn’t take long before the two were locked in a brutal wrestling match, Crashing Wave’s greater knowledge of combat charms aiding him well against Rakshi’s superior brute strength and essence. Despite having six arms Rakshi found the crab surprisingly tough to deal with: She pulled at his legs, but he snapped with claws, plus his entire carapace was replete in serrated spikes, making grabbing onto the crab a very painful and tricky challenge, all the while Sunrise struggled against her bonds. She and Crashing Wave both knew what they were trying to buy time for – and they had to give it their all.

That was when Rakshi exploited her multiple arms to use some kind of charm on Crashing Wave that saw her suddenly grow a bone-spike from her chest right into the crab-form lunar’s primary frontal weak point: the bit between his bottom and top armor plate where his face was located. The crab fell limp in an instant, Rakshi tossing the crab aside and turning back to Sunrise with a cruel and fang-filled grin on her monkey face.

Ok, Crashing Wave was taken out a lot faster than expected. Realizing that the situation was dire, Sunrise used her last available weapon: Her voice. This made Rakshi laugh as the young pony before her began to sing, but it also didn’t pass the elder lunar by that Sunrise’s voice was the ONLY sound she could hear… and its effect on her wasn’t something she could ignore. Indeed, the aria of tranquillity Sunrise was singing made it very difficult for Rakshi to strike at the solar again.

Sunrise smiled, having finally found the limit to Rakshi’s willpower – then she changed her singing to using a strangely discordant tone, one specifically tuned to the ear-plugs that Speaker and Sully had been using.

On Rakshi’s back, Speaker and Sully had pounded and carved their way through an impossible thick and leathery hide. They felt their cotton-stuffed ears vibrate, and recognized the signal. Sullen Hoof looked at Speaker and nodded, then leapt back. Speaker readied both Gift and Homage, and took careful aim. He had to strike true…

Rakshi was struggling to will herself into swatting the singing mare before her like an insolent bug, when she suddenly felt a tiny stinging piercing pain in her lower back. Had someone hit her with a well-aimed arrow? Who cared, it clearly hadn’t hurt her enough to warrant any real attention.

…that was when Rakshi felt her legs give out. What? How?

Sunrise felt the essence webbing holding her fade into nothing as Rakshi desperately tried to pull in as much of her essence to save herself. With Rakshi looking very close to defeated, Sunrise dropped her silencing charm, allowing Rakshi’s desperate wailing howl to ring out across the battlefield.

All of the gorillas fighting ponies – their charge having impacted while Speaker had been in the silence – stopped, freezing in place for a moment. Hundreds of gorillas were cut down during this brief reprieve, but then they turned and ran towards Rakshi, their eyes burning silver.

Speaker and Sully leapt off Rakshi as the apes piled in under her, lifting her up and quickly starting to haul her back to Sperimin. Fire Orchid ordered that her troops give chase, many gorillas cut down as the ponies caught up with them at Rakshi, but the gigantic ape – paralyzed from the waist down – swept her arms around to fend off the ponies, giving her carriers just enough reprieve that they could make it back to the city.

Fire Orchid barked a very loud: “Cease pursuit and stand down!”

While the Sunhill army cheered for their victory and began tending to their wounded, Speaker followed Sunrise’s calls and quickly found her next to a large crater where Cash Charmer was at the bottom, looking battered and broken.

Quickly looking his fellow lord of Sunhill over, Speaker shook his head: “Cash, you’ve once again managed to break pretty much every bone in your body…”

Cash would likely have wanted to defend his actions with a snarky quip, but at that moment he was having enough trouble breathing, on account of having all of his… everything broken.

The wounded among the Sunhill troops were organized so that Speaker could quickly treat them, the army’s own medics – many evidently sourced among volunteers from the Sunhill hospital – having already triaged the wounded quite well. While Speaker was doing that, Shimmer tended to Crashing Wave, who had shrunk back into pony-form, which had revealed the massive wound to his face. Blinded by Rakshi, Crashing Wave needed help walking around, and confessed that he would likely have to sit the rest of this out: “…even with my warform I can’t regenerate eyes that quickly”

Speaker nodded, gesturing for a nearby officer to help the lunar to the rail pillar, that Crashing Wave could be brought to the fortress for a safe recovery.

A few hours later Speaker was satisfied that no other ponies under the Sunhill banner was going to die any time soon. Fire Orchid’s troops were duly impressed, marvelling at their healed wounds and injuries.

Calling up the officers of the army, Fire Orchid quickly issued a new set of orders: “We’re moving up to the city – but keep your shields out in front. Watch the treelines and check for anything being thrown at you. We haven’t seen the apes use bows yes, but with those beefy arms I could easily see them throw spears or large rocks”

The Sunhill army began to reform, with those still too injured to fight being brought back to the fortress. As units began to form up around Fire Orchid, the rest of the circle – sans Cash, who had also been sent back to the fortress – met up with the solar general and spoke of what would come next.

“Do you think that Rakshi can recover from what we did this quickly?” Fire Orchid opened up with, looking intently at Speaker.

Shrugging, Speaker looked at Shimmer: “Depends on what kind of healing and regeneration charms she knows. What do you think?”

“I think she’s favoured charms that help her think over charms to help her fight. She struggled to gain the upper hand against Crashing Wave – and she’s orders of magnitude more powerful than him” Shimmer noted, looking and sounding somewhat uneasy.

Sullen Hoof’s trained eyes instantly saw Shimmer’s discomfort: “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know… but I just thought that she’d be better organized than this. She has a priesthood – but it was one of those big black apes who seemed to be an actual officer, and he didn’t seem all that clever about it” Shimmer mused, sounding very doubt about the situation.

Sully admitted that he hadn’t run his profiling charms during the battle, but based on what he had seen earlier, then he did have a theory: “The gorillas, I think they were bred more to combat and subdue local uprisings – not fight proper armies – and I suspect that she’s set up a kind of caste system based on the different species of monkeys, so the others can’t join in anything outside of their species. But you’re absolutely right, it seems that Sperimin is very poorly organized outside of doing anything that isn’t about pleasing Rakshi”

The real question was of course how to exploit that weakness. Shimmer wished Cash hadn’t been injured…

“I know – but with Rakshi’s spine messed up, she’s not very mobile. She won’t be able to effectively assist her forces when we enter the city, and Speaker said that the university itself was built for ease of access, not to bottleneck attackers” Fire Orchid noted, betting that Rakshi had been returned to some kind of personal sanctum to recover.

Everyone agreed that it would likely be wise to press the advantage – and so the forces of Sunhill closed in on Sperimin.

The myriads of small huts and hovels that surrounded the ancient city made for a very crowded obstacle course that slowed everyone down. All the lesser apes in the city that kept pelting the Sunhill forces with small rocks, poop and bits of wood equally made for a very annoying but not terribly dangerous bit of harassment. The troops up in front cleared the path for those who came after them, toppling crude huts and pushing aside debris and garbage piles.

“Where are the big apes? This place should be rife with them” Fire Orchid wondered, looking everywhere for the thousands of gorillas that Speaker had frightened away using his fear charm.

It was obvious that quite a large force was missing – and the answer to where they were became quite apparent once the Sunhill forced managed to push through the outskirts of Sperimin, reaching the gleaming adamant streets.

Old magic kept the streets perfectly clean, but everything around them – including most of the old structures – had been completely reclaimed by the ravenous eastern jungle and its acidic soil. It made for a stark contrast, but also made it very easy to see down main street to the six-fold campus. It was there that the remainder of Rakshi’s army was, for every gate appeared to have been quickly barricaded, with countless bronze spears poking out, along with just as many eyes peering out.

The Sunhill forces quickly moved to surround the campus, while the circle discussed how to get inside – and what should happen once inside.

“I say we just take them head-on at the biggest gates into the place. I can bash in barricades like that easily – Speaker can do the same. We know these apes break pretty quickly once you cut down the first few dozen, so I doubt we’ll have too much trouble holding the place” Fire Orchid argued, her eyes gleaming with the look of a general who was certain in her strategy could express.

While Speaker saw the logic of Fire Orchid’s strategy, then he had a much simpler solution: “We just need to get inside and invoke the university’s security force. The place had hundreds of magical metal warriors designed to keep the place safe and quiet. If we can get in and do that, the apes will be ejected if they attack us or even stand in our way”

“Even if they just stand in our way? Really?” Shimmer said, finding that to be an oddly specific detail.

Nodding, Speaker said that the solars in charge of designing the place put in a lot of priority safeguards and special treatment systems for solars: “…other celestial exalts also got special treatment, but not as much – and unicorns needed written permission to even attend the colleges”

“Wait, so if we get any of us inside, we can lock Rakshi out of the place?” Sullen Hoof wondered, sounding very much as if he was thinking about simply sneaking inside and whispering a few commands to whatever controlled the university.

Speaker had to explain that doing so likely wouldn’t work: “She has controlled Sperimin for some seven hundred years – there’s no telling what changes she’s made to the place, but the university manse is meant to have a chief librarian who can command the animating intelligence of the manse…”

Sunrise appeared to see what Speaker was getting at: “So we do we tried like in Denansdor? Take control, have the university’s system clear the way for us?”

“Initially – yes – but the top of the central spire, where the tome of three rings is kept, is a separate manse with a separate animating intelligence watching over it. That’s the real thing we need to take control over, and I’ll bet my beard that Rakshi has put her lair up there too, since that’s also where the university’s chief librarian and governor lived” Speaker noted, sounding worried of a standoff.

Sullen Hoof sighed, glancing at the barricaded gates into the university grounds: “Great, and this second manse spirit… how do we take control of that?”

“I… the head of the school of sorcery can, and official edicts from the solar deliberative – that’s the only two authorities it’ll take orders from. Of course, any solar should be able to just ask for access to the books – but if we want to order the keeper to clear out Rakshi, we’ll need to assume complete control” Speaker regaled, faintly recalling the first age bureaucracy that controlled the place.

Shimmer made a disappointed grimace: “Right, we’ll have to look for that inside – but at least we can loot the libraries. There’s bound to be something useful in the other college libraries here”

While probably true, Speaker noted that you couldn’t remove books from the libraries – they were magically guarded – but back in the first age there had been systems in place to quickly craft perfect copies of any book, scroll or memory crystal you wanted to take with you: “…but I don’t think that the librarian gods from back then are still here – we’ll have to find a way to safely work the system ourselves to copy stuff”

Fire Orchid snorted: “Delightful. How about this: I’ll helm the troops out here, keep the ape troops busy and distracted – you lot sneak in and take control of the main university grounds and take control, then figure out if you can wrest control from Rakshi. If we can’t, try to broker a deal with her, or at least get something worthwhile out of the other libraries”

“I want to fetch Cash – this kind of trickery is his specialty, even if he’s still in no shape to fight” Shimmer said, looking back at the Sunhill forces, in the direction of the battlefield and the rail pillar.

Speaker glanced back at the battlefield, trying to spot the rail pillar, but he couldn’t see it: “Fly out and find the nearest spot on the side of the crystal roads here to plot down a pillar – we might end up needing a very quick escape route, depending on what Rakshi is preparing for us inside”

Fire Orchid liked the idea of putting their exit closer to the campus, so she didn’t have to spread out her forces to cover a long exit corridor through the whole city. Shimmer quickly flew off, the sound of her ripping and tearing at a large tree in the distance forming a backdrop to Fire Orchid as she marched part of her troops towards the barricaded gates, to make the apes thinks she was laying siege to the place. Meanwhile Speaker, Sunrise and Sully began to sneak closer to one of the twelve college gates, hiding among Fire Orchid’s troops.

The first gate Fire Orchid came up to was broad, at least ten yards wide, with a hodgepodge mix of torn up timbers and other randomly assembled things piled high to form a barricade, most of it clearly taken or looted from the huts and hovels surrounding the campus. Fire Orchid, along with her personal guard stormed forward at – the gorillas inside the barricade howling in a mix of fear and excitement.

Mid-stride, Fire Orchid sheathed her blade and spun herself around for a mighty buck at the barricade. Speaker recognized the magical martial technique she was using: the pillar breaking blow, a powerful martial charm that let one shatter any inanimate object with ease. Essence coiled around her hooves to impart maximum force, and so the barricade didn’t just shatter – it exploded inwards, sending gorillas flying left and right.

Her troops quickly formed up around her, and gorillas quickly flowed into the gate passage, making for a new frontline. It was to the sounds of clashing spears, roaring apes and howling ponies that Speaker withdrew his singing staff and played up a small door in the outer wall to whatever college building they were up against.

Just as they were about to enter, Shimmer returned with a Cash Charmer who looked a bit worse for wear – but he was up and walking, once he dismounted from her and was brought up to speed. They had arrived via the new rail pillar, which Fire Orchid had ordered fortified by her rear-guard.

Inside the building the five, Speaker, Sully, Shimmer, Cash and Sunrise, found themselves in one of the university’s many libraries. It was a bit of a mixed experience: The place wasn’t thick with dust and cobwebs, but instead it was thick with the stench of piss and monkey excrement, as it seemed that the apes who tried to read in the halls had a very simple approach to relieving themselves while inside. The library shelves had a great mix of clay tablets, tomes, scrolls, various strange and colourful crystals – in all manner of states of decay. Speaker quickly noted that the more important the information was, the more impervious the storage medium had been made.

“You say that – but if the old realm on this shelf is right, then this aisle is for poetry” Shimmer noted, reading a very worn and scratched out sign.

That put them somewhere in the college of the arts, one of the twelve colleges that made up the entirety of the university. Cash suggested they seek out a map or some other common area, so they could make their way to the college of sorcery, if their goal was to have one of them become the head of the college of sorcery.

“No, we should seek out the administrative offices. We need to find out how one becomes a head of the college and chief librarian” Sunrise noted, having given the matter no small amount of thought.

The others agreed that the administrative offices wouldn’t be a bad idea – but none of them had any clue where that would be, especially since Speaker had said that a lot of the university staff back in the first age had been spirits, not ponies. Still, there had been plenty of actual ponies teaching, and the heads of the colleges and the chief librarian had all been ponies, so some kind of administration of the ponies of the place had to have been there somewhere.

Sullen Hoof appeared, saying that the immediate way further into the college was clear: “…but it’ll be difficult to avoid detection once we get into the dormitories and everything around the central spire – its swarming with apes”

And because nothing ever came easy, then it turned out that the old administrative offices were located in a section of the base off the central spire. This meant sneaking through the heart of Rakshi’s ape kingdom. Enroute Sullen Hoof cut down dozens upon dozens, if not hundreds of various apes standing guard. It was chiefly gorillas, but also quite a few orange-furred orangutangs in crudely woven garbs that clearly marked them as some kind of clergy or officials.

What was a little more disturbing, was when the circle came across a trio of orangutangs which seemed to have prepared sorcerous spells. The barrage of magical fire, razor obsidian and other nasty things being conjured and flung at them was one thing – but that these apes had been taught sorcery… this had implications, and not good ones.

“Well shit, so much for being worried that only Rakshi could summon demons” Sullen Hoof said, pushing a dead orangutang off his orichalcum cleaver.

Shimmer stood still with her eyes closed, her ears twitching as she extended her senses out beyond her own body: “I can’t tell if they’re summoning – but after that last patrol managed to scream for help, I’m sensing at least five other groups of orange ones are shaping sorcery in the next hall”

Brushing the last of the magical shrapnel off his torn clothes, Speaker frowned: “I expected the university spirit to be keeping the peace. Where is that bloody thing?”

Sunrise and Cash both looked to shrug, when Shimmer perked up: “It might be close… I think. I’m sensing something that’s following us… and it’s been moving through the walls”

“Sounds like the university spirit! Sunrise, Cash – call it!” Speaker said, a little antsy as he stood ready with his two gyroscopic chakrams held as shields, to parry more blasts of sorcery.

Cash gave Sunrise a polite pat on the shoulder, then drew a deep breath and flashed his caste mark: “Spirit of the six-fold spire! We are solars who wish to study here and check out certain books – attend to us!”

Shimmer spun around and pointed at a spot on the dirty floor. A few seconds later the translucent form of a young filly appeared, one clad in very nice shogunate style clothes. It spoke with the voice of a filly, but in a tone and with a cadence of a much wiser and thoughtful being than that of a young foal: “I am the spirit of the six-fold spire. How may I help you?”

Cash looked to the rest of the circle, who nodded at him, at which he turned to the spirit: “I understand that this university has been without a chief librarian for quite a while. I am here to assume that position for the time being. Do you know the procedure for assuming that position?”

The spirit blinked for a few moments, her eyes glowing from within: “That is correct. To assume the position of chief librarian one must swear the oath of literary guardianship in the main hall of the spire, before at least one college head”

Everyone groaned. Cash quickly followed that up by asking for the procedure for becoming a college head, to which the spirit quickly stated: “To become a college head one must wield the correct staff of office, and attune to it”

“Really? Like the districts in Stygia? Cute” Cash mused, looking around to see if anything remotely staff-like was in sight.

Sunrise noted that there was no doubt implied a great deal of selection to have taken place prior to giving a staff to a new college head. The others agreed, but that of course begged the question of where these staves were. The spirit of the college was asked about this, to which end she noted that the staves for all colleges other than that of sorcery had been missing from Sperimin for a very long time.

“And where is the staff of sorcery then?” Sunrise inquired to the spirit.

Instead of answering with words, the spirit made a gesture towards the floor. The adamant tiles lit up, lighting a path for the circle to follow. While this made it easy to find the way to the college of sorcery, it also meant that the apes along the way knew that something was up. This made surprise attacks and sneaking around very difficult, as the apes were very much so on edge.

It also didn’t help that the college of sorcery was apparently one of the places where the orangutangs all lived, the circle quickly finding itself horribly outnumbered by hundreds of sorcerer-apes blasting at them with all manner of spells. Sure, each ape barely had the essence to shape into being a single spell, but there were hundreds, if not thousands, on the floor, swinging around on the walls, hanging from the ceiling. The university spirit said that the staff of sorcery was somewhere amidst the apes, wielded by one of them – though a clause in the university protocols required that all staff either be spirits or ponies, so the apes couldn’t access the powers afforded by the staff when in Sperimin.

Of course, being told such things while under a heavy barrage of howling fire, screaming ice, blasts of liquid acid and swarms of razor-sharp obsidian butterflies, did not exactly improve the situation – and the circle knew that every second they waited was time for Rakshi to recover.

Chapter 24 Monkey See, Monkey Do

The Falling Blossom stylist orders no soup, but keeps a watchful eye on his companions. Every time one of them might burn their tongue, he intercepts the spoonful and slurps it down before the damage can be done.

…

The cries of elemental garda birds filled the air, along with smoke and fire, as brilliant raptors of diamond flame raced towards the circle and exploded around them. The quite thoroughly scorched and savaged columns that the circle was taking cover behind were getting quite warm.

“How much longer?” Shimmer cried out, the bulk of her warform making it difficult to take any kind of real cover, forcing her bone-feather armor growths to just soak the magical acid and fire flung at her.

Not exactly wanting to peek out and check, Speaker wasn’t in much of a position to answer, but at the same time he knew that Sully was good at his work, so he based his answer more on hope than known fact: “I’m sure he’ll be back soon – and remember, once he has the staff we have to find somewhere to hide and attune to it”

A sorcerous silver chain, replete in spinning barbs, slammed into the pillar Speaker was taking cover behind, the spinning barbs of the magical metal gnawing into the stone column in a frightening display of metal teeth – a flying guillotine spell.

If nothing else the circle took solace in the fact that the orangutangs were generally really bad at aiming their spells – they were clearly more suited for magical rituals as assistants, likely to support Rakshi’s magical research and experiments. Of course, when there were that many ape sorcerers slinging spells at you then accuracy wasn’t that big of an issue – that they were also flinging their own poop at the circle was just adding insult to injury.

That’s when there was a loud screech – the orangutangs being a bit more verbal than the gorillas, and intelligent enough to use sorcery, but that screech… it was primal, panicky… and with Cash’s linguistic charms, he was able to tell the circle that it actually sounded like one of the apes was howling: “It stole it, it stole my shiny stick!”

That was all the circle needed to hear. Speaker struck Gift at the stone column he was covering behind, showering sparks upon the fuses of the smoke bombs Sully had brought along. Under the cover of thick grey smoke the circle retreated from the college of sorcery, heading towards the central spire in search of a hidey hole.

Approaching the central spire required crossing some open plazas inside the university grounds. This would normally be terrible if one was trying to stay hidden – but Sullen Hoof’s scouting quickly reported that all the gorilla guards and other apes were being herded towards Fire Orchid’s meat grinder by what few half-caste gorilla officers that were left.

“Fire Orchid needs to be careful that they don’t fan out from the university grounds and attack her from the rear” Speaker mused, not at all liking how many gorilla troops he could see bounding towards the fighting at the outer gate.

The others agreed, but Sully also pointed out that drawing the ape troops out was the whole point of Fire Orchid’s diversion: “…I also think that she’s close to breaking through. Pretty sure I can hear the fighting very close to the inner gate, not the outer gate, so Fire Orchid has been pushing the apes back”

Everyone agreed that if nothing else, then that would just make the diversion all the better – it might well also make the circle’s exit all the easier.

In the central spire, in the grand entrance hall of gleaming adamant and ever-shining jade-steel, Shimmer used some shapeshifting tricks to allow her to perform some very real animal calls. Specifically, it was one of an eastern jungle panther. With all the gorilla guards away fighting Fire Orchid and her troops, the remaining apes were absolutely terrified at the idea of a local jungle predator having snuck in to eat them, resulting in the remaining apes in the area scattering and fleeing with great haste.

“Perfect – this should buy us enough time to attune to the sorcery staff” Shimmer proudly proclaimed.

Sunrise frowned as she stepped out of the shadows into the entrance hall: “They’ll be back before I’ve attuned to the staff. We’ll need to find somewhere to hide, somewhere we can keep the apes out”

The circle had agreed that Sunrise should attune to the staff of sorcery, chiefly on the grounds that she was the only one among them who had initiated into second circle sorcery – not that she really considered herself a sorceress, but still. Speaker had also examined the staff, and found the beautifully carved orichalcum and jade staff had been made to synergize with sorcerous essence patterns, drawing in ambient essence to aid in casting sorcery, which would make it a lot easier for Sunrise to keep putting up counterspells for their next encounter with Rakshi, assuming that she had attuned to it by then.

Sullen Hoof picked the lock to an office that appeared to have been untouched for centuries. The air inside was musty, and the cobwebs so thick they had to be cut with a blade – but after closing and locking the door behind them, the circle was able to give Sunrise the time needed to attune to the staff of sorcery. Twenty or so minutes later, Sunrise arose from her meditation with the staff glowing softly with a golden light at its jewelled tip: “It is with a heavy heart that I accept the position as head of the college of sorcery”

The rest of the circle wasn’t quite sure who or what Sunrise had been talking to, but apparently the atunement process was a bit more involved than originally expected. Despite that, Sunrise quickly informed the circle that she was ready: “The spirit said the chief librarian has to swear the oath of literary guardianship. Speaker, do you know this oath?”

“I don’t – we’ll have to get the spirit to… what?” Speaker said, just as he was interrupted by Sullen Hoof clearing his throat.

The sneaky culinarian noted that in the grand entrance hall he had seen a very large marble plaque above the main entrance: “Pretty sure it was written up on it”

It turned out that the plaque in question was several hundred yards up near the ceiling – but Speaker was able ignite his magical wings of fire and fly up to read it. Shimmer had to clear the place with another panther snarl first, but after that Speaker was able to fly up, fly down, and then swear himself in before Sunrise: “By dawns first rays and twilights last light, I swear by the tablet, the scroll and the tome that I will defend the wisdom enshrined herein”

The grand entrance hall shuddered – indeed, outside Fire Orchid, who at that point was fighting in an inner courtyard, saw the whole six-fold spire shudder. Inside crystalline walls jingled, magical lights briefly flashed on and off, and even the spire’s air-vents rotated, letting in a gust of wind that tore through the halls.

This of course also clued the apes in on the fact that something had happened – but they didn’t seem terribly aware exactly what, for the circle quickly moved on, heading up the spire towards the tome of three rings.

“Chief Librarian, I am the animated intelligence of the university, currently made to respond to the name Manon. I have your introductory briefing ready: Six hundred and twenty-four university systems out of seven hundred and five are currently inoperable. The central library index has not been properly updated in over seven hundred years. At least two thirds of the combined library inventory of the university is in an advanced state of decay…” the floating image of the young filly said calmly as she followed the circle around, revealing herself not to be a spirit, but a sentient essence construct wrought of the Sperimin university manse itself.

“Speaker, have it activate the security stuff!” Shimmer cried out, annoyed at the filly’s endless droning.

Having already steeled himself – but even finding that challenged as the filly listed off all the broken and missing things of the place – Speaker rounded a corner, only to find it blocked by over a dozen massive golems of rusty iron blocking their path: “Right – what was your name? Manon, right?”

“That is my current designation. This, along with my appearance and voice, can be customized at your instruction Chief Librarian” the filly stated, either oblivious or uncaring of what was going on around her.

“The university grounds have an ape infestation. Activate the security force – clear them out – and could you get rid of those things blocking this hallway?” Speaker quickly said, somewhat annoyed that the filly hadn’t figured out on her own what needed to be done.

The filly floated silently in the air for a moment, while Sunrise stepped up before the rusty golems blocking their path and began flinging counterspells at them. Each of them imploded quite spectacularly into piles of inert iron that quickly faded into dust, making for quite a bit of noise – but that noise was nothing compared to the tens of thousands of shrieks of apes that began to ring out all over the place.

Whatever the university’s defence force was, then it seemed to not only work – but work very well.

Their path cleared; the circle advanced to a magical crystal elevator platform with orichalcum filigree. This let them ascend very quickly, though Shimmer had to follow along by flying since the platform wouldn’t work with a lunar on it. This annoyed her endlessly, for it left her quite winded by the time they reached the upper floors of the six-fold spire: “Bloody… hell…”

The circle assembled in what appeared to be a lobby before the massive penthouse of the spire. The filly spirit thing explained that the chief librarian’s residence was currently occupied – and that clearing it would likely not be possible at the moment.

“Really? Why is that?” Cash wondered idly, feeling a lot better at that point compared to how beat up he had been at their initial incursion into the university.

The spirit flickered for a moment, then spoke: “Four brass legionnaires were dispatched to clear out the residence. Three have been destroyed, one has been returned for repairs. Further commitment of security resources has been deemed wasteful”

Speaker looked very much as if he had suddenly realized something interesting at the mention of these brass legionnaires, something Cash instantly picked up on and inquired into. Speaker gladly elaborated: “Remember the giant metal constructs we fought in Denansdor? The ‘security force’ of the university are similar, but pony-sized. Spirit, how many legionnaires do you command?”

“At the moment, one-hundred and forty-one units remain functional – all are currently deployed as your previous orders. Parts and remains of several hundred others have been stored for repairs and reassembly. Requisitions for new units have been sent to Denansdor, but none have been answered for over a thousand years”

Sunrise looked at Speaker with concern in her eyes: “Is that a lot? How powerful are these metal automatons?”

“Very. This was just what we needed to clear the university of Rakshi’s minions – but they won’t work against her, she’s too powerful” Speaker said, nodding as he tried to grasp exactly what such a force of magical warriors could be used for.

Sullen Hoof tapped the door into the penthouse: “I don’t think this is locked…”

“Of course, not – but Rakshi is no doubt lying in wait to ambush us in there” Shimmer said, sniffing the air, confirming that Rakshi’s scent led in through that door.

Sunrise shook her head and tapped her staff at the floor: “Moot point – we’re on the correct floor, so I should be able to command The Keeper from here”

As the staff struck the floor – even though it did not hit the smooth stone tiles hard in any way – it still sent out waves of golden essence. These waves of essence spread out, lighting up crystal fixtures on the walls, and moments later a mighty roar could be heard from beyond the door the circle was gathered at. Whatever Sunrise had just done, Rakshi was pissed.

“What did you do?” Speaker asked, not even sure if Sunrise had issued an order or not to the keeper.

Ever stoic, Sunrise didn’t even turn to look at Speaker: “I have summoned the keeper – and from what I can tell it was somewhere in there with Rakshi, which is likely why she sounds upset”

Sullen Hoof quickly noted that the door opened into the penthouse – so they weren’t in any risk of being smacked by them if Rakshi decided to burst out to attack them, but even then: “…I don’t think this door will hold if she decides to go through it to get us – we should at least move into cover”

Choosing discretion as the better part of valor, the circle moved to the side of the door in case anything came charging out. Just as they had gotten into position, a magical image began to manifest before them: A vision of a wise old mare wrought of impossibly elegant origami came into being, but… it was twitchy?

Maybe it was a quirk of the essence construct being many thousands of years old, maybe it was poor maintenance of the manse that manifested the thing, but Speaker beheld the being with essence sight… and what he was did not make him happy: “Sunrise, quicky before its fully manifested – tell it to go into standby to receive maintenance”

Sunrise floated her staff at the projection, her face expressing great focus and concentration. The project began to float down to the floor, its head bowed. Once on the floor it remained there, inert and unmoving, no longer twitching.

“What’s wrong? What are you doing?” Cash said, as Speaker quickly approached the keeper.

Shaking his head, Speaker said that the twitch that the keeper had was a sign that it wasn’t working right – likely a sign that Rakshi had tampered with it: “…and since this thing would normally keep a lunar from reading the adamant volume of the tome of three rings, then it stands to reason that Rakshi has been messing with the keeper to gain access to that”

“Right… and if she’s taken control of it, then it might attack us. Spirit, can you sense if the keeper has been altered?” Sunrise said, addressing the university spirit.

The floating filly orbited around Speaker and the Keeper: “Yes, the keeper has been subjected to personality-eroding charms, meant to alter its precepts. I do not have the information or access needed to undo this”

“That’s ok – I can fix this” Speaker said, as he made arcane gestures at the keeper which seemed to partially unfold some of its origami. With golden essence he erased and rewrote some of the magical sigils written upon the origami of the keeper’s form, drawing upon his first age memories of sentience artifice and his more recent memories of having attempted to rewrite the Denansdor crystal mind. This took a while, but once done the keeper folded up into its proper form again, no longer twitching.

“Your resplendencies, I am humbled by your presence. How may I be of service” the keeper said, the voice of the origami mare sounding old and wise.

Now, based on what the circle had learned so far – both from speaking with the university spirit, and from what Speaker remembered, then only Sunrise as the new head of the college of sorcery could actually order the keeper to do anything, but any solar could make politely worded requests… and being the clever little git that he was, Cash figured that he had just the right request to make: “Keeper, I would like to request a full copy of each of the three volumes of the book of three rings. Can they be delivered to me down in the entrance hall?”

The keeper bowed her head: “I shall have a full copy spun post haste. Wait. A lunar in the hearthroom appears to be destroying the copies. Correct. I would advise removing the lunar before more copies are attempted spun”

Cash sighed deeply: “So much for avoiding a confrontation”

Shimmer poked the spirit filly: “Can you show us a map of the penthouse? Where is the hearthroom?”

The image of the filly faded, replacing itself with an image of the level of the tower they were on. A highlighted path on the map showed the way to the hearthroom. The keeper chimed in, adding that the map was correct, and that the lunar in question was still fortified inside the hearthroom.

“You can call her by her name, Rakshi – we know who she is” Speaker commented.

The keeper… shivered, and twitched briefly: “I… cannot. She has forbidden me from saying her name. I am to only address her as ‘mistress’ when speaker to or about her”

It seemed that there was more to Rakshi’s influence over the keeper than whatever had caused the twitch. Because of that the circle agreed that it was the best that the Keeper power down and go inert until summoned again by Sunrise, to avoid Rakshi calling upon the Keeper to fight them, or doing anything else to mess with them.

“I shall await your summons” the keeper said, folding itself up into a nothing.

Sunrise looked at the rest of the circle, then motioned towards the door: “If she’s in the hearthroom, then she’s not waiting on the other side of the door to attack us. Speaker, you would do well to prepare for when we face Rakshi”

It turned out that she was. The moment the circle opened the door, with Shimmer up in front, and Sullen Hoof just barely managed to perceive the incoming torrent of ice and snow and cried out for Shimmer to shield them with her wings.

With just split seconds worth of warning Shimmer only barely managed to shield the circle, the large strange being summoned into being sinking away into the magical portal its head had popped out of, while Shimmer whined as her solid-frozen wings creaked and didn’t even have enough liquid blood left in it to bleed from those cracks: “Argh… don’t mind me – get her!”

The circle burst out from behind Shimmer’s frozen wings, Sullen Hoof to somewhere unseen, Sunrise charging straight ahead, Cash taking a moment to look around, Speaker similarly finding himself… confused at the lack of a Rakshi: “Where is she?”

There was no-one else around. No apes – though there were some ape corpses scattered around, Speaker quickly concluding via a few brisk autopsies that the apes had been carved up by brass legionnaires: “See those bloody hoof-prints? They’re too angular to be normal pony hoof prints – that’s automaton prints. I bet they headed to the hearthroom and got destroyed by Rakshi”

Indeed, the path of the bloody prints led towards the hearthroom.

With a loud snap, followed by the icy sound of lots of brittle things snapping on the floor, Shimmer broke off her frozen wings and healed over the nubs, absorbing the unfrozen bits back into her body: “We can grow those back later – lets go get Rakshi”

“What about the spell that just hit us? How did that work? The apes here are dead” Sullen Hoof said, sounding worried about more traps.

A quick examination of the spot where the large ice creature’s head had appeared revealed hastily drawn chalk runes: A sorcerous diagram – but how Rakshi had remotely triggered it wasn’t clear. The circle agreed that it would be wise to check for such traps as they progressed towards the hearthroom.

“A water-aspected unicorn would do wonders here – just wash the path of us with water. That would foul up that kind of spell diagrams unless drawn with paint and let dry” Cash said, eliciting more than a few nods from the rest of the circle.

Moving towards the hearthroom, with Sullen Hoof using his most potent stealth-charms to scout ahead and spot several other spell traps on their way, the circle quickly began seeking alternate routes to the hearthroom. The main hallways were all replete with magical traps, but Speaker’s singing staff made new doorways where needed, allowing for a more direct route to the hearthroom, enabling the circle to cut through messy bedrooms that reeked of monkey and sex, dining rooms with the well-chewed skeletal remains of foals lying in the corners, past kitchens with equally carved up remains of foals and adult ponies strewn everywhere. By the time the trap-scared circle reached the hearthroom the circle had very much so agreed that Rakshi was well beyond any kind of reform or salvation other than letting her reincarnate.

With a loud crash the crystal doors into the hearthroom burst open, the circle quickly galloping in, expecting another big monkey fight.

Instead, they found three shattered brass legionaries spread around the corners of the room, with a pony-form Rakshi waiting from them with too many hooves blazing with readied spells: “Die!”

Sunrise managed to counter on of the spells, but three more flashed at the circle, sending the circling scrambling for cover as a great geyser of acid erupted under their hooves, while another set of red-hot magma-tentacles sprung up around them, the third… did nothing? Maybe it missed.

Either way, Speaker leapt out of the way, targeting the magma tentacles, while Sunrise quickly flung another counterspell at the gushing geyser of corrosive goop, ending its spray of scalding and stinking liquid – but Shimmer still howled as her larger size meant she got splashed the most by the horrible stuff. Cash quickly struck at the tentacles, bringing two down at the price of burning his hooves quite badly, while Speaker hurled Gift and Homage to bring two more down. Sunrise breathed deeply and howled an ear-shattering kiai – less a cry and more a sonic pulse attack, which cracked and shattered the crystal walls of the hearthroom, as well as the crystal light fixtures – and the one remaining magma tentacle – it also left Cash unconscious, bleeding from his ears.

“Blipity bloopity blabluba blah” Sunrise commented confidently, tossing off her cloak before the acid splashed on it ate through and started to work on her.

At the far side of the hearthroom, showered liberally in broken crystal wall panelling, Rakshi lay. Her bottom half remained motionless and splayed out – she clearly hadn’t regained the use of her bottom half – but her top half was still where all the bite was, and the queen of fang wasn’t quite of out of tricks as she began to laugh.

Everyone looked at Sunrise with great confusion, before also looking at Rakshi. Shimmer glared at the mad elder: “Splabada spluuu!”

Speaker looked at Shimmer with even greater confusion: “What is going on?”

Shimmer instantly looked at Speaker, confusion in all three of her avian eyes… right until her middle third eye lit up with pale blue moonlight: “Slulu pleh pluh plah! – but she quickly caught herself, seemingly aware that something was wrong. Then she turned to Sunrise and quickly began to gesture madly with her taloned limbs. Speaker couldn’t quite see what she was doing, but Sunrise quickly nodded and started tossing conterspells around.

Shimmer turned to Speaker to show her taloned hands just as Sunrise flung a counterspell at him. Shimmer’s hands were covered in her essence webbing, spun around to spell out a sentence: “We’ve been cursed to not be able to talk right – counter it” – though as she showed it to him, she fiddled with her claws to add in “Lord Bright” at the end of it.

“Right makes sense – but where’s Sully? He might have been hit too?” Speaker said, tentatively testing if anyone understood him.

Sunrise nodded: “I think he’s right over there… behind Rakshi”

Rakshi tried to twist around – but with no use of her lower body her ability to move was greatly reduced and without any of her ape servants she was quite helpless… well… as helpless as an elder lunar ever was: “What, where?”

Speaker hadn’t really taken Sunrise for one to deploy such deception, but he wasn’t complaining. Seizing the moment, he galloped towards Rakshi while he floated several eggs out of his saddlebags. Rakshi reacted poorly but predictably to this, flinging a great shower of instantly grown poisoned spines at him, expelling them from her body. He had no hopes of dodging such a barrage, and even Gift and Homage couldn’t quite shield him, so it was with his legs and his left flank festooned with bone-needles that he reached the elder lunar and engaged her in hoof-to-hoof combat.

In fighting her it quickly struck Speaker that Rakshi was actually amazingly beautiful – like a young mare who had just come of age, the very peak of her youthful beauty, practically radiating sexual energy… expect that her combat charms were warping and twisting her into a cavalcade of offensive and defensive combinations and forms, as she swiped, parried, snapped and tried to dodge his swipes at her.

…except he wasn’t trying to hit her. He was trying to hit the eggs he had floated up in front of her, which erupted in blue light-blue puffs of smoke, as the dream fern spores inside erupted from the tiny bits of firedust essence-glue that lit off.

“What is this? Poison? Fool, I’ll drown you down in your own-“ Rakshi began, but she quickly stopped saying anything, she had fallen asleep thanks to Speaker’s lightest of touch and his dream-based martial arts.

The rest of the circle – except Cash who was still out cold – quickly gathered around Rakshi, Sunrise using her counterspell on Sully so he too could talk properly: “Ah, thank you – now Speaker, are you ready?”

“Yes – I’ll keep her busy until we get the books, then we hightail it out of here” Speaker said, sitting down comfortably while Shimmer began to recall thick chains of jadesteel from elsewhere.

Popping another egg for his own puff of dream fern spores, Speaker breathed deeply and used his own dream charm against himself, sending him off to not just dreamland – but thanks to the magical dream fern spores, to the same dreamland that Rakshi was in, for such were their powers, one often used by shamans in the far north where the icy dream ferns grew on glaciers and blossomed only under the full moons light.

Chapter 25 Nightmarish End

The Golden Janissary stands tall and mighty, ready to strike any soup of evil, reheating it with cleansing fire if need be.

…

Oh, what a nightmare this was. The dreamscape of Rakshi, the queen of fangs.

Speaker stumbled about, unsure of what was solid enough to step on until he remembered to use his power of the fervent dream phantasm to assume full control of the dream – mainly just to stabilize the immediate area around himself… and even that didn’t grant him full control, only local control – how strange.

Once able to breathe a sigh of relief, Speaker tried to look around – but distances vanished as he looked at them, the dreamscape was clearly not very keen on being observed with such scrutiny… or maybe it was something else? Speaker knew that this whole place was an expression of Rakshi’s unconscious dreaming mind – so what would an elder lunar dream of?

First thing Speaker noticed was that above him was a clear and star-lit sky… but there was no moon. He wasn’t quite sure of the symbolism of this, but he had seen her caste mark light up enough to know that she was a no-moon caste lunar like Shimmer, so it could just be a sky with a no-moon?

More worrying were the sounds he was hearing around him: Cries of terror, screams of anguish, joyous yet beastial howls, plus a wide array of feral animal sounds – and a very loud chorus of various ape noises. There was a lot going on in this elder lunar’s mind, but then again Speaker knew from the first age that once an exalt got more than a hundred years old then the power of one’s essence allowed a pony to expand beyond the limitations of what a mere mortal could do – so for a lunar elder who was many thousands of years old, then it didn’t surprise him that even in her dreams she could have many things going on.

Extending his control over the dreamscape again to stabilize it, Speaker made his way towards the nearest of the sounds: Galloping, cries and a taunting voice.

As Speaker moved, he found himself crossing a strange threshold – as if the very nature of the dreamscape he had come into was very different in nature – had Speaker been more familiar with travel in the wyld, he would have recognized the concept of traversing into a new waypoint.

The air was warmer, he was indoors, and he could hear a pony galloping around frantically: “Stop – please!”

Rounding a corner, Speaker beheld the scene: A nightmarish caricature of the keeper, still wrought of origami, but now all the origami was of rude gestures, floating around while holding the book of three rings. Rakshi was chasing the Keeper around – but it was always holding the book out of reach.

Before revealing himself or doing anything, Speaker carefully observed the nightmare: On a surface level it certainly looked like it was about an evil keeper keeping the book of three rings away from a desperate Rakshi – but… once he peeled away the layers via use of his knowledge of psychology it didn’t add up: She wasn’t looking sad, she was angry, looking obsessed – psychotically so. The keeper wasn’t taunting her, it was fleeing from her with her book. The surface appearance of the dream as how Rakshi’s madness saw the scene – but the truth… oh it was very ugly.

Right – so what to do here? Speaker knew that he ultimately just had to stall for time – but he didn’t know how to judge time outside of the dream… but he knew how to judge madness – and here Rakshi couldn’t hurt him, for he was the one lucid dreaming… well, hopefully the only one.

Maybe he could fix her?

Wait, fixing her would also require forgiving her for eating gods knows how many innocent foals. Rakshi clearly revelled in her cruelty and madness – but perhaps scaling back her madness would make it easier to pass down her sentence? It certainly helped that a condemned pony understood why she was to be executed.

Hell, with any luck she might even become sane enough to feel remorse for her actions before that.

It was with these lofty goals that Speaker revealed himself to Rakshi’s dreaming self, at which point he realized that something was horribly wrong now that he was nearer. This Rakshi… this was not her dreaming mind – well, it was, but it was broken. It was not unlike a pony-shaped mirror that someone had shattered and then only partially reassembled. There were enough parts of her that you weren’t in doubt it was Rakshi, but it certainly didn’t look like something that had been pleasant to do to one’s own mind.

The shattered part of Rakshi’s mind at first didn’t pay any attention to Speaker, maniacally focused on getting that damn book – but as Speaker exerted control over the dream and made the image of the Keeper vanish, leaving the book hanging in the air, Rakshi instantly snatched it and cracked it open… but it cracked open like an egg, revealing that it was naught but a hollow shell. Made sense, sort of: Rakshi would never have read the third volume, so she wouldn’t know what was in it…

Rakshi of course, responded poorly to this – and this time she turned towards Speaker, her jagged fangs of broken dream-shards menacing like any good nightmare – but Speaker was having none of it. With his dream powers he had her immobilized, even as she snarled and spat impotent fury at him.

With his medical diagnosis charms he saw her mad obsessions – and like a surgeon of the mind he plucked them out of her, but because they were still in her mind, in her dreamscape, they didn’t just vanish like they would in the waking world, but instead manifested as different versions of her… except these copies were quite whole, not shattered – but also twisted, warped, for they were the warped and twisted aspects of her mind; her obsessions given form.

These two new copies of her also weren’t held by his dream-control grip, so the instant they manifested they each leapt into action – sort of…

One of them, with a great ravenous maw in the back of her head where her otherwise beautiful red mane should be that snarled and screamed for more, seemed to represent her obsession with learning the secret of third circle sorcery simply started sniffing around like a bloodhound, quickly concluding that neither Rakshi nor Speaker was of any use to it. It didn’t even notice when Speaker hurled Homage in the head-mouth, carving the strange madness-mutant in twain, destroying the madness for good.

The other madness-mutant looked almost deceptively normal, but that was until Speaker came around to where it was cradling the shell-like remains of the third volume of the book of three rings. As he approached it broke into tears, angrily looking at Speaker: “You did this! You broke it! Now I will never have it!”

Speaker braced himself for an attack, but instead that version of Rakshi got up and started to shape up some form of sorcerous spell. Now, as Speaker had been taught back during his time with the seventh legion, then sorcery rarely worked all that well for combat purposes unless you had time to prepare – in which case it was usually quite devastating – but when facing an opponent then stopping to do magic was never a wise choice, for it left oneself completely open to attack… something that this obsession made manifest clearly wasn’t thinking of.

It shattered when struck by Homage, revealing itself to be as hollow as its pointless fascination.

This left the shattered part of Rakshi’s mind, still struggling against the impossible dream-bonds Speaker had willed into being.

Approaching her, Speaker noticed that this Rakshi now seemed more… whole, now that the truly broken parts of her had been removed and struck down. This let Speaker properly see her beauty, her moonsilver tattoos, her bright eyes that pleaded with him to release her.

“I can release you – but know that I still control this dream” Speaker said, making a swiping gesture at Rakshi, causing her mind-fragment to drop to the ground.

The mind-fragment of Rakshi landed on her hooves quite expertly – and yet she sounded wrong, for the fragments she was made of ground against each other, making her sound quite unnatural. Still, she didn’t do anything brash just to begin with, instead simply standing up and looking at Speaker: “You… you were… you’re not supposed to be in here… in me”

“Sidereal martial arts – and you don’t seem as crazy as you did earlier” Speaker replied, his expression and stance guarded in case Rakshi tried anything.

The Rakshi before him rippled with moonlight, then sighed deeply: “True… she’s been doing this for a very long time, breaking her mind into pieces so that not all of her suffers each time she sleeps. I get her obsession with getting that damn book and learning solar circle sorcery”

“Interesting. Partitioning your mind and dividing out your insanity so she remains sane during sleep. Do you know what other fragments of your… of her mind… there are, and what madness they carry?” Speaker wondered, not quite sure how cooperative this Rakshi would be, or if she might snap at some point.

Closing her eyes for a moment, the Rakshi pulsed with bright moonlight: “There is her cruelty, her megalomania, her cannibalism… and the one I cannot speak of, for she binds each part of her mind shards to obey”

Taking a deep breath, Speaker nodded: “Right… so four other parts of her mind to work over”

“Those are just the fragments – there is herself, her core – the one who gets to sleep soundly while the rest of us are made to suffer” the fragment spoke, sounding clearly disgusted and unhappy about having been relegated to suffer so her original could sleep without nightmares.

Speaker was guided by the obsession-fragment along to the next dreamscape. Around them everything changed, the ground becoming a wooden floor, the sky becoming the roof of a straw hut. The dimensions of the dream-hut they were in were strange – for the walls extended into the infinite, yet the hut felt quite small around them. The sound of laughing foals rang out everywhere, and moments later dreamy wisps in the shape of foals began to dance around, playing invisible games with toys that weren’t there.

“Ah… the cannibalism dream, great” the obsession-fragment deadpanned, shaking her head.

Speaker had found the obsession-fragment a surprisingly good conversationalist, though she was rather pessimistic. She had all the memories of Rakshi prime, though she claimed that as part of the mental partitioning then her intellect had also been divided, so she wasn’t as clever or wise as she was when awake while in this addled state.

“So, you can’t tell me what she’s done to the Keeper?”

Obsession-fragment shook her head, the shards that made up her form jingling: “I know that she worked on it for centuries, to weaken its resolve and make it more agreeable… but I don’t know exactly what she did it. She never wanted to fight it, because it could lock her out from the two lesser volumes of the book of three rings that she was allowed to read, permanently”

Speaker nodded, pondering why the fragment specifically did not have a name, though it knew that it was a part split off from Rakshi prime. It would respond if he called her Rakshi, but would also correct him.

The jingling from the obsession-fragment soon attracted the foal-wisps, but a distant growl saw them scatter and flee, hiding in corners and behind simple wooden furniture that hadn’t been there earlier.

“There you are” Speaker said, as the Rakshi-fragment of that particular dreamscape revealed herself, stalking into view like a tiger who didn’t care that you could see it, for it knew that it could take you and eat you.

Indeed, this Rakshi-fragment was much bigger than a normal pony, with clawed hooves, and her fragment form was assembled in such a way that her mouth was a serrated jigsaw puzzle of long sharp teeth: "You… don’t look tasty”

“I have been told that I’m very stringy – but I do have a flavour” Speaker replied, calmly gesturing at the fragment. With his simple and non-threatening gesture, the fragment saw no threat in Speaker… right until it realized that it couldn’t move due to his dream powers.

Moving closer to inspect the fragment, Speaker asked: “So what madness have you been shaped around… let’s have a look see, yes… cannibalism. Such a twisted hunger. I wonder how it’ll look once I force it out”

“It’ll be hungry. It always is” the obsession-fragment said, while the cannibalism-fragment grunted and struggled against invisible dream-stuff restraints. Indeed, once Speaker repeated his previous trick, combining his dream-based martial arts with his powerful medical charms, a truly degenerate version of Rakshi revealed itself, while the shard-maw of the cannibalism-fragment withered into a much more normal mouth. Speaker didn’t even give the cannibalism manifestation a chance to speak or act before striking it down.

“Perfect, where to next?” Speaker asked the obsession-fragment, not really bothering with freeing the other fragment. He only needed one guide.

The obsession-fragment poked the remains of the cannibalism manifestation: “We’re not done here… this one only ate… it’s the other one who hunts and toys with her prey”

It happened so quickly. First several of the wisps that sounded like foals screeched horribly, as they were torn apart – then in a blur of motion and claws it was upon him, gnawing, ripping and tearing – it was first when Speaker was able to react and restrain his opponent that he became aware of what had attacked him.

With red fur and notably ape-like features, this half-baboon half-pony creature was no doubt another fragment of Rakshi’s mind – but its eyes… oh its eyes were pitiless dark spheres, truly frightening to look at.

Crawling out from under the now frozen monster, Speaker looked for obsession-fragment. She had taken cover behind the still restrained cannibalism-fragment: “Ok, and who or what is this?”

It was explained to Speaker that this new fragment was Rakshi’s cruelty and malice – her psychotic drive to hurt and toy with everything she controlled – to destroy and harm simply for the sick and depraved fun of it.

Speaker seriously considered destroying this cruelty-fragment outright, to not bother separating the madness from that one. Of course, he had no clue how Rakshi’s mind would respond to a bit of it being destroyed – so he opted not to take any chances, separating this new madness out with one hoof and instantly striking it down with another.

Looking at the liberated cruelty-fragment, Speaker observed how it changed: It became less bestial, more like a pony, its claws receding, its fangs shortening: “If I release you, will you behave?”

The fragment looked, in a word, frightened. Speaker took that as a positive sign, releasing its bonds. Without even having thought about it, doing so also released the cannibalism-fragment – it instantly beginning to vomit.

“Ok, that’s… understandable, I guess. There’s one fragment left now, right?” Speaker mused, stepping about the chunky puddle of sick.

While the cannibalism-fragment had its dry-heaves, the cruelty-one simply slumped onto the floor, appearing to despair at its own previous actions while cradling the remains of one of the foal-wisps, leaving the obsession-fragment to shake her head: “Should be. It will be well guarded – she takes a sick pride in her power, so be careful”

“Will you stay here, with them?” Speaker said, seeing how she looked at her two peers.

The obsession-fragment nodded: “They’ll need help getting accustomed to existing without their burdens – and if we come along, magolamania will know what you’re doing in an instant”

“I still control the dream – if it has forces to array against me, I can commandeer those in an instant” Speaker said, confident in his ability to stay in control.

The obsession-fragment silently nodded, not appearing entirely convinced.

Seeking out the last fragment was easy enough: It wasn’t trying to hide – and in demonstrating its power and megalomania, it dominated the mindscape around it: A hollow nightmare version of Sperimin, shining and glorious, but also strewn with bones and blood-soaked jewels. Down the crystalline main street walked an endless procession of ponies, spirits, demons and gods, all bowing their head to the massive throne set at the end of the road, upon which a glorious and shining Rakshi-fragment sat, the shards of its being arrayed to make it as shiny and fancy as possible, crowned by her own grandeur.

The procession made it easy for Speaker to approach, as he could easily blend in with it. Walking next to hollow dream-figments that were probably meant to look like powerful demons was strange, but there were also sights in the procession that were – to Speaker – down right laughable: Everyone in the procession sang Rakshi’s praises, including the dream-figment version of Luna and Celestia. Speaker had to struggle not to laugh, for Rakshi had their voices so very wrong – and he knew their voices well, having met both gods at various occasions in the last few years.

As the procession carried on, everyone moved to position themselves around Rakshi’s throne in adoration, which let Speaker get surprisingly close to the throne. This let him examine the whole dream quite well, for while it was clearly made in such a way that everything was orbiting the megalomania-fragment, then it was actually surprisingly civil. Rakshi was drunk on power, obviously, but this fragment wasn’t cruel or vile – of course the cannibalism and wanton cruelty had been separated out into other fragments… but it still made Speaker think.

Where had these insanities come from? Prolonged exposure to the wyld? Shimmer had said that Rakshi had been instrumental in developing the moonsilver tattoos, which meant that she had gone a long time without such tattoos – what exactly did they do? The megalomania just didn’t look like a wyld mutation… this was a derangement born of unquestioned power – still, it was a form of madness none the less.

Stepping out from the adoring crowd, Speaker walked up in front of the throne: “Rakshi! This needs to end!”

The sky grew dark and around the temple-like throne as a thousand torches and braziers erupted, and the Rakshi grew to an impossible size – towering into the sky, the stars becoming jewels in her moonsilver crown, the moon her halo. Her booming voice made the ground shake: “Who dares stand before me!?”

With but a gesture, Speaker assumed total control of the dream, instantly shrinking the Rakshi-fragment into a more manageable size. The procession and the adoring crowd similarly changed, no longer chanting Rakshi’s praise, but instead scowling at her with quiet judging looks.

The fragment recoiled in horror, curiously enough not at Speaker, but at the crowd looking at her: “No! I’m not meant to have that… I’m supposed to have fun here!”

This struck Speaker quite odd, as he noticed that the dream-fragment was exerting a kind of influence on the crowd scowling at her – well, trying to, because Speaker’s domination of the dream prevented it. Curious to see what the effect would be, Speaker permitted it, to which end the crowd began laughing.

The fragment curled up into a ball, crying – somehow completely unable to cope or deal with what was going on around her.

Was this some kind of insecurity Rakshi harboured, one she had veiled by developing a megalomaniacal mentality, so that it would dominate and control everything around her? It was a plausible explanation. Either way he quickly seized the fragment and tore the madness out of it, and destroyed the manifestation of the madness.

“So… that’s it? All her fragments purged?” Speaker said to himself, wondering if he should make an effort to wake up, or if the rest of the circle still needed time for the book copying procedure and getting Rakshi properly restrained… not that he could tell how long he’d been in the dream.

The megalomania-fragment, still curled up on the ground, simply whimpered as the crowd had settled into scattered giggling and monkey howls. Speaker made the crowd fall silent, then picked the fragment up: “There, now stop being such a wuss – you’re a mind-fragment from a powerful sorceress, act like it!”

The fragment struggled to stop crying. It wasn’t until the three other fragments arrived that it seemed to be shocked out of its misery: “What? You’re here too…”

“And he helped all of us – but he’ll need help to find the forbidden one” Obsession-fragment said.

The four fragments looked at each other, none of them appearing happy about the topic. To Speaker’s surprise they reached for each other, which resulted in a very ugly sound of grinding and grating glass as their fragments slid and ground together, becoming an almost whole Rakshi. The final product of them certainly looked far more normal, appearing mostly like a normal pony with a few missing bits… just enough bits to create one more of her from the pieces.

With tears in its eyes, the almost-reassembled Rakshi thanked Speaker, and instructed him to seek out laughter: “I cannot tell you the nature of the forbidden one’s madness. Rakshi hates it so… but you unintendedly touched on it with megalomania. Seek out the sound of laughter… or the voice of an angry stallion”

“Thank you” Speaker said, nodding his head at the strange amalgam. He didn’t quite know if he was speaking to the ‘majority’ of Rakshi’s mind… or if this fragment creature had been a lesser part of her mind to begin with?

The amalgam wept tears, tears that crept into its cracks and dripped down through its fragments: “No, it us me who should thank you. We will have peace now, at least for this night – but do be warned: Rakshi uses a demonic lacquer on her claws, one made specifically to kill the exalted. Her first impulse when you and her awaken will be to kill you for doing this”

The fragment amalgam departed while Speaker took in the warning, it leaving to some other part of Rakshi’s mind for its own last few moments of peace. Alone, Speaker listened carefully for the sound of laughter, but he heard none. What he did hear was the voice of an angry stallion.

Homing in on the sound of the voice, Speaker found a new dreamscape: A village, with shadows walking around – not in any negative way, but in the centre of the village was a hut where a stallion was shouting, and the shadows were orbiting the hut as if to give the illusion of there being others in the village. Approaching the hut, Speaker found himself recognizing some of the architecture. The huts were simple but well made, wrought of sun-baked clay bricks. A nearby fountain had clear running water. A banner fluttered in the wind, bearing a sunburst symbol. That settled it: This was the dream of a village in the first age, one in the dominion of a solar.

“Useless!” roared a stallion in old realm from inside the hut, followed seconds later by the sound of a hoof striking a soft target and young filly crying out in pain.

Oh, it was that kind of nightmare.

Speaker’s compassion bid him to intervene – but having seen the village, he knew that he had to intervene properly. Thus, using his dream-twisting powers, he reshaped his own appearance in the dream, and ripped the door off the hut: “Cease your violence!”

The door of the hut, and the entire wall from that side of the structure, flew off as if straw caught in the wind. Revealed was an angry stallion with a short-cropped red mane who didn’t look like a dream figment at all. Whatever this stallion was, then he was based on some very vivid and clear memories from Rakshi – and the red-maned filly lying on the ground who had cried out… there was no doubt – it was a very young Rakshi.

Had Rakshi been beaten by her father in her youth? Had she nursed some kind of inferiority complex into a full-blown obsession and derangement that led down a path of cruelty and megalomania?

Speaker certainly understood why Rakshi had separated this part of her mind out while she slept.

“Who are you?” the stallion said angrily, his face contorted in fury… right up until Speaker stepped into the light, his golden robes and shimmering crystal jewellery shining gloriously.

The stallion instantly threw himself to the ground, and quickly grabbed Rakshi and slammed her into the ground as well quite hard: “Down you idiot girl!”

Speaker approached at a dignified pace: “Do not use violence upon her. Does your lord not see to proper schooling for young ones? You call her useless, an idiot, but I see bright young eyes full of potential – it is you who is blind and foolish”

With his face pressed to the ground, the stallion seemed at a loss of how to explain his actions. Speaker had seen the clay tablet over in the corner that Rakshi no doubt used at school: “I thought so. Arise my little pony, tell me your name”

“I… my name is of no matter to your grace. I am not worthy to be known to you” the stallion said.

Did Rakshi not remember the name of her own father? Speaker frowned, but replied kindly: “That is for me to decide, not you. Give me your name or I will give you one”

It was a strangely comical situation that turned the entire scene on its head. No longer did the stallion seem intimidating, instead he came off as confused and not at all sure what to do with himself. This paradox seemed to completely disintegrate the stallion, the dream figment fading into nothing as the shallow nature of the dream-character was laid bare.

With the abuser gone, Speaker expected things to be resolved, but to his surprise the Rakshi fragment instead burst into tears: “No… now my daddy’s gone too!”

Speaker wanted to say something, but that’s when the laughter started – the shadows outside the hut starting to laugh quite loudly, the shadows huddling around the windows of the hut. The laughter was full of taunting and mocking jabs: “Haha Rakshi’s got no parents now!” “She can’t get anything right” “She just keeps looking stupid”

Frowning, Speaker rubbed his brows: “Right… he wasn’t the madness, it’s in you. I’m guessing some kind of persecution complex… hmmm”

The Rakshi-fragment didn’t reply, simply crying on the ground. No wonder the other fragment had recoiled in horror when Speaker had gotten the crowd to laugh at it. This did make him wonder how this particular madness would manifest in the real world. Cruelty, cannibalism, megalomania, all those had simple and well-known ways of expressing themselves – but this… this did not have an obvious real-world counterpart.

Approaching the filly, Speaker used his dream-based martial arts and his medical charms to remove… something… out of the filly. Indeed, the rakshi-fragment changed into the form of the adult Rakshi as it was purged of its madness, though Speaker was none the wiser to the nature of the madness as he removed it, for it had no immediate form.

What manifested did not come into being as a physical creature. At first Speaker thought he had done something wrong, but then he heard the stallion’s voice again, the angry shouting and berating. This gave his medical diagnosis charms all the information it needed: This wasn’t a deranged compulsion; it was a hallucination! Rakshi heard voices, the voice of her angry father, the voices of unseen ponies laughing at her… oh dear.

Striking down an unseen sound was… difficult. How does one strike a sound? Make more noise? No, that didn’t work. Instead, Speaker used his dream-control to completely change the dreamscape into a white featureless void. This caused the voices to simple come from the distance, at random direction around the two.

“No! Now I don’t have a hut to live in either!” the Rakshi-fragment wept, tears streaming down her face, as if she was still a helpless foal.

Speaker’s caste mark flared as he used a fair bit of essence to give himself an idea: “Right – we have to give the voice a body”

Using dream control, Speaker made a pony appear. It looked a bit like Rakshi’s father from before, but a little different – chiefly in that it had no face, and even had its head shrouded in a large hood. Chaining this pony down and having it face away from Rakshi, the pony instantly sprung to life, struggling against the chains and raving against her, speaking in the previously disembodied voice.

“There – now you have been bound to form – now you can be struck down” Speaker stated resolutely, bringing Homage to bear and flinging it at the dream-made pony.

The relief on the hallucination-fragment’s face as the dream-made pony was shattered by the chakram was palpable: “Oh thank you… it has been so long since I had true silence”

Satisfied that this final fragment had been helped, Speaker restored the dreamscape to the original hut and village – but there were no shadows walking around outside, and Rakshi’s father wasn’t there either. The fragment, with tears still in her eyes, thanked Speaker profusely: “I don’t know how to repay you”

“No need to give me anything. I came here to help you, I’m happy I was able to make it work” Speaker said, quite satisfied with himself.

The fragment approached Speaker, sauntering towards him while swaying her hips quite suggestively: “Oh come now… I’m certain I can find some way of showing my appreciation”

Looking at the fragment, Speaker frowned: “You look like you’re made of broken stained glass. The wise stallion refrains from sticking his meat into glass shards, no matter how shapely”

Stopping dead in her tracks, the fragment instantly became aware of her actual physical appearance. Sighing deeply, she shook her head: “It’s all I have… fragments aren’t made whole. When Rakshi breaks me and the other fragments from her mind, we only get just enough to carry the burdens she loads us with”

“That’s ok. Like I said, I came here to help, not to extract favours – same for your four peers that I’ve already helped. That Rakshi’s better now is all I need” Speaker reassured the fragment.

As the implications of her four fellow fragments having been cured and alleviated of their madness dawned upon her, the fragment found herself briefly at a loss for words, right until she put on an expression of dread: “No… this won’t make her better. It’ll make her angry”

“Her? You mean the real Rakshi?” Speaker wondered, curious at this change in the fragment’s expression.

Nodding quickly, the fragment raised a hoof and rearranged the shards that made it up to make it look as if her hoof had long claws: “She splits us all off from her mind to sleep calmly at night – but during the day… The madness doesn’t scare her, it fuels her! She loves them… and she wants everyone else to feel like her! You have taken that from her!”

Speaker wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. Was Rakshi fundamentally that broken? It certainly raised some grim questions that he wasn’t really sure how to answer – though he figured that with Cash’s sagacious reading of intent, then he would be able to confirm if Rakshi truly was that nuts: “Are you… well you were split off from her, so of course you would know – but is she really that far gone?”

The fragment nodded slowly: “She has a weekly ritual where she and her priesthood seclude themselves and they laugh at the silver pact, mocking them for their failure to properly detect and understand the extend of her madness. She sees it as a sign of her own superiority, as well as proof of the stupidity and nativity of the rest of the lunar host”

“I’m sorry, but if she believes that, and you’re made from her, why aren’t you sharing that view?” Speaker wondered, trying to find a logical explanation or method to Rakshi’s madness.

Making her bed, the fragment could only sigh and shrug: “It’s a product of all of her derangements working together. As a mental fragment we’re only given enough mind to comprehend the madness we’re meant to suffer – never enough to revel in it like she does”

“Fair enough – her reputation would have her be a lot smarter than what any of you or your peers have shown me. Thank you for the warning” Speaker said, concerned, but none the less hopeful that now he’d at least expect Rakshi to be deceitful once they woke up.

The fragment laid down in her bed, resting her head on a dream-wrought pillow: “Also beware of her claws. She brews a crimson lacquer that she coats her claws with, it is a poison meant to fight exalts – I don’t know what it does, but if it’s made to kill exalts… then its bad”

Speaker once again thanked the fragment, excusing himself so the fragment could enjoy its peace.

This left Speaker walking the spaces of Rakshi’s dream between the dreamscapes. In these strange voids he paid careful attention to sights and sounds, seeking out the primary dream of Rakshi’s prime self… but he found nothing.

Pondering what the other fragments had told him, that Rakshi prime had split off all those fragments so she could sleep peacefully, but it occurred to Speaker that compared to the large size of the fragment dreamscapes, then Rakshi’s own true dreamscape might be very small… especially if it was completely mundane and undisturbed by delusions and derangements.

Either way Speaker concluded that he wasn’t going to find Rakshi’s true dream any time soon. He kept finding the other fragments, for they were the only manifestations in the dreamscape he could see. Had Rakshi somehow hidden her own true dream from her nightmares?

Even with his basic dream-based martial arts, Speaker was unsure of what to do next. He wasn’t even sure how to leave the dream – and attempting to use essence to sense time didn’t really work.

One thing Speaker did figure he could do, was slow down the dreamscape he was in. The effect was simple enough: Time would pass more slowly for him, while it would pass at a normal rate in the real world. Almost the instant Speaker enacted this, he experienced a sinking feeling. Blinking, he found himself waking up and snapping back into reality…

It all happened so fast. The claws in his neck, Shimmer shrieking, and a – for Speaker – now familiar female voice speaking softly into his ear: “Think you can mess with my head? Come back and try that again in your next life, fool!”

Oh, that hurt. Anaesthetic charm, there we go. And what did that fragment say? Poison immunity charm, already on.

Turning his head ever so slightly, despite Rakshi having lodged a strong right hoof with red-lacquered moonsilver claws in his throat: “Greetings oh Queen of fangs”

Rakshi snarled at Speaker, revealing teeth that had been either been shapeshifted or filed down into jagged fangs all the way around. A second or so later she seemed briefly confused: “How are you still alive?”

“Your fragments warned me – and I’ve fought a number of foes who specialize in poison and disease, so I have charms to counter that” Speaker said smugly, feeling quite satisfied that his kindness within Rakshi’s dream had paid off this well.

Rakshi’s grip lessened as she seemed to realize that she hadn’t dealt a deathblow. It was then that Speaker in turn also became aware of the other ponies around him, Sunrise and Shimmer trying to pull the two apart, Sully slashing at Rakshi with his cleavers over and over along with Cash and his extendable shoe-claws to no apparent effect.

As Speaker and Rakshi finally came apart, Speaker quickly said: “Cash, your charms – what lies in her heart and what is her price?”

Cash knew well enough what Speaker meant. Not only did Cash have charms that let him understand obscure references almost perfectly, but this wasn’t the first time one of Cash’s other circle-mates had requested a quick check to see if someone they were talking to was on the level.

The answer Speaker got was when Cash dropped to his knees and actually started vomiting. Was Rakshi truly that vile? Was the price she would ask for cooperation so ungodly as to make Cash lose his cool that much? It certainly stood to reason.

In the confusion Shimmer, in her warform, had wrestled Rakshi to the floor: “Speaker!”

“Yes – now!” Speaker called out, getting up and drawing Homage and Gift from elsewhere in one smooth motion, his weapons poised to strike.

Rakshi of course wasn’t slow to respond, sprouting new limbs that Shimmer couldn’t grab, limbs full of poisoned claws.

Shimmer didn’t have the same kind of poison immunity charm as Speaker, and in trying to restrain Rakshi she was the first to be struck repeatedly by the swarm of clawed limbs, dying with a pained howl. The blue-clad dandy in his fancy silks fell next, his pathetically weak ego-shield unable to fool Rakshi’s razor wit – for it had been honed for millennia to reject both the lies of the changelings and the lie that one needed something as pathetic as sanity…

The bearded one with the faded red uniform – so what if he could handle the poison – her clawed limbs strangled him just the same. This left the young one in the off-white hood, screaming at Rakshi as if her weaponized voice could really hurt her. She choked on a single fanged tentacled forced down her throat.

Oh, this was too easy… she might nibble on their corpses later. The idea of eating solar flesh certainly sounded fun.

Chapter 26 New Dawn

The lunar hero stylist savages all of the soup, toughing out any soup too hot or cold.

…

Speaker took a deep and careful breath, sighing with understandable relief, while the rest of the circle gathered around him and Rakshi. Her eyes were open, but it was clear that she wasn’t seeing what they were seeing.

“So… this is the power of your dream fighting?” Cash mused, seeing the mighty elder lunar trapped in a waking dream.

It was with a pained expression that Speaker nodded, forcing the wound on his throat to stop bleeding by force of will: “I have no idea how long it’ll hold her – I didn’t have any sense of time while in her dream”

“You were both only asleep for a few seconds before you both woke up” Shimmer said, as she reabsorbed the extra length to her limbs that had been used to snake around Rakshi’s legs to pin her.

That revelation honestly frightened Speaker a bit: “It was short? It felt like hours or days in there… she had split her mind into multiple fragments to remove her madness from her dreaming self… but she was still homicidal when she woke up…. hmmm”

“When we get home, I would like to talk with some meditation experts in Great Forks about that” Sunrise said, her voice betraying a noticeable amount of curiosity.

Sullen Hoof stepped forth, cleavers at the ready: “Why? Do you have any nightmares you’d like to be without? Speaker can remove those from you now directly”

Sunrise scowled at the solar culinarian: “I would much rather learn to deal with my own problems myself. The things that scare me are important, for they remind me of the things I care for and dread to lose – I don’t want to end up unable to remember what I’m afraid of again – we have all seen how that ends up”

Everyone remembered how badly it had done last time Sunrise had twisted her own mind into a state where she had been unable to be afraid and how poorly that had gone.

“Right, but let’s end this nightmare first” Speaker said, once more raising a hoof with Homage to strike.

It thus came to pass that Rakshi, the Queen of Fangs, one of the oldest still living lunar in Creation was executed while trapped in a waking dream.

Cash Charmer used his Recorder of Everlasting Glories to make detailed records of the gory remains of centuries of cannibalism on display in the penthouse’s kitchens. Countless skulls of foals and other ponies stacked high, bones replete with knife and teeth-marks.

Instructions were given to the campus intelligence – the thing manifesting as a spirit-form foal – to finish the cleansing of Sperimin, as well as cleaning up the bloody mess. A two-mile zone around the campus would be patrolled by the magical brass warriors that the spirit controlled, and they would clear away the jungle and debris to the best of their ability, in anticipation of new campus staff and pony settlers arriving.

The keeper would remain deactivated – or at least limit its activity as much as possible – to contain anything Rakshi had snuck into its corrupted mind, until someone had the time to come and properly examine and restore the essence construct. It was simply too dangerous to let it roam freely in case Rakshi had left traps within it.

Beyond the six-fold spire the circle arrived to find that Fire Orchid had fought the gorillas to a stalemate. The apes reacted poorly to Shimmer displaying the severed head of Rakshi to them – but they surrendered none the less. Their goddess slain, they were given a few hours to clear out of the city and seek their own path. Sunrise and Cash spoke vigilantly and eloquently to ensure that the apes didn’t harbour too much animosity to them: “These jungles are vast and bountiful. You will not go hungry in them, but we will not permit you to stay here”

The most intelligent of the apes, the baboons, who for some strange reason had been forced function as basic labourers for Rakshi’s regime, were the most reasonable in these negotiations. They understood the situation, and unlike the gorillas or orangutans did not require Cash to execute their leaders in order to enforce cooperation. For their willingness to cooperate, the baboons were permitted to live closest to Sperimin, that the future pony residents of the city might trade with them and perhaps broker potential agreements allowing a return of the apes in the future. The circle didn’t want to promise anything in advance, but they at least left the door open.

Outside of Sperimin Rakshi was given a grand burial ceremony: On a pyre she was put on display, stacked not with wood, but ape fangs extracted from the tens of thousands of dead apes slaughtered during the day’s fighting, that the queen of fangs might pass on to her next life in regalia befit of her station. The amount of moonsilver weapons, armor and other artifacts also given to her pyre boggled the mind – but none dared steal from her hoard:

Nobody in the circle wanted to deal with the ghost of Rakshi in case her soul felt cheated or robbed.

Many tens of thousands of apes attended the ceremony, howling their sorrow as the bonfire sent her soul on its way to reincarnation, and sent her exaltation to Yu-Shan for processing. Sunrise sent a prayer along to Lytek, god of exaltation, that he take great care to purge Rakshi’s exaltation of memories, that the next bearer of her power not be burdened by her suffering, while Shimmer and Crashing Wave both gave spirited eulogies, thanking Rakshi deeply for her development of their moonsilver tattoos, and praying together that her next incarnation would be as wise and charitable.

With all that over Crashing Wave thanked the circle and said that he would start looking through the university’s material on the strange and exotic first age secrets of crafting life-forms from scratch. The first true second age scholar of Sperimin began his work with gusto, leaving the circle to return home.

It was an elated and relieved circle that returned to Sunhill – and the welcome they got was one fit for heroes. Fire Orchid marched her troops through the city out to the military encampment on roads covered in fresh flowers, musicians at every street corner singing and playing praise to the brave warriors who had fought under the banner of the sun.

Upon returning to the Sunhill manse, Fire Orchid noted that the troops, now granted Sunhill citizenship as part of the deal for them to serve under her, had wept: “They… No, we were mercenaries. We’re not used to accolades like this. Ponies would fear us, but this is the complete opposite”

“The ponies of Sunhill trust us – and with Sperimin free then Creation can start to benefit from the knowledge still left there there” Sunrise stated, sounding both satisfied and certain.

Cash quickly pointed out that as a place of learning Sperimin would likely need a lot of work to restore and reorder the books, tablets and scrolls there: “…not to mention the material looted throughout the millennia”

Shimmer suggested that they contact the god of libraries who lived in Great Forks to head the restoration effort: “I am certain that he would love the opportunity to restore the greatest library in creation”

The next several days were filled with celebration, as Sunhill honoured its new warriors, but also finally got to celebrate what had originally been two thirds of the city – now barely half – having reached essence enlightenment. Sullen Hoof broke out the really good sauces, resulting in many of the dishes he served being watered down with tears of the new citizenry who had never in their lives had tasted food so sublime.

After the celebrations Speaker used his education charm on the new Sunhill army and the rest of the city, meaning that in three weeks’ time all of Sunhill would be enlightened. Cash quickly found himself legitimately challenged to comprehend and oversee and the new business ventures that the enlightened city was pushing for. With their minds and essence broadened, the ponies of Sunhill had a new energy to them, their minds honed and disciplined. They were able to commit themselves to nearly any kind of business venture, and were hungry to do so. Word also began to spread through trade routes to and from Sunhill that the solar hospital now had means of enlightening any pony who came to the city. This would no doubt cause a stir in quite a few places.

Beyond that, with a return to something close to business as usual, Cash and Speaker first journeyed to Great Forks via the new light rail connection, entreating the god of libraries to gather a task force of spirits, scribes, explorers and other suitable minds to journey to Sperimin and start to restore the library there.

Speaker found it difficult to hold back his own tears a week or so later when he witnessed the god of libraries weep on the front steps of Six-Fold Spire. It had been so long since the two had been together. The god of libraries gladly accepted the position as the head of the newly formed university department of Literary Restoration, swearing before Speaker that he would scour all of heaven for ancient records of exactly what should be in Sperimin and where any lost book, scroll or tablet had ended up.

“This is great. The foragers east of the city are reporting friendly contact with the baboon tribes. They’re already trading fruit for iron tools, while the tribes that used to live west of the city have migrated away – and Liberatum told me earlier that he expects a preliminary report on the college libraries’ inventory status to be ready in a few months” Cash said, beaming with pride as he beheld the buzz of activity in the ancient campus, the crystal structures standing glorious while ponies and spirits alike ran around doing all kinds of work to get the settlement into a self-sufficient working order.

Recalling faint memories of ancient first age ceremonies celebrating the creation of the eight heavenly glories, one of which was Sperimin and its colleges, Speaker could only stroke his beard with the utmost of satisfaction: “I’m glad you finally talked him into accepting a name. Calling him ‘The God of libraries’ all the time was getting annoying… though Liberatum is a bit of a mouthful”

“Well, he does like everything around him to be properly labelled, including himself – but you’re right. And once Libby gets the ball rolling here, we can start checking out the books in the libraries here and open the place for actual students” Cash said, sounding only a little annoyed.

Right, that actually had been a contentious issue: Apparently then the spirit of the university still didn’t permit removing ANY books, tomes or scrolls from it – which was fair enough – but the ancient systems for making perfect copies of such things that could be removed hadn’t worked for thousands of years. Indeed, Speaker had been forced to repeatedly free Crashing Wave from the university’s surprisingly comfortable holding cells because of that, the two agreeing that it would best if the lunar would stick to leaving scrolls and tablets where he found himself until proper spirit staff had been hired to restart the replication system again.

It was only the book of three rings was able to replicate itself without outside aid, and after the first sidereal had been caught by the Keeper trying to get the book to make a copy for her, Speaker had instructed the Keeper to safeguard the book and demand that all requests for copies of the book had to be submitted in person to Speaker for his approval. This would at least keep most hostile elements from getting their grubby mittens on such a treasure-trove of sorcerous lore.

It was while Speaker was instructing the Keeper that a magical message appeared before Cash, which caused him to rush to the nearest yeddim. For Speaker, all that happened was that moments later the spirit of the university interrupted him, informing him to make haste for a balcony next to which Cash was flying with his yeddim.

Now, Speaker trusted Cash well enough to respect a request for urgency – but he hadn’t quite expected Cash to shout for him to use the Sunhill hearthstone once he got up on the yeddim’s howdah: “Check on Sunhill, now! I just got a message from a Lookshyan sorcerer at the redoubt they have near the city – shit is on fire; They can hear screaming and fighting!”

Trusting Cash explicitly, Speaker used the hearthstone of the Sunhill manse which allowed him to sense all things in the city, as well as project images of himself or anything else he’d like to see projected magically within the city.

…and what he saw was chaos. Well, he saw the bloody aftermath of chaos.

Ponies throughout the city were cleaning up streets slick with blood. Carts loaded with corpses were being stacked with more bodies, and several fires were still being put out, much of the city clouded in smoke. Snapping his senses back into his own body, Speaker looked at Cash with horror in his eyes: “What the hell happened?”

Cash didn’t have much of an answer, but said that he had gotten a message that several groups of dozens of ponies had run amok through the city, burning things and attacking anyone they saw with simple blades and other makeshift weapons: “…but the message didn’t say anything about who or why they attacked us”

“That’s not how the immaculates operate. Were any of them undead? Was this Thorns with a new trick for attacking us?” Speaker wondered, as Cash flew the yeddim down to the rail-pillar and tied essence to it, making them zip along the light-rail at speeds far greater than what he could make the great beast fly.

The solar diplomat and business-pony could only shake his head: “No idea, but I sure as hell intended to find out!”

A few hours later in Sunhill, the two were greeted by the rest of the circle – all of them looking quite exhausted. The debriefing in the war room atop the Sunhill manse was not a fun one.

Sunrise had been galloping all over the place, raising the spirits of the injured and doing an admirable job of it. Fire Orchid had been patrolling the streets vigilantly, trying to spot any other troublemakers while also giving the ponies of Sunhill the certainty and comfort of seeing their lords on the job… even if they hadn’t actually found anything: “They kept doing hit and run attacks – scattering once we got close, using some very well planned out escape routes, then reforming and attacking somewhere else, always burning something down and injuring as many ponies they could find”

Sullen Hoof and Shimmer in turn had found far more – but what they had found had been quite worrying. Shimmer presented Speaker with a half-crushed skull: “Once we finally figured out what they were doing, they changed plans and went for the sewer systems. You designed the garbage-grinders down there a little too well… they were able to kill themselves before we caught any of them alive – this was the biggest chunk I was able to fish out… even the soul has been mulched”

Speaker reeled, as Sullen Hoof presented his findings: “The ones that couldn’t make it to the sewer entrances killed themselves – we started blocking the sewer access points once we saw what they were doing – they took some kind of poison I’ve never seen before… it didn’t just kill them, it dissolved them from the inside out after a few minutes – we have no bodies to examine”

In the morgue there were a few buckets where the liquid remains of several of the attackers had been gathered – there truly was nothing to examine, though Speaker could confirm that the remains were that of ponies: “What the bloody hell was this…”

“I only got a few looks at them before the stuff kicked in. It’s very little material for my profiling charms, but Fire Orchid agrees with my analysis: This was some kind of probing attack, to test our response times and cause as much damage as possible, with a lot of effort having been put into covering their tracks” Sullen Hoof noted, sounding quite displeased with the implications of it all, especially with all the involved ponies having killed themselves so completely.

Shaking his head at the buckets of pony remains, Speaker sighed: “Thorns has always used expendable undead troops to attack us – and the immaculates are a lot of things, but not suicidal”

Back in the manse war room, Cash said that he had tracked most of the rioters to arrivals that had come in the last few weeks after the victory celebrations, some having arrived under merchant banners, some as visitors to hospital patients: “…but all of them were foreigners, all of them using fake names, no doubt about that”

“If they were under the spell of a foreign power…” Sunrise thought out loud, not quite sure where to go with her idea, but certain that something had influenced them.

The rest of the circle agreed that the ponies had without a doubt been influenced by something. As Cash put it: “Even the most fervent suicide cult will have someone who backs out when things get dicey. This was… enforced magically – or triggered magically”

“Maybe it was a lunar wanting to probe our defences and response speeds? A revenge attack for Rakshi?” Cash considered.

Sully noted that in one of the taverns where he had tracked the attackers back to, where they had stayed and evidently staged their attack and coordinated smuggling weapons into the city, they had found a room secretly converted into an office. The tavern staff had thought it was a rich merchant who had brought her own servants and whatnot, so they hadn’t been in the room. It had clearly been there the whole thing had been planned, though most of the planning maps and whatnot had been torn up and burnt, so only fragments had been recovered: “But we did find a letter that seemed to have been deliberately left behind… it’s addressed to Speaker”

“Do I want to know?” Speaker wondered, not sounding terribly impressed.

Shaking his head, mask and all, Sully explained that the letter had been some random hateful screed. Speaker could only sigh: “Another for the pile, lovely. The price of being the face and name that Cash puts on all the products we ship off…”

“We can add this lunatic organization to the list of bad things to stomp out. Forgive me, but aside from the fires then the damages were limited, and none of ours actually got killed. I think we should maintain our focus on Thorns. We have the book of three circles now, and we have some idea of how to initiate someone to the adamant circle – that should be enough to end every shadowland in Creation!” Fire Orchid cut through, having previously voiced her great dislike of getting distracted by small things when the plan was to work on great things.

Sully said that he had a few things to check up on, a few sources he could question about what had happened – especially now that Cash had the information on where the attackers had come from – but beyond that he was willing to resume operations against Thorns.

Sunrise agreed: “As annoying as this attack was, then our own city guards and emergency response forces were more than able to contain it – for all we know this was orchestrated by sidereals to test our readiness, to see if we are ‘worthy’ or something”

Speaker didn’t like it, but accepted that Thorns was a bigger issue. Shimmer followed suit, while Cash argued that preventing an attack like that would require rebuilding the city into something like Lookshy, with armed and guarded gates at almost every road intersection: “We have enough enemies as is – we would gain nothing by imagining up more of them”

An uncomfortable silence followed as the maps of Thorns and its surrounding territories were brought out, now that maps of Sperimin and its lands were no longer what was focused on.

“Our biggest problem with Thorns is Juggernaut… Speaker, you told me a while ago that you knew about this thing from the first age?” Cash said, pointing at a map of the entire scavenger lands – chiefly a map of the larger rivers of the region – where an extra marking had been added, with text underneath spelling out ‘Juggernaut’, just south of the city of Thorns.

Drawing a deep breath, Speaker used his essence puppetry charm to conjure up illusions of light and essence, specifically one of what appeared to be a generic landscape with rolling hills and tilled fields, with a large town in the middle, replete with first age towers twisting up towards the sky.

“Juggernaut is a ‘thing’ wrought of the wyld – maybe it was spawned by some kind of primordial creation, maybe its spawned by the wyld itself. A lot of very spirited debates were had on that in the first age, plus it behaves like something from of The Boar That Cracks The Sky… but what we knew for certain was that it would show up at the border-marshes of creation, then rampage uncontrollably towards the elemental pole of earth and leave a wake of absolute destruction. We would fight it every time and slay it every time… and a century later it would reappear somewhere else, and we would start over” Speaker explained, adding to his illusion a gigantic mountain-sized thing with many enormous limbs that would strike, stomp and smash its way through any kind of obstacle, be it city, mountainside or army, as it part walked, part ploughed through both all three.

Nobody liked the implications of that. Fire Orchid was the first to highlight the most immediate issue: “Wait… so if we kill it, it’ll just come back?”

“It’ll take a hundred years – but yes, and it’ll likely appear in a corner of Creation where it can rampage for decades before any civilized force comes to meet it – it never showed up the same place twice. It is a thing beyond fate, so the sidereals could never track its appearance” Speaker said, his eyes closed and his mouth scrunched into a foul grimace at the very thought of such loss of life.

Sunrise nodded, drawing down her hood: “Can we bind it with sorcery – like a demon? Is there a spell in the book of three rings we could use?”

Now that was a novel idea. Cash quickly picked up on this: “Speaker, in the first age – who usually dealt with juggernaut? Dawn caste solars, warriors? Or sorcerers? You say it was slain over and over – didn’t any one ever try to bind it?”

“Let me think… right… yes, you’re right. Especially after the primordial war, a lot of dawn caste solars waited eagerly for their shot at doing battle with Juggernaut. I think a few containment methods were tried, but not much worked. Juggernaut’s strength and mass means that it can charge through any wall and break out of any binding” Speaker regaled, admitting that it wasn’t a topic he knew terribly much of, his lands managing to never having to suffer from Juggernaut’s onslaught.

Sunrise appeared to like the sound of that: “Excellent. In that case I suggest that the two of us start studying the book of three rings for spells that can help us. Meanwhile, the rest of us should start looking into the rest of Thorns. Sully, you told me earlier that you had contacts in Nexus who knew merchants from Thorns?”

“Yes, I will see what they know – though I will need time. We should meet up again in a week at the earliest to share what we’ve found” Sullen Hoof said, looking around the table.

Cash licked his lips as he nodded: “I’ll journey to Stygia in the underworld. I know a lot of ghosts I can work over for information on Thorns – plus it’ll be good to get a measure of how the underworld is now with a deathlord destroyed”

“Hmmm… I should go to Lookshy and ask them what their plans are for Thorns. They were not happy after their rearguard troops had to fight Thornguard during the battle of Deep Rot – nor happy about learning of the lost legion” Speaker said, eliciting a gasp from Fire Orchid.

The dawn caste general looked incredulous: “Wait, you’re telling me Thorns lent troops to that, and Lookshy knows? Why hasn’t Lookshy mobilized to stomp Thorns already?”

“We can go and find out” Speaker suggested, saying that if he and Fire Orchid went to Lookshy to see what their plans were, then perhaps they could coordinate battle plans.

The circle agreed on this, and thus everyone had their task: Sunrise would read the tome of three rings, Sully would go to Nexus, Cash to Stygia, and Speaker and Fire Orchid would journey to Lookshy. This left Shimmer, who opted to aid Sunrise in reading the tome of three rings, plus it might improve her own quite limited sorcerous skills.

It was early evening by the time Speaker and Fire Orchid left on a conjured cloud, Fire Orchid once more expressing her gratitude that he had been ok with sharing his teachings with their new army: “This is what they deserve. Iron Hoof used to treat us all like disposable meat, selling our lives cheaply. You doing this proves to them that we care about them as more than just soldiery – but as citizens”

“I’m glad you think so – but our enemies are still legion, and as enlightened ponies they’ll be able to use magical weapons” Speaker noted.

Fire Orchid accepted this, but was quick to see the greater potential of it all: “True, but they can do so much more… I mean, before we left Sunhill I saw so many ponies going around floating things in the air, moving things around without having to bite down on the them first… we’ll be able to do the impossible now”

“You’re a solar – you do the impossible, daily – but you’re right. This will let the citizens of Sunhill do things far beyond what normal ponies can. We’ll build higher, grow our crops faster, and achieve a greater harmony with the gods now that everyone can offer up their essence freely for sacrifice” Speaker remarked, guiding his cloud towards Looksy.

Drawing a deep breath, Fire Orchid contemplated the irony of her years living with false memories: “If that hadn’t happened to me… I don’t know if I would have agreed with you. It taught me a humility I couldn’t have gotten as the daughter of one of the highest-ranking officers in Lookshy”

“Highest ranking – your mother got a promotion, remember?” Speaker corrected, but in a warm that showed how he fully accepted everything else Fire Orchid had said.

The old mare shook her head: “Right – she told me when I met her while you were off west. That’s going to take some getting used to”

“Friends in high places is not a bad thing my friend – hell, we’ve got friends in heaven now, remember?” Speaker said to reassure her.

Frowning, Fire Orchid rolled her eyes: “Oh sure, sounds great… right up until they start asking for favors”

“Lookshy doesn’t ask much of us – Cash has negotiated some amazing deals with them. They ship their sick and wounded to us, we patch them up and nurse them back to health, they pay us handsomely. When they come and ask for me to repair things, they also get to pay for that – Lookshy knows well enough not to mess with us, or treat us like an expendable resource” Speaker stated with a great sense of certainty, and not a small amount of patriotism.

With a chuckle, Fire Orchid gave Speaker a playful slap over the shoulder: “You sound like security directorate propaganda”

“Perhaps – but unlike propaganda, then I’m not wrong here. Also, remind me to ask around for the troops I enlightened last I was were here”

“I will” Fire Orchid said with a slight nod, quietly expressing great respect for what Speaker had wanted to do for his former brothers in arms.

Landing at the Lookshyan aerie, Speaker quickly declared his desire to speak with a representative of the general staff – the military junta that ruled Lookshy. Due to his good connections to the city state, and well-known good relationship with several of the officers on the general staff, Speaker and Fire Orchid were whisked away to the residential district of Lookshy, to the grand estate of Gens Karal.

It was evening, the sun nearly having set completely, when the two solars arrived at the office of Taimyo Karal Linseed. The scarlet mane, the fiery eyes, the crimson horn – these things left one no doubt of Karal Linseed’s fire-aspect to her dragonblooded powers. She in turn gave Speaker and Fire Orchid a knowing nod as they entered: “Lord Bright, daughter – to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Speaker found Linseed’s calling Fire Orchid daughter quite amusing, but bowed politely to her in kind and quickly stated his business: “Forgive the late hour of our arrival. Sunhill is looking to move against Thorns – the Mask of Winters keeps sending barges with secret holds full of zombies to us, and that’s just what they do to us – we have no clue what other evil they’re spreading throughout the scavenger lands”

Fire Orchid nodded, stepping forward: “We want to take the fight to them – liberate Thorns from the undead”

Taimyo Linseed looked at the two with keen eyes, and a smile on her lips: “Really? What a noble quest indeed – and do you think that a former realm satrapi will accept solar rule?”

Ok hold on, were they that transparent?

Her mind not clouded by the same level of patriotism that Speaker had, Fire Orchid chuckled and approached to sit down in front of Linseed’s massive desk: “Mother, we want to free Thorns and destroy the Deathlord that rules it – we have no interest in conquering the place – we have Sunhill”

Linseed gave her daughter a knowing look, one that seemed to recognize a sound military strategist: “That still doesn’t answer who’ll be in charge of the place once you’re done there”

Speaker trotted up and sat down next to Fire Orchid, a bit annoyed that Linseed was asking such questions – chiefly because it was indeed an aspect of Sunhill’s plans that had not been given thought: “We’ll figure that out when done. Ideally, I’d like to see Thorns become a part of the confederation of rivers, not return to being a realm satrapi, but either is better than being lorded over by a mad ghost”

The taimyo nodded, accepting that it was a complicated challenge: “Fair enough. If you’re here to coordinate battle plans for taking Thorns, then I’m all ears. I’ll bring your plans before the general staff at our next meeting – though we would prefer that your plans include suggestions on who should be in charge afterwards”

Chapter 27 Dread Aforethought

The eye of heaven stylist slays her soup magnificently, sacrificing it on an altar of spoon to The Most High

…

How do you combat an ancient supposedly immortal monster the size of a mountain? How do you prevent it from flattening your troops? How do you sell what was previously a realm satrapi on the idea that anathema has ‘saved’ them from the trotting dead?

These were not questions that had easy answers – but given Speaker’s great intellect, Fire Orchid’s supernatural wisdom in the ways of war, and Taimyo Karal Linseeds practical insights from close to ninety years of warfare, then answers were sussed out.

They all agreed that an initial surgical strike at the deathlord would be ideal. Speaker was certain that with his new martial arts abilities, which he refrained from actually detailing to Linseed, then he could very effectively neutralize the deathlord and allow others to move in for the kill. The unicorn was understandably dubious about this: “I’ll believe that you have learned some new martial arts since last we met, but this secrecy confuses me… and worries me”

“I understand – but Sunhill has other allies and friends, the source of my new skills, and they would prefer if Lookshy and them remain apart” Speaker said, trying to be diplomatic, but judging by Linseed’s expression then he wasn’t selling the idea all that well.

Fire Orchid quickly cut in before her mother could call Speaker on his weak-sauce argument: “Celestial gods. We can’t tell you which, nor how we met them, but we’re talking about gods and their heavenly… messengers from Yu-Shan – they have a really strange hostility towards both terrestrial gods and exalts. Some ancient grudge I haven’t been able to pick apart yet, but they don’t want Lookshy knowing their names because you know that someone would start bothering them with prayers begging them for the same new powerful martial arts, and that would impact us very badly”

The unicorn took a deep breath. She had read the reports from Lookshy’s priests – she knew that celestial gods had issues with unicorns, one not shared with the ‘celestial’ exalted: “So you met the god of punching and learned a new way to punch things, but he doesn’t want to share – right. Have you tested these new skills in practice?”

Fire Orchid looked at Speaker, who quickly returned a look at her. The circle had agreed not to make the news of Sperimin public until the Sunhill army had finished its enlightenment, when parts of it could be stationed at Sperimin to guard it – so… how to explain the dream based martial arts being used on Rakshi, without giving the game away?

“We’ve recently been expanding our light-rail network, our first major expansion. When we were putting up pillars in a patch of jungle we learned the hard way that it was in the territory of two lunars who lorded over several tribes of mutant ponies and mutant animals. Cash Charmer managed to talk one lunar leading some mutant tribes into leaving us alone, but the other one we had to fight… and she commanded legions of jungle animals, many of which she had somehow used her powers to grant enlightened essence. Speaker fought her and used her powers to put her down, letting us move in for a killing blow… well, after she had put her clawed hoof through Speaker’s throat – though he had prepared for that, somehow” Fire Orchid regaled, her years as a mercenary having granted her much experience in the fine arts of telling tall tales of her exploits, but also lying through her teeth to excuse all manner of bad behaviour.

The Lookshyan general looked at her daughter, her face part smile and part scrutinizing gaze: “Were you part of that?”

“Of course – I led the recently formed Sunhill Legion, held the line. We locked down her beasts in a battle they couldn’t win to draw the lunar out, then we struck her down” Fire Orchid proudly and staunchly declared, emphasising the ‘held the line’ as only a soldier could.

Speaker observed as Linseed’s face changed subtly into one of pride – not just a proud general, but a proud mother pleased with the accomplishments of her children: “Alright… I’ll bring your plans for a diversion to the general staff”

Thanking Linseed, the two left the Taimyo to her work and retired for the evening to gens Karal guest quarters. Walking there, Fire Orchid sighed deeply and dropped her strong façade, finally letting her own emotions surface instead of the confident mask of the mercenary: “Gods… do you really think it’ll work? Lookshy drawing Juggernaut away from the city?”

“It has to. I’m sure Sunrise will find some strange solar circle spell that’ll do what we need – but regardless of how it works we’ll still need to contain Juggernaut and minimize collateral damage. We won’t be saving Thorns if taking out Juggernaut means reducing the whole city to a smoking crater” Speaker quickly said, barely even thinking.

The gravity of such a statement seemed to weigh heavily on Fire Orchid. Holding the line against Rakshi had been near impossible already – but a foe the size of a mountain? No line would hold against that – it could simply step on you, no matter how well-disciplined your shield wall was.

Entering the guest quarters assigned to them at the Karal family residence, Speaker was about to say something reassuring to Fire Orchid when he instead saw someone else in the room… someone who certainly wasn’t dressed like a gens Karal servant: “Wait… you!?”

Fire Orchid quickly leapt in front of Speaker, her stance defensive: “Friend of foe!?”

Doctor Hooves, as he had last introduced himself, casually sauntered up to the two solars, his calm demeanour strangely disarming and exuding an aura of calm and jovial cooperation. With his short but well styled brown mane, his brown coat, the tie and fez he was wearing, and the hour-glass cutie-mark on his flank, the pony gave Fire Orchid an appraising look as if staring into her soul: “Interesting – good to see you back in action”

“I… do I know you?” Fire Orchid blurted out, confused as all hell.

The clatter of dropped chopsticks and the thunk of a ceramic bowl hitting the wooden floor rang out behind them. Quickly turning to look revealed a grey-coated mare in a gens Karal servant outfit, her wild blond mane and yellow cross-eyed look making her look oddly pitiful yet also endearing: “Sorry…”

Speaker shook his head: “You two again – what do you want?”

The doctor smiled at Speaker: “Just checking to see if your meeting went well. The fate of Thorns is at play here”

Fire Orchid looked at Speaker with confusion in her eyes, both because this stallion before her clearly knew more than he should, but he was also acting in such a calm and familial fashion: “Do you know this guy?”

“Met him once here in Lookshy – the coughers were after him and the mare. He asked about a book. I’m guessing sidereal, not sure about her” Speaker said, finally piecing together the cryptic nature of the pony before them.

The doctor nodded: “Guilty as charged – chosen of endings. My good friend and partner in crime over here goes by Derpy Hooves, chosen of journeys”

Her caste mark flaring briefly as she used some manner of charm to judge the two sidereals, Fire Orchid’s expression softened: “Right – and since you’re not attacking us, then you’re not bronze faction. What do you want?”

“Factions? Nah, we’re not into that kind of politics – we’re working to save lives, not please committees. As for why we’re here, then we’d like to follow up on what we spoke about last time we met” the doctor said, looking inquisitively at Speaker.

It took a few moments for Speaker to remember, but then he shot the doctor an exasperated look: “Yes, I’ve expanded my ‘private library’ – got all of Sperimin actually – something you wanted there?”

The doctor’s face broadened into a great smile, Derpy bounding over to him: “That’s what you said we needed! Now they can help us!”

Smiling from ear to ear, which was no small feat for a pony, the doctor nodded: “Indeed – and to answer your question Speaker, then we don’t want anything from Sperimin, we want your help freeing Thorns. Every moment we waste, dozens of ponies there die screaming”

“Perfect” said Fire Orchid, smiling menacingly as she approached the doctor: “…then you won’t mind telling us exactly who you are, how you got in here, and why you we shouldn’t report you to the nightwatch”

The expression on the doctor’s face turned from a broad grin into a slightly more worried one, as the dawn caste solar got right up in his face: “Hey now – we’ve already introduced ourselves…”

“Oh yes – and while I’m still somewhat new to this, then Cash and Sunrise have both clued me in on how manipulative you sidereals can be. So, what’s your game here? You could have contacted us in Sunhill, come before us officially if this is all you wanted to say. We book meetings you know. So, what are you hiding? Also, Speaker, lie detection charm please” Fire Orchid stated firmly, having clearly seen through the doctor’s attempt to dodge the question.

The sidereal tried to take a few steps back – but Fire Orchid just followed along, staying right up in the doctor’s face: “Well obviously Sunhill is being spied on by the deathlords – we don’t want to be spotted there, since we’ve been operating a lot in Thorns”

Speaker frowned. His lie-detector charm might not be perfect, but it did let him know when he was also hearing half-truths – though in this case he felt the doctor’s statement as an outright lie, which made him very suspicious: “Doctor, us cooperating with you is contingent on us trust you. You just lied to our faces. I’m pretty sure Cash would be able to tell you exactly what celestial laws you broke in doing so, but if Fire Orchid was to take you prisoner right now so we can interrogate you properly, then I doubt any heavenly censor would take offense to that”

“Doctor… should we run?” the mare tentatively asked, sounding oddly timid for an exalted pony.

His gaze quickly switching between the three ponies talking to him, the doctor seemed quite worried – but with a deep breath, and the flaring of his purple caste mark, the sign of the mare of endings, he seemed to steel himself: “No… we’ll have to be a little more forthcoming, that’s all”

Fire Orchid threw a quick glance to Speaker, who nodded, signalling that the doctor wasn’t lying anymore. To this end Fire Orchid stepped back, giving the doctor breathing room.

“Right – the reason we’re approaching you like this, and not at Sunhill, is that me and Derpy aren’t on the best of terms with heaven. The rest of the sidereal host considers us ronin. The same protections you have on Sunhill to guard against bronze faction attacks would also ensnare us, and they would execute us on sight for what we’ve done” the doctor explained.

Speaker sat down on his bed, giving the doctor and Derpy a quizzical look: “Exactly what have you done to become wanted by heaven?”

Fire Orchid, noting that Speaker hadn’t objected to anything that the doctor had said and interpreting that as there not having been spoken any lies, chimed in: “You’re sidereals – agents of fate – so… you’ve gone against fate?”

“Ya… basically” the mare cross-eyed said, walking up next to the doctor and fiddling with a fancy bracelet that instantly swallowed up her servant uniform and replacing it with a nice yellow dress: “…we’ve refused to enforce a lot of cruel fates. We help ponies, even when we’re told not to”

The doctor elaborated, explaining that when it came to fate then in this age of sorrows the ‘natural state of things’ was arguably a lot worse than it had to be: “Me and Derpy, we go around Creation ending suffering and evil, putting ponies on new paths in life to better themselves – instead of keeping them locked into whatever cruel fates they might have been born into. For this, heaven considers us criminals, for going against the often cruel and heartless designs of heaven”

Fire Orchid nodded, finding the story presented to her quite agreeable: “Oh I know quite well how some Sidereals are perfectly happy hurting others in order to maintain the status quo – but if you fix all those things, don’t you end up leaving… what was it Heath Rose said, won’t you end up leaving lose ends in the weave of fate?”

“Oh no we tidy up our work. Just before Thorns happened, we were helping a poet find new inspiration. He was fated to die of a crippling disease, but also write some very nice poetry in the days before would die. We cured him and then helped him find new inspiration, by taking him around to old ponies and listening to their stories – his destiny came true, but he also got to live – but what we did was a celestial crime by their laws” the mare said, speaking with a great passion as she explained how the two of them made sure that anyone they helped would always fit back into fate, even if not how it had originally planned.

The doctor smiled once more: “Exactly. And for taking that kind of initiative, crafting fates without permission and upsetting cruel gods when they can’t see ponies killed on a whim, we are marked as outlaws of heaven”

“Right, ok – we agree that your stake in this is genuine. So why are you here, and what is you want us to do?” Fire Orchid stated, not just satisfied with the two sidereals, but also feeling a tad bored with how they were going on and on.

The doctor nodded to Fire Orchid: “Yes, the plan. We need you to stop Lookshy from attacking Thorns. Every pony killed would be another ghost fighting for Thorns”

“You’ve really been busy with Thorns for a long time, haven’t you? What you’re describing isn’t an issue anymore” Speaker said, explaining the strange poison pills that the circle and Lookshy had developed in cooperation with various celestial gods prior to the assault and siege of Deep Rot two years ago.

The doctor and Derpy both appeared surprised by that, but both quickly admitted that as a result of their ronin status then it was quite rare for them to touch base with heaven and learn anything new from on high. They had heard of the fall of Deep Rot, but they had been running interference in Thorns and smuggling the living out of there.

“Well, the ghost-pills aren’t perfect – the poison in them will kill you after a week or so, but if taken just before a battle in a shadowland then you’re safe and leaves you with plenty of time to get the anti-dote afterwards. But honestly, we would love some proper intelligence on Thorns, where to strike, and how to deal with Juggernaut” Speaker noted.

The doctor looked at Derpy: “That’s also part of why we’re here – Darling, the scroll please”

One scroll passed around later, and the two mysterious rogue sidereals left the two solars for the evening… or so they thought.

As Speaker fell asleep and found himself once more within his own dream – his dream-based martial arts having rendered him in such a way that he always experienced lucid dreaming – he quickly found himself not quite alone… for something or someone else within his dream was changing things, changing his dreamscape.

“Who are you?” Speaker cried out, his words echoing across his dream.

Out from nothing stepped a figure. It was pony shaped, yet shrouded in fantasy and dream-stuff, making it impossible to identify even if it was a mare or a stallion. Its voice was similarly dream-like, as if the pony somehow spoke in a way that tricked Speaker’s own imagination to give it a voice: “I am here to continue your training – you will need it for where you are going and the foes you will meet”

“Training? In quicksilver hoof of dreams style?”

“Indeed. You were very lucky with your gamble with Rakshi – even more so that you had a circle with you to close your wounds, as your injuries within the dream became quite real on your physical form due to your crude means of entering her mind” the stranger said.

Speaker shot the strange being a curious look: “Hold on – I had no wounds from my dream when I woke up”

“Like I said, you had kind friends with you that moved quickly to keep you patched up”

Well, that explained a few things. Speaker nodded slowly: “Very well – what is it you have to teach me, and what do I call you?”

“I would first teach you how to become one with a dream and hide within it – and you may simply call me sifu”

The next day a somewhat tired Speaker and well-rested Fire Orchid stood before the general staff of Lookshy, the top military leaders of the highly militant city state. The scroll they had gotten from the two rogue sidereals contained up to date maps of Thorns, with markings and notes detailing military positions and troop strength.

“This is amazing… how did you get this information?” Asked the portly Maheka Feldspar, the matriarch of the Lookshyan noble house Gens Maheka also known as ‘The Battleaxe’. She looked at the scroll with the steely and greedy eyes of a military leader who had indeed just been given the secrets of her enemy to use as she saw fit.

Fire Orchid nodded: “We have friends in high places, and despite being shrouded in a shadowland, then there are still spirits and other heavenly agents in Thorns – we received this last night”

“And you trust this information?” said the elderly matriarch of Gens Yushoto, one Yushoto Risotto, said. Her voice was rusty and dry, but it was clear from her words that her wit was fresh and spry like a spring shoot.

Both Speaker and Fire Orchid spoke for the validity of the information. They had no reason to distrust their source, and Speaker added that he had used his lie-detector charm to verify that the source was truthful when asked about it: “…but regardless of the map, then doing anything about Thorns would require solving one particular issue: Juggernaut”

“Indeed. In our oldest libraries we’ve found references to Juggernaut, which state that it can be killed. Considering its limbs and lack of ranged attack abilities, our strategoi suggest a ranged assault, ideally via our skyship fleet, from a height it cannot reach” Taimyo Karal Linseed stated.

Fire Orchid nodded: “Would the Skywolf be able to sortie for this?”

“Not at time soon – even with the replacement parts you’ve made for us, it’ll be at least another three or four seasons before its fully repaired. The battle of Deep Rot left it with a lot more damage than we had expected. We’ve had to rebuild most of the loadbearing jade-steel skeleton of the thing – the old parts just wouldn’t carry after we got it back into Creation” the battleaxe noted, her family owning and running a lot of the jadesteel foundries in Lookshy.

Speaker knew well enough that there were enough factions within Lookshy that still didn’t like him, that he didn’t offer to help repair the Skywolf. Still, without the mightiest skyreme of Lookshy’s airforce then the real question was whether Lookshy would even be able to mount a big enough threat to lure Juggernaut away from the city.

The general staff was aware of this, and possible strategies were discussed at length. Sunhill’s new soon to be enlightened army, along with the enlightened forces Speaker had granted Lookshy, would without a doubt present mighty foes to Thorns – but would they be enough to draw Juggernaut out?

“There’s also the question of just how Juggernaut is being controlled. The oldest of our shogunate era libraries say that Juggernaut was relentless and ceaseless – yet it has been sitting idly for close to five years now. This is highly irregular based on the ancient lore we’ve dug up” another unicorn noted, citing ancient battle reports from the 7th legion’s earliest history, dating back well before the great contagion and the formation of the realm.

It was by a late hour when Speaker and Fire Orchid left for Sunhill. They weren’t entirely happy with the final battle plan as proposed by the general staff of Lookshy, but it was something they could work with. Even without Juggernaut, then the Mask of Winter commanded quite an army – an army that had to be dealt with, an army made of both the undead and the living. The scary part was that according to Lookshyan intelligence, then the living soldiery of Thorns – the remnants and new units of the thornguard – had all been placed under heavy mind control thanks to the Mask’s deathknights. Similarly, Lookshyan intelligence estimated that there were at least three deathknights in Thorns at all times, with more out on missions or projects elsewhere. Lookshy’s intelligence on happenings in the underworld were limited, to put it mildly, but its intelligence directorate had begun working together with the Lost Legion of Deheleshen – the army of the dead that helmed the underworld ruins of the ancient city that had been where Lookshy was now, though such efforts had yet to pay off with useful information, but it had meant that Lookshy’s underworld defences were now better than ever.

“I’m still just… do you think I have family in this lost legion?” Fire Orchid wondered, as she readjusted her position on the magical cloud she and Speaker were flying east on.

Speaker shrugged: “We both probably do. I know at least one unicorn in it – Ruby died in my service just as the lookshyan priesthood tried to pull their coup a couple of years ago”

“Right… I read about that back in Sunhill. I seriously hope that we can avoid more madness like that” Fire Orchid said, sounding none too keen on having to deal with that kind of drama.

It wasn’t difficult to agree with her. Still, Speaker quickly pointed out that there were still plenty of adherents to the immaculate faith in the east, even in Sunhill.

“Wait – we’ve got immaculates in Sunhill? How is that even possible? It’s a huge security risks if nothing else” Fire Orchid blurted out, quite surprised.

Stroking his beard, Speaker explained how the version of the immaculate faith practiced in Sunhill was… to put it mildly… a bit different than what most others preached: “Sunrise did most of the revisions to their dogma, I helped with some notes. Their texts now have the anathema that the dragons worked to overthrow be the primordials. The celestial exalted are barely even mentioned in their texts. Not all of them are too happy with it, but they understand that we can’t permit a faith that preaches that their own rulers are evil and have to be overthrown. It’s become quite popular among the more rebellious youths in Sunhill – a safe way for them to stick it to the sun-worshipers”

“Ugh… of course they would”

“Perhaps, but now that there’s a proper army to join, I think we’ll see a shift in that. A lot of youths used to join the immaculates, looking for an excuse to get into fights” Speaker noted, recalling how similar recruitment strategies had been employed in Lookshy to guide the rough and tumble parts of Lookshyan youth into the armed forces where such aggression could be put to good use.

Arriving in Sunhill, the two tended to their duties and enjoyed what little spare time they had until the rest of the circle returned. Speaker joined Sunrise and Shimmer in reading the book of three rings, scouring the pages for a spell they could use to deal with Juggernaut.

Cash and Sully returned a week or so later, Cash looking shiny and confident as ever, while Sully looked a tad scuffed and worse for wear. Speaker quickly had him patched up, after which everyone headed to the Sunhill manse for updates on what they had found.

Speaker and Shimmer trotted towards the central manse elevator platform, leaving the medical ward that Speaker had been practicing medicine in. Just as they left a male nurse came galloping: “Your lordships, a moment! We’ve got a code forty-six b”

Looking at Speaker, Shimmer quickly tried to recall exactly what that medical code meant – she hadn’t had time to memorize them just yet. Speaker nodded: “A payment issue for a low-income costumer? How severe?”

“We’ve called security. We cured a farmer of a bad case of hoof-rot, and now he wants to give us two of his five foals as payment and refuses to leave until we accept them” the nurse explained, catching his breath in between words.

Shimmer gave Speaker a shocked look: “I thought you said we don’t charge poor ponies for services?”

“We don’t – but a lot of them feel honor-bound to give us something in return, though… two of his five foals? Sounds like a ploy to ditch his kids and ensure they get educated and taken care of well” Speaker said, stroking his beard – his tone made it sound like it very much so was not the first time someone had tried that.

“That’s why I wanted to ask you what to do – they refuse to leave and are causing a scene” the nurse noted.

Sighing, Speaker said that he’d have Cash talk to them after their meeting: “…meanwhile tell them to wait in one of the audience chambers”

While going up the elevator, Shimmer playfully jabbed Speaker on the shoulder: “You are such a softie”

“Perhaps – but that nurse knew well enough to approach me instead of catching any of the others. He knew that the others would have told the family to leave” Speaker mused, sounding not at all upset that the nurse had gone to him instead of anyone else in the circle.

Shimmer smiled. The idea that the staff of the Sunhill hospital knew how to manipulate their masters, instead of just blindly following protocol, pleased her to no end.

Up in the war room the circle gathered and greeted each other. Fire Orchid seized the initiative and presented what she and Speaker had agreed with Lookshy: “Lookshy is willing to commit forces to handle the armed forces of Thorns – but they know that Juggernaut protects Thorns, and won’t move until we do something about it… but not having to deal with whatever army the Mask of Winters has sounds like a great deal”

“And what do they expect in return?” Cash wondered.

Speaker shrugged: “We didn’t get into specifics on that – but I suspect that they’ll want to install a unicorn of their choice as the new ruler of Thorns once the dust settles – I honestly don’t mind that”

The circle agreed that such an arrangement wasn’t all that bad – but it also assumed that Lookshy’s forced could get into the city fast enough to avoid anyone else taking over. Cash followed up, explaining that via the connections he had made in the underworld, his inquiries had informed him that several groups of realm unicorns had infiltrated Thorns: “…so if we take out the Mask, Lookshy might have to lay siege to the city if they want to take over and install a ruler of their choice”

Sullen Hoof agreed, adding that he had snuck around in Nexus and read the guild’s river traffic tracking ledgers: “They track all river shipping in the east – as well as coastal shipping down to Thorns, and the ships coming in and out of there have some interesting reports. Ghost inspectors on ships crewed by the dead inspect everything going in and out, but they’re mainly trying to catch citizens trying to sneak out of the city… they care not for goods being smuggled out”

“To absolutely nobody’s surprise – but did you learn anything we can use?” Sunrise said, her voice not quite pitiless, but still remaining focused on the task at hand instead of simply feeling sorry.

The solar culinarian nodded: “Yes, the guild has tracked what goods goes in and out. It seems that The Mask is trying to sell off anything he hawk, in order to buy as many slaves the guild can sell him – but he’s not buying food for them, or for the citizens of Thorns. This tell us he’s trying to accrue as many ghosts as possible, and that he’s likely starving the population of Thorns, though the farmlands around Thorns is supposedly still active”

Cash nodded, commenting that exploiting the city’s riches for more ghost slaves made sense: “Of course the real question is what the Mask needs all those ghost slaves for. Is he just forging them into soulsteel, or using the slaves to build something?”

“Moot point – both are bad, but this information also means that when we go to Thorns we should attempt to bring as much food as possible with us. This will be the best thing we can bring to buy information, help and allies” Sully pointed out, sounding as if he had already though of a menu.

This brought things around to Sunrise, Speaker and Shimmer and their reading of the book of three rings. Sunrise presented their findings: “In the first age a solar circle spell was devised that let the caster seal away a region of creation into elsewhere – and anything on it”

“Oh, that sounds perfect – we can just do away with Juggernaut that way!” Fire Orchid said eagerly.

Sunrise shook her head: “It is not that simple. The spell requires a very detailed model of the target area made in malfean porcelain – so we’ll have to get materials for that... and there is a ritual for burning that model that requires a supernatural flame we’ll also need a source of, a fire aspected unicorn’s fire or an elemental, and the ritual burning takes a whole night, which will leave us very vulnerable to interruption”

“But that’s it then? If we do this, Juggernaut will be done away with forever?” Cash wondered, sounding as if he was trying to recall if he knew anyone they could buy demonic porcelain from.

With a frown, Sunrise answered: “It’s not perfect. The region made disappeared will return for one day and one night every one hundred years – but assuming that juggernaut can be pacified or immobilized, then it shouldn’t be that big a problem… and it would only have a single day and night to get out or be put back inside”

Sullen Hoof quickly inquired to Speaker: “Do you remember anything about how fast it moves?”

“That… is not something I’m sure I remember – but I recall that it’s not fast at all, but it was equally difficult to stop once it started moving. In the first age it was called The Rubble Maker, The Slayer of Nations…” Speaker mused, plumbing the depths of his exaltation’s memories.

Sunrise nodded slowly: “Well, if the idea is to cast Juggernaut and enough terrain around it into elsewhere so that it cannot run out in a single day, then we will need to get it far away from Thorns to begin with”

“True – the ghosts I’ve spoken to confirm that Juggernaut is set up right next to the city walls. Same sources confirmed to me that it’s the Mask of winters who controls the thing directly, using necromancy – so we’ll still have to target him first… or maybe seal him away with it” Cash said.

The circle agreed that getting into the city, ideally covertly, and gathering information and setting things up for a rebellion, would probably be the best solution based on what they had so far. Of course, first up Speaker would have to initiate into two circles of sorcery and learn a spell or two, for the book of three rings had indeed contained detailed documentation on a spell that removed shadowlands, which would be an ideal way to force Juggernaut away from the city. Speaker was not keen on this, for he knew that to initiate into sorcery required sacrifice. He had already given up his hatred of the Guild, accepting that they are deeply flawed but natural expression of the many-faceted desires of mortals.

Within his private workshop room was made, and Sunrise and Shimmer helped Speaker along with the meditations needed to gain higher arcane insights. It wasn’t difficult for Speaker – as a chosen of the Twilight Caste he was naturally attuned to the strange ways of sorcery, so these insights came to him easily. Over the next four days Speaker mulled over his choice for a sacrifice.

At night, during his dreams, Speaker paced about ceaselessly. He only had figments of his imagination to speak to, all dream-constructs of his, all which would say anything he wanted to hear – but he had no need for sycophants. He needed… options, and he had few. He knew that he needed a sacrifice greater than what he had given up earlier… but what did he have to give up?

He recalled quite keenly how in the first age the ever-present threat of losing your love made many a celestial exalt weary of romance, for giving up a heartfelt relationship was a common choice for sacrifice to the second circle… but what love did he have to give up? Shimmer? He liked her, but not that much… that love had been for her last incarnation – and while it was obvious to him that she was interested in him, then they simply hadn’t had the time to develop much beyond a friendship.

Oh, what had that thing that his sifu had taught him said? The dreaming student’s sutra?

Forming his dreamscape into a picturesque lake-side gazebo, Speaker sat down and recited:
“Once, there was a maiden who slept.
As she slept, she fought and loved and saw the world
And none could awaken her.
For in her dreams, she had a lover who truly knew her,
though she did not see him.
She searched and searched but could not find him.”

Speaker found himself annoyed that his sifu had refused to teach him any more of the sutra – something about spoilers. How silly.

“Honestly, I don’t think it’s that silly… learning this stuff is dangerous”, said the familiar dreamlike voice of Speaker’s sifu.

Chapter 28 Fearful Revelations

The Golden Exhalation stylist rewarms old lukewarm soup with all manner of fire, ensuring a comfortable meal, while keeping all foes well away

…

Turning to the source of the voice, Speaker found nothing in his dreamscape. Annoyed, he called out: “Show yourself!”

“I don’t need to – I only need to bring you a warning: I come straight from Thorns. I have learned two things that worry me greatly. One is that they are dredging their harbors and digging up their beaches, another is that the Mask has announced a council of some sort to be held soon” the disembodied voice of the doctor said.

Speaker considered the severity of this information. Collecting sand? Was the mask trying to revive the famous glass-crafting workshops of Thorns? No… a deathlord wouldn’t be for want of money, especially not after seizing the coffers of Thorns.

“Exactly – now, I have places to be and ponies to save. We will meet again in Thorns, perhaps for the last time, who knows. I have foreseen a lot of death there” the now clear voice of the Doctor said, before disappearing in a way that left Speaker quite certain that he was alone in his dream once again.

The next day Speaker met with Sunrise and Cash at a Sunhill tea-salon in a private booth to discuss what he had learned in his dream. Both of them still found the idea of getting news and intel while dreaming weird – but they were open to the idea. Of course, they also wanted to know what Speaker had come up with for sacrifice.

“I… I haven’t decided on anything yet. I don’t have much outside of the circle and Sunhill, and I don’t want to give either of that up” Speaker said, feeling despair overtake him.

Sunrise put a comforting hoof upon Speaker’s shoulder: “It’s ok… none of us find this easy – and this clearly was never a process anyone was meant to rush into like this”

Nodding, Speaker slumped back into his chair and reached for his cup of tea: “I just… we’ve been so busy running Sunhill and saving Creation. I don’t even have a hobby or anything like that I could offer up for this – and I’ll need an even greater sacrifice for adamant circle sorcery!”

“I can help with that… and I think I have an idea for your third sacrifice too” Cash said, leaning in over the nicely polished wooden table, the look on his face one of serious confidence and ice-cold logic.

Speaker didn’t like how Cash was looking at him – but he was willing to listen, even if he dreaded what he might hear. He felt Sunrise’s hoof on his shoulder tighten its grip.

“I can use my charms to get you hooked into a new hobby or passion easily – I can make you the most passionate jewellery-maker or calligraphy artist ever. You can spend a few days indulging yourself, and then you can give that up for the sapphire circle” Cash explained, smiling just enough to put Speaker at ease.

Finding himself nodding to the idea, Speaker found it quite tempting: “That… that could work – but you said you had an idea for my third sacrifice too?”

“Yes – I’ve read the material you brought back from Yu-Shan on adamant sacrifices. Bridged Gap gave up herself, becoming a new pony. You can do the same: Give up your first age memories – become a pony of this age” Cash said, his smile quickly disappearing and turning into a very serious expression.

That… that was not something Speaker had expected to hear – but by Celestia… it made sense. Giving up his past life memories would be a profound change to himself, though it wouldn’t cripple him either: “That… but I know so much… to lose that…”

“I know – but we’re not fumbling around blindly anymore Speaker. We have friends in heaven and the underworld, and both of those have libraries with endless information on what happened in the past. We can manage, and rediscover the secrets of the first age on own now” Cash elaborated, sounding eerily sensible.

What could one say to that? Speaker had no idea. Cash wasn’t sounding unreasonable, that was for sure: “Do you think I’m living in the past?”

“Neither of us think that – but we both recognize your past life memories as a very valuable resource, but also one we can manage without” Sunrise stated calmly, trying to soothe Speaker.

Shaking his head, Speaker drew a deep breath: “You say that – but that’s not how it works. My first age memories is how I know most of my trade skills, my ability to craft pretty much anything, my occult lore, all the things I know about first age artifice… even medicine. It’s everything we’ve used to build Sunhill. If I give that up, we’ll lose the ability to expand on those areas. No, this simply won’t work”

Cash and Sunrise exchanged quick looks. Sunrise nodded, Cash sighing and saying: “We… were afraid of that, but it was a gamble”

“So… we’re screwed then?” Speaker said, barely even holding on to his tea-cup. It felt so heavy, like the weight of the world was on him.

Sunrise cleared her throat and withdrew her hoof from Speaker’s shoulder: “Then its plan B”

Speaker looked at the young mare next to him, her hood obscuring just enough of her face that he couldn’t quite see the look in her eyes – but he heard the serious tone in her voice: “I’m sorry, plan what?”

“My dearest Bright Machine Speaker, you are not the only Solar in Sunhill who has battled self-doubt and inner demons. You were gone for a long time, and during that I trained myself to still my mind so that I could still tend to our flock while also refining my essence… I can initiate into adamant circle sorcery, but while you are willing though unsure what to sacrifice for me, then I’m afraid because I know exactly what to give up…” Sunrise said, drawing back her hood and revealing her beautiful orange mane and bright red eyes.

Seeing the tears in her eyes, Speaker found himself deeply confused: “Wait… you refined your essence?”

“We needed a backup – because you’re absolutely right: All of Sunhill is built on what you know. It’s your training that sees our artisans chip away at wood and stone to create beauty, our alchemists produce medicine and strange products, our doctors tend to weak – but me… we’ve all seen what happens when I try to build something up on my own. I swore I would never do that again” Sunrise said, tears swelling in her eyes, her lips quivering and her voice teetering on crying.

One needed not be a doctor to see that the young mare was absolutely terrified – and Speaker understood her terror: He remembered what had happened in Chung Do, when Sunrise had bound her own mind to be without doubt or hesitation and then bound the rest of the city, rendering them unable to fear and unable to deny her commands. It was a miracle that nobody had died from it.

“I do believe what Sunrise is trying to say is that you Speaker, you are willing to bear the burden of this great power not because you sought power, but because you wanted to help and protect others. Sunrise fears that gaining this great power will see her tempted once more…” Cash explained, adding that in confiding her fears to him, he had come up with a solution.

It was quite simple really: If Sunrise feared that she would abuse her sorcerous powers, then Cash could bind her to a sanctified oath that she had to have the permission of the rest of the circle to learn new spells – that way they would always know what she could, and thus able to hopefully keep her powers in check. She still didn’t like it: “I’ve read the book of three rings… all three volumes. The spells in it… the power in it… the power to twist reality or the minds of fellow ponies are near limitless”

Cash nodded, looking at Speaker: “I’ve often chided you for wielding your power in an almost naïve fashion – but that’s your first age memories. You remember wielding great power so casually that you don’t even think to abuse them, and your heart always guides you to aid those in need... Sunrise grew up surrounded by ponies and gods trying to hoard and abuse their power, trying to resist them, and we’ve already seen her fail once – but that was when she stood alone. Now she has our combined help”

“Your humility and reluctance to wield such power suits you well Sunrise, but what would your sacrifice be? What can you offer that’s profound enough for the adamant circle?” Speaker wondered, respectfully nodding at Sunrise.

“As Bridged Gap offered herself – her self-doubt and all her negative qualities – then I too would sacrifice the parts of me that fear power and hold me back” Sunrise said, pausing for a moment: “…hopefully to emerge as a better pony”

With furrowed brows, Speaker looked to both Sunrise and Cash: “I’m sorry – exactly what part of yourself are you going to sacrifice?”

Pulling down her hood, but not letting go of the hood, Sunrise looked down at the off-white cloth she held in her hooves: “This… this is what I’ll give up. I cover myself, despite being beautiful. I hold back my powers, despite having potential for greatness. I am like Bridge Gap, afraid and unable to realize my full potential… I’ll give that up and become someone who is no longer afraid”

“But… you just said that you’re afraid that you’ll become a tyrant” Speaker noted, unsure of how this idea fit with her fears.

Speaking through gritted teeth, Sunrise shot Speaker a look of the greatest of determination: “I never said I was giving up the many hard-earned lessons I have experienced. I wish to remake myself into someone better able to act on those lessons, instead of covering in the temple and praying for guidance all day – I tire of my fears”

After a big sip of tea, Speaker gave Sunrise a single slow and respectful nod: “I promise you I will be there every step of the way, if you ev-“

That was when the messenger came running into the both, nearly knocking over everything: “There’s an emissary at the hospital!”

The poor thing was exhausted, breathing heavily, frothing a bit at the mouth, and tears in her eyes. Speaker, Cash and Sunrise all quickly got up, Cash nodding to Speaker who used the Sunhill manse hearthstone to remote view what was going on.

It was a strange scene: In front of the Sunhill hospital’s main entrance a tiny shadowland had formed. It was shrinking already, being strangely artificial in its nature – but through it a howling spectre wrought of transparent cloth and rattling chains had come, screaming at the top of its spectral lungs: “I am an emissary of the Mask of Winters, Master of Thorns. Sunhill must cease its planed operations around Thorns, or suffer the consequences…”

It kept repeating the message, as Speaker saw Cash and Sunrise arrive at full gallop to the security cordon that the city guard had set up. Speaker willed a shape of lights into being , using the Sunhill manse’s powers, to produce an illusion of himself near the spectre: “I’ve heard its message – you can destroy it”

Sunrise didn’t even acknowledge Speaker before letting out a fearsome battlecry, the force of her shout blasting the spectre into tiny bits of ghost-matter that quickly evaporated into puffs of acrid purple smoke.

Speaking through the illusion of himself, Speaker recited the message of the ghost to Cash and Sunrise: “…and I guess that the consequences are tied to this demonstration that the Mask’s agents can somehow create artificial shadowlands”

Sunrise frowned: “And yet it’s almost gone already – useless for anything other than sneaking in spies and troublemakers”

“No, it’s a lot more useful than that – there’s another Deathlord I’ve learned of during my visits to Stygia, the First and Forsaken Lion. He’s been building an insanely huge army since the usurpation within his domain in the underworld… if he was to learn this kind of trick, then Creation would be overrun in no time” Cash explained, drawing on his extensive knowledge of underworld politics.

Carefully observing via essence sight as the tiny shadowland receded and finally closed up, Speaker nodded at Cash: “But the Deathlords aren’t exactly good at cooperating, not since we slew the Barbate Arbiter”

“True – but you told us that the Mask is holding a council of some kind – could it be an attempt to resume their cooperative projects?” Cash pointed out.

Speaker sighed: “Damnit… you’re right – that means we’re still on the clock. Sunrise, you do your thing for adamant circle sorcery and find me once you’re done, Cash, if you could come back to me and do what you had described so I can initiate into the sapphire circle… we might as well make sure I haven’t wasted the last week’s preparations”

As the twilight caste’s illusion winked out, Cash nodded to Sunrise who pulled her hood up: “I’ll be the temple – I’ve already made my preparations, in case Speaker refused”

“Fair enough. But could you wait until Speaker shows up – you can share the initiation circles, those things are expensive to set up, even for our budgets” Cash replied, taking a deep breath before heading back to Speaker in the tea house.

As the remains of the spectre evaporated the city guard gradually opened the street back up again, and a sense of normalcy returned to the city surprisingly quickly – a testament to the mental resilience of the ponies of Sunhill.

At the tea house Cash found Speaker waiting for him at the door: “There you are – did you have anything in particular in mind for what kind of hobby you would give me?”

Cash gave Speaker a scrutinizing look: “Calligraphy is still on the table – but you have to keep in mind, what I can do for you is give you a great interest in something… and you’ll have to give that up again – you won’t be happy about it”

“Well, I’m not sacrificing my ability to ever be happy – and calligraphy sounds fine, go nuts” Speaker said, wondering briefly exactly how the process would work.

With a casual shrug, Cash stomped a single hoof upon the stone-covered street as his caste mark flared up – forming two concentric golden circles on his brow: “Already done – enjoy it while you have it. Sunrise is waiting for you at the temple for the initiation ceremony”

Speaker frowned and shook his head. He didn’t feel any different – had Cash been pulling his leg? The eclipse caste pony didn’t appear to want to wait around for any objections though, having disappeared himself in Speaker’s brief moment of confusion…

…and then he started seeing it. How artistic the signs outside the shops around him were, how elegant the writing was, the subtlety of the curves on the letters, the lacquered colorful inks shining in the sun so that it gave the writing texture in the wood grain.

It was strange – Speaker knew he had seen it all before. Hell, he had taught Sunhill’s alchemists how to produce those ink dyes and paints, and he had taught their construction crews how to build the sawmills, and the blacksmiths how to forge the finest steel so that sawblades could be made… but now he felt himself in tears at the beauty he was seeing… but his tears were also there in sorrow for the crime that was the blank and unused canvas that the stone streets were!

Hundreds of ponies found their heads turning as they heard the tune Speaker play on his singing staff, rearranging specs of impurities and various patches of different coloured stone in the stone-covered streets, making them form into the most beautiful calligraphy without disrupting the city’s geomancy.

A distant raincloud that hung over a nearby forest instantly stopped raining – the elemental dragon revealed itself as it appeared before Speaker in the form of a half-dragon half-pony spirit being, congratulating Speaker on the artistic quality of the massive calligraphy spelled out on the roads of Sunhill.

Speaker didn’t even pay attention to the dragon’s name, holding his head bowed and his eyes full of tears: “I know – and by nightfall I will never be able to again”

“Never again? The heavens will weep if this beauty cannot grace more stone across creation! Entire mountain ranges would beg to be your canvas! Why would you abandon this gift?” The dragon pleaded, thoroughly ignoring its entourage of water and air elementals that were impatiently waiting for it back on the rain cloud.

It wasn’t difficult to explain – but in doing so Speaker understood the gravity of Cash’s warning. This passion for calligraphy and its artistic expression, this was not just a thing that he casually enjoyed – no, it felt nearly as important to him as his greater dream of healing and educating Creation. No wonder he couldn’t stop crying… this was Cash Charmer’s cruel power, instilling a passion that burned as brightly as the most intense of love.

The roads of Sunhill leading from a certain tea house to the city’s main temple were rendered replete in beautiful calligraphy, the writings spelling out praise to the gods for making a beautiful world – and each crack in the stone was filled with Speaker’s tears by the time he got to the temple.

Putting his singing staff away elsewhere, Speaker wiped his nose and approached Sunrise who saw in a large set of runic circles on the floor. All the pews had been moved away, and on the floor a series of rings of magical runes and old realm glyphs had been drawn, using… no, not chalk, but a white paint. It struck Speaker that it would be a lot of work to remove all that later.

“There you are – you… you’ve been crying” Sunrise said, looking up from where she sat.

Looking at Sunrise, her hood down and her mane out, Speaker gave her the kind of look that only an old stallion could give, one that spoke of pity, sadness but also hope: “You don’t look too good either”

The young mare quickly swept her face, as if she had been unaware of her own tears: “I… I thought I had it under control”

“You voiced your fears quite clearly earlier, and now you have to do exactly the thing that made you afraid… it makes perfect sense” Speaker said as he sat down opposite to Sunrise, assuming a meditative pose.

No more words were exchanged. They both knew what they were about to do would not be terribly comfortable. There were a few aids and temple servants milling about, keeping a very safe distance.

For Speaker the process was relatively quick – though painless would be a wrong word to describe it. He had never been an art lover of any kind, so while he had only enjoyed his new-found hobby for a few hours, then it had made him completely rethink his approach to city planning and geomancy… and now he had to give it up. Truly, Cash had opened his eyes to a whole new realm of pleasing aesthetics… but it was not meant to be. As his tears flowed, so did his essence, as wisps of passion and potential slipped out of his mind, coalescing into a beautiful light before him that violently burst, sprinkling him with a sudden and profound epiphany on the nature of essence… for such was a proper initiation rite.

Seeing Speaker reeling from his experience, Sunrise stubbornly fought herself to remain stoic and firm as she carefully meditated and indexed the aspects of herself that she was sacrificing. She felt the magical fire within her soul burning away each part of her as she named them in her mind, the pain maddening to lesser minds. Speaker saw how she began to glow, then erupt in golden flames, as her soul was scorched and forever altered…

Ultimately Sunrise couldn’t hold it back – she didn’t have the energy. Screaming in pain, golden fire erupted from her mouth, burning cold with soul-fire. She collapsed moments later, fire still licking at her.

Speaker wasn’t sure if he should move to help her, as he saw the fire burn away her cloak. Seeing her process with essence sight was fascinating, but also deeply worrying, as he saw how her soul was truly burning, while it also seemed to periodically expel elements of itself, which near-instantly burned away with a strange thrumming hiss that was not heard, only felt on the skin and down the spin as an ice-cold chill.

Finally, the fire died down, leaving Sunrise to struggle to get up. With this Speaker stood ready to help: “How do you feel?”

Drawing a deep breath and coughing out ash, Sunrise looked up at Speaker: “I… I need a stiff drink and whatever Sully is cooking up tonight…”

Looking Sunrise in the eyes, Speaker tried to gauge if there were any outside differences to her, but he found none: “I think we both need something like that. I could try to book us time in the baths of venus?”

“Do that after Thorns – and tomorrow you can teach me the spell I need to know” Sunrise said, standing weakly on her legs. Her mane looked unscathed from the fire, but there was unmistakably something different about how she stood… or at least how she was trying to stand. Speaker could see it clearly: She was holding her head higher, and did not in any way look uncomfortable standing without clothes on, her beauty now clear for all to see, and her spirit unafraid to show it.

Following Sunrise out of the temple, Speaker saw how she shook off her post-spell jitters and stood proud in the sunlight outside. Her coat was still white, her mane still orange, her eyes still red, but each part of her… it was as if they shined a bit more, or were somehow more vibrant and just breathtakingly beautiful. Had Sunrise been using charms to make others not fully notice just how good she looked? Or was that the cloak she had always been wearing?

Either way, as the two walked to a nearby tavern, ‘The Last Prayer’, Speaker couldn’t help but notice how a lot of ponies – both stallions and mares – were looking at Sunrise in a new light, one that seemed to include sexual arousal as if they had never considered her attractive before.

In the tavern Sunrise ordered stiffest drink they had, along with a large tankard of ale. She seemed to use the ale to rinse out her mouth from the last bits of her soul-ash, all the while the two barkeeps carefully measured and poured up one of their ‘unmaker’ drinks.

“I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve seen you order booze on your own – you’ve previously been a staunch teetotaller, except the few times I’ve seen you drink in heaven” Speaker commented, nursing his own ale.

Observing the ominously named drink she had finally been served, Sunrise gave it a brief sniff and scrunched her nose in response to the sharp smell of alcohol: “I’m pretty sure that’s part of my… change. I can see the error in my previous ways: Holding myself back too harshly, fearing how I might behave if drink or how drugs would lessen my inhibitions. I now see that I have grown plenty powerful to resist temptation on my own, and with my essence I cannot become drunk unless I chose it. I am responsible for my own actions, and I have the wisdom to choose well – so I should fear it no longer”

“That is a very adult epiphany” Speaker said with a smile, taking a swig from his ale.

Sunrise closed her eyes and bowed her head: “And that was my flaw. In my youthful naivety I believed I could remain pure forever. That I would be able to never do wrong if I chained my mind with charms and iron discipline – but I failed to see that even a steel blade will snap if stressed too hard. I shouldn’t run in fear from making mistakes, I should seek to learn from them and better myself instead”

It was clear for Speaker to see why the old Sunrise had feared this transformation. Hearing her speak of embracing personal change was certainly a very new direction compared to how reserved and restrained she had previously been.

Speaker liked this new Sunrise – she smiled a lot more, and wasn’t hiding her face anymore.

The next day Speaker used his educational charms to quickly teach both her and himself new spells, and thus the lords of Sunhill started to prepare for their planned operations in Thorns.

A week later the circle reconvened, Sunrise showing up in the war room wearing a newly tailored priest robe that didn’t feature a hood, thus letting her beautiful mane hang freely. She also surprised the circle by stating that she was now confident that she didn’t need a magical oath to keep her from abusing her powerful sorcerous abilities.

“I’m glad that you finally trust your own use of your abilities – we’ll hold off on the mandatory calibration feasts for the time being” Cash joked, referring to the first age tradition of solar sorcerers gathering each calibration for a grand party, to keep each other in check so that none would have time to summon one of the impossibly powerful third circle demons, which could only be done during calibration.

Speaker chuckled at the joke – nobody else got the reference.

Sullen Hoof reported that he, based on Cash’s urgings, had cooked up a truly impressive amount of emergency rations and other easily transportable foodstuffs. Shimmer had stored most of it elsewhere, while Cash had arranged for several barges loaded with sacks of rice and grain to be loaded and sent to Thorns. Sully added that he had briefly journeyed to the outskirts of the farmlands surrounding Thorns, and confirmed a grim truth: “The farmers say that the shadowland that covers Thorns is spreading – it’s not spreading quickly, but I was told that it spreads by about a fields length every season, slowly inching out the lands of Thorns’ ability to feed its own population. By their own estimates, the city should be in a famine at this point since a few months ago”

A yeddim was strapped with heavy jade-infused leather straps, and as Cash made the creature fly into the air, heavy steel chains linked via straps to a massive steel-banded wooden cannisters loaded with the finest of powdery salt. The newly enlightened Sunhill army was left behind with orders to keep the city safe, Speaker once again promising to check up on the place via the remote viewing hearthstone of the city manse.

The circle flew off ready to fight, but hoping that they could sneak into the city quietly. They quickly crossed out of Sunhill airspace, zipping past countless minor princedoms and dukedoms.

“So… did we bring any malfean porcelain for the spell?” Sunrise inquired as they flew west.

Shimmer withdrew a sack from elsewhere and jingled it about. The sack sounded as if full of broken porcelain shards: “Should be plenty of material in here”

“Good – now we just have to figure out how to make Juggernaut move away from the city” Sunrise said, her voice clearly putting her worries on display.

The rest of the circle nodded, or at least gestured or expressed agreement. They all knew that this wasn’t ‘simply’ a question of destroying a necrotic manse, and none of them wanted to have to sacrifice a whole city to get rid of Juggernaut.

A few hours later Lookshy came into view, rising on its promontory like the fortress city that it was, with the Deheleshen lighthouse and the Aviary towering from the tip of the promontory. Cash pulled the reigns of the yeddim and had it change course, making it fly south over the neighboring Marukan territories.

The plan was to get close to Thorns, then approach on hoof to avoid detection. The massive cargo of salt that the yeddim was hauling also had to be stashed, along with the yeddim, somewhere, so that the two could be used to make a giant salt-line to keep away any war ghosts or spectres when the juggernaut banishment spellcasting took place.

To make this happen the circle had planned on either spotting a good barn to hide the yeddim in, or for Speaker to use his singing staff to make a big hole in the ground to hide the thing in – and ideally put the thing to sleep, to make sure it wouldn’t make any noise that could be detected too easily.

Now, the hole in the ground option had the problem that Thorns had been a realm satrapy for a very long time, so pretty much all of its territories had been developed in some way: Meadows for gracing livestock, farm plots, or dense bits of forest to ensure that local wildlife had a few places to live. This left very little space where one could dig a yeddim pit where it wasn’t painfully obvious that the ground had been disturbed.

Of course, the other solution, hiding the yeddim and salt cargo in a barn, had a whole array of different problems to it: Could the local farmers be convinced to stay quiet? Would some nosy local sheriff or gaggle of roaming ghosts show up one day and inspect everything?

Despite the risks, the circle opted to try the farm solution. Speaker simply couldn’t see any terrain features that looked suitable to hide a yeddim sized hole – the whole region was simply too densely developed. Someone would notice that the ground was disturbed and suddenly covered in sticks and leaves.

Chapter 29 Pointy Ends

The Lightning Hoof stylists gets his soup at a ride-through, for sitting still and eating soup is not for him

…

The farm itself looked almost deceptively generic. It was too big to a stead, with Shimmer guessing based on the mix of local scents that at least two dozen ponies lived there, plus quite a lot more frequenting the place quite often based on the wagon tracks outside the place.

“That doesn’t surprise me – a place like this would need a lot of hooves to tend the fields. I’m guessing that whoever is in charge is a lesser noble. Look, they even have a banner with a crest hanging at the gate” Cash pointed out, as he pulled the yeddim in to land.

It wasn’t quite dark as they landed, but having had the yeddim slightly ‘altered’ by Heath Rose before they had left so that it temporarily had the fate of a cloud, at least until it landed meant that none noticed it. For the circle this hadn’t meant much, but to anyone observing the giant creature and its cargo flying in the sky they would simply have seen a cloud being moved around by unseen winds. This did mean that the instant they landed a dog started barking from somewhere inside the farm’s courtyard.

The farm itself was a scattering of buildings: a large square farmhouse wrapped around a big central courtyard, with multiple chimneys from the thatched roofs. Next were two large barns, and a scattering of smaller houses, perhaps servant quarters or lodging for day labourers. Around the buildings stretched fields of grain and vegetables as far as the eye could see, and in front of the buildings was a big patch of open dirt covered in cart and hoof tracks – upon which now stood a giant yeddim.

With the dog barking, someone peeked out the closed shutters. A quick shout of surprise from inside the farmhouse meant that everyone inside knew something was up. The flicker of oil lamps followed soon after, with a lone pony plus a lamp peeking out from the gate into the farmhouse: “Who’s there?”

Cash had already jumped down from the yeddim and stood waiting at the gate. His charms of social observation had told him much already, and they had allowed him to adjust his mannerisms, gestures and even posture so that he acted like a local: “That would be I, may I speak with the lord of the house?”

The pony did a double take, then lowered his gaze. Sullen Hoof’s work to disguise Cash as a unicorn was flawless: The horn looked like real jade, shimmering and shining in the flickering light off the pony’s oil lamp and the setting sun: “I… I’m sorry my lord. She is asleep”

“Then kindly wake her. I have come quite a long way with my trusted advisors and henchponies, and I need to veil my entry into Thorns” Cash stated firmly, using the subtlest of charms to instil in the pony a feeling of wanting to cooperate.

Quickly nodding, the pony ducked inside and closed the gate. Quiet voices could be heard inside. Several minutes later the gates opened a fair bit more, revealing the lord of the estate; An old mare dressed in exquisitely ornately embroidered silk clothes, though they did appear to have been put on rather quickly – and she looked rather drowsy: “I am Lady Careno Filamina, who exactly are you?”

“Lady Filamina of house Careno, my name would best be left unspoken, for I conspire against the dark lord that has taken Thorns and seek to free it” Cash opened up, angling for a repour with the lowly noble by speaking ill of the Mask of winters.

The old mare, her mane grey and her bearing the marks of a long life, frowned at Cash: “Oh by the dragons… you’re as bad as the last group of unicorns that came by here, thinking you can oust the mask. Come inside, we’ll talk – and have your ponies move your bloody yeddim into the big barn!”

Cash slipped inside the gate and emerged again an hour later, smiling broadly and smelling faintly of sugar cookies: “So… turns out we really are not the only ‘realm ponies’ trying to liberate Thorns. I think we’d do well in trying to find any resistance groups in the city, then rally and organize what’s left of them – but come on, we’ve got a lot of walking to do”

Apparently, the ponies of the lesser noble house Careno had little faith that the circle would ever return, so the deal Cash had brokered was simple enough: If the circle failed to return within a month, the house would take over the yeddim and their ‘big crate of gear’. Another curious detail Cash had ferreted out was that Thorns tax collectors and patrols didn’t actually reach out to the estate anymore, sticking chiefly to the land covered by the shadowland.

“Wait, so the Mask has abandoned the outer territories of Thorns?” Fire Orchid inquired, sounding quite surprised, for if there was one thing the realm basically never did, then it was giving up land.

Cash shrugged as he trotted down the well-built country road: “I’m guessing that the Mask isn’t stupid enough to commit troops outside of where he can deploy undead support. We know he commands mortal troops, but it makes sense that he wouldn’t want to risk them against Marukan raiders or the odd river pirate, considering what rumors I’ve heard about him in the underworld – and he’s supposedly been harassing the Marukans and keeping them on the defensive, so they’re not going to show up here any time soon”

Sunrise was quick to inquire into what exactly Cash had heard. This turned out to be rumours that the Mask was marshalling his troops and building his army, in order to take another major scavenger land city: “…basically he’s trying to pull another Thorns, but because we destroyed and captured his best diplomat with Typhon, and the incredibly bad reputation Thorns got after they skirmished with Lookshyan rear-guard forces during the battle of Deep Rot, then he hasn’t been able to hoodwink anyone. I might have helped with that too” Cash explained.

“Wonderful – so we’ll have to face a massive undead army garrisoned around Thorns? That’s totally not going to make sneaking off with Juggy any more difficult” Fire Orchid bemoaned.

While Sullen Hoof agreed that having to contend with a large army of the dead didn’t make anything easier, then he also urged for quiet: “Look… we’re already at the edge of the shadowland. Perform the transition ritual and stay quiet. Cash, you were told by the ponies at the farm that Thorns has its border patrols at the edge of the shadowland, right?”

Everyone quickly performed the simple rite that bound them creation, ensuring that a prolonged stay in the underworld wouldn’t see them forever bound there. Once done, they passed into the greying lands, as the powers of the underworld sapped color from all things, walking along rows of wilting trees and dying fields. It was clear to see that the local flora had only recently come under the effects of the shadowland, for a few hardy weeds and plants were fighting to stay alive and keep their green color.

The circle quietly discussed how the Mask might be making the shadowland grow, now that they were in it, and could see how its borders were leeching essence from Creation, and seemingly spreading simply by draining areas around it and leaving them bereft of life and light alike.

“Normal shadowlands do not behave like this – they have much more clear borders. Of course, most other shadowlands are carefully contained… this seems intentionally uncontained, perhaps that’s how it’s spreading” Sunrise mused curiously.

Speaker was inclined to agree: “Sounds plausible – no same pony wants to live near an unchecked and unmarked shadowland, though few in general want to live near one to begin with”

“True – by the same token, Sunrise, have you learned the spell that undoes shadowlands? I mean, we went to all that trouble with Sperimin to get that spell…” Cash wondered as he saw the shadowland inch over a bush and instantly start to wilt it.

Sunrise bowed her head: “I’ll need a couple more days to internalize it. Speaker supervised another sorcery lesson with me before we left – at the rate we’re going towards Thorns I should have figured it out by the time we get there”

Cash was about to say something about how he was happy to hear that, when Sullen Hoof urged everyone to hide, having spotted a ghost patrol coming over a nearby ridge. The circle quietly observed from ditches and behind wilting bushes as forty or so zombie ponies clad in rough and poorly fitting armor shambled down the road, led by a squad of ghost officers. It would not be the last of such patrols the circle would run into before reaching Thorns, sleeping every night in Shimmer’s elsewhere den except for Sully who would keep watch outside and then rest in the den during the day.

Approaching Thorns meant navigating several villages, many of which were not just deserted or abandoned, but also completely picked clean and even stripped of building materials, sometimes only leaving crumbled remains of wattle and daub walls but no structural timbers or even roof tiles. This of course begged the question of where such materials had been taken – for it did not appear to have been done by mortal labourers, based on the shambling zombie tracks and drippings Speaker and Shimmer both found in abundance at each village.

In one village where not all buildings had been demolished and carted off, near a brackish pond, they found a collection of small huts in which a lone pony lived. Cash and Sunrise quickly made polite contact, discovering that the pony inside had been very sick when the village had been swallowed by the shadowland, and as such had been left to die when the village’s population had been forcibly relocated to Thorns, but she had pulled through and now lived off whatever scraps she could find in the village, hiding from the wrecking crews. She told a woeful tale of how the few who tried to run away and escape the shadowland had been set upon by undead hounds and ghostly archers… but Sunrise was able to penetrate her sorrow and gave the mare hope, instilling in her confidence that the circle would be able to save Thorns. By the time Sunrise was done, the mare wept, but with tears of joy, her looking and sounding all the healthier for it.

Proceeding deeper into Thorns territory revealed zombie-crewed strip mines where large carts of ore were being hauled up from the ground and taken to manses that were little more than large essence-fuelled furnaces, the resulting metals being carted to Thorns itself. The circle followed these wagon trains, finding the zombie ponies hauling them quite mindless, though Cash had to ‘talk’ a few ghostly wagon drivers into forgetting their presence more than once.

Continuing towards the actual city of Thorns, the circle couldn’t help but feel intimidated. The rolling hills and flat farmlands around the city were brutally overshadowed by the absolutely enormous mountain next to it… and that mountain had limbs, though quite a few of them were but broken stumps or cut short with ashen nubs, and its head – while alien and of strange primordial design to begin with, clearly lacked two of its three eyes and had a broken jaw that wasn’t set right at all.

“That… looks painful” Speaker mused, appearing quite surprised at how damaged Juggernaut was.

Fire Orchid refrained from giving voice to her immediate impulse of saying that then it would be easier to kill, remembering that it would simply resurrect fully healed in the wyld and rampage into creation again. In leu of this she remarked: “You said it could regenerate… do you think this is how the Mask has it under control? Hurting it and somehow halting its ability to heal itself?”

“Whipping an animal until it does wat you want is a very brutal way of training a creature, and It’s just as likely to make it attack you” Sunrise noted harshly, the sound of disapproval hard to miss.

Speaker considered both viewpoints: “I honestly don’t even know how much of a mind the creature has – but it’s clear that its broken, hurt, and without a doubt in pain”

“That explains what I’m getting” Cash mused, explaining that despite being dozens of miles away, his social charms had discerned what Juggernaut desired the most: It sought one of two things – both equally desperately: Death or freedom – indeed it seemed to the same wish, due to its strange and alien mind. The circle agreed that neither was that much of an option, considering how the thing would undoubtably rampage if simply freed, and Sunrise noted that with her spell she needed all large terrain features to remain in place while the spell was cast or it wouldn’t work.

“Does Juggernaut count as a terrain feature?” Shimmer wondered casually.

Fire Orchid chuckled: “If you’re bigger than a castle, then I’m pretty sure you do”

Fire Orchid and Shimmer chuckled together for a bit as they pulled up the rear, while Cash looked back at last razed village they had just passed by. Sunrise inquired into his worried expression: “Is something bothering you?”

“I’m just trying to wrap my head around what the Mask wants all these houses dismantled for. We’ve seen half a dozen villages at this point that have been completely disassembled and shipped somewhere else. What’s the purpose of it?” Cash wondered, though something in Sunrise’s inquisitive eyes showed that she suspected there was more.

The young priestess trotted up next to Cash, giving him a serious look: “That’s not all of it, is it?”

“No… it’s the farm we landed at initially. It was not anywhere big enough to justify the master of the place having a noble title, or having clothes that nice” Cash mused, clearly having wracked his brains over the many implications of such a strange sight.

Fire Orchid quieted her laughter and quickened her pace, moving up to Cash and Sunrise: “Oh come on – it’s so obvious! With the shadowland expanding, it means less and less farmland to feed the city – that means that prices go up, and I’ll bet good silver that even the city’s nobles have run out of money years ago, so they’re paying the peasants that can still grow and sell them food with minor noble titles and fine clothes from their wardrobes”

“That… that’s quite insightful – how did you come to this conclusion?” Sunrise wondered, while Cash appeared to mull the idea over, finding himself nodding.

The old mare gave Sunrise a knowing look: “I spent a long life as a soldier and mid-rank officer – and as the daughter of a Lookshyan noble family. I’ve been in enough sieges to see what a food shortage in a city can do to prices there, and I’ve been at enough high society social functions to know how petty nobles can be when the chips are down. You’ve only been in that Chung Do sort-of siege, but that wasn’t a real prolonged siege, and you never quite ran out of food there from what I’ve gathered”

“Makes sense – we briefly saw food prices spike in Chung Do when that gang seized control of the city’s granary, but we got that under control very quickly. Speaker, you ever see anything like that?” Sullen Hoof said, all the while closely observing their surroundings to detect any ghost patrols.

Speaker shook his head: “Not really. I’ve heard a lot of stories, but I was in the special forces – not rank and file. We would be sent in to break sieges, not sit and camp at castle walls for months on end. Lookshy generally doesn’t do sieges like that, they’re more likely to send in a siege-strider or bring some other weapon to breach the walls quickly and be done with it. Fire Orchid, you served in the first field force too, how did you end up seeing sieges like that?”

“Because I didn’t serve in that force – I didn’t want my officer commission to look like nepotism because of my mother. I served in the second field force, was part of plenty of long sieges that way around. Your understanding of Lookshyan battle doctrine is very coloured by having been in the first field force. In the second field force we did plenty of low-cost sieges. It was only if we couldn’t lock a place down properly that we’d call in you lot to bust things down quickly” Fire Orchid explained, recalling quite a few sieges that lasted months on end before she would be rotated out – and some of those sieges could continue for much longer than that.

Speaker nodded, mulling over the cost analysis that would go into deciding whether to siege or call for specialists. He had to admit that he had never really considered that equation from the point of view of a regular ground pounder.

This made for interesting conversation among the circle, comparing different points of view – be it Shimmer’s tribal background as a shaman in training, who was taught to be exceptionally reverent and respectful to even lowly spirits versus Sunrise having grown in Great Forks, where spirits and gods walked among mortals and frequently had to be dragged away from tavern-brawls or arrested for public indecency. Similarly, Fire Orchid having served as a Lookshyan frontline legionnaire and officer, compared to Speaker having served in the special forces, made the two have different approaches to military tactics and strategy.

“So… Cash and Sully, I bet you two are at odds on the topic of business and commerce, considering your backgrounds” Shimmer wondered.

Cash shrugged: “No, not really – I want to see trade across Creation blossom and become so solid that I don’t have to manage it anymore. Sully’s focus is to punish cruel merchant princes and whatnot, and raise up those in need – our priorities overlap pretty well – because if there’s one thing Sunhill has taught me, then it’s having an affluent population means they can buy your stuff so much more than simply selling to a few rich noble pricks”

This somehow surprised Shimmer, though she did smile when Speaker noted that she had made a similar incorrect assumption last time around, during her previous incarnation.

Grey and ashen meadows stretched out in front of Thorns proper, which rose as a magnificent city with a grand central palace, and hundreds of lesser but equally beautiful towers that reached above the heavily buttressed city wall. This was Thorns, the city of beauty, of art, home to the scavenger lands’ finest artisans and intellectuals… and it looked bleak, devoid of color, and absolutely drained of life – an aura of misery and suffering radiating from the very walls around the city.

On the ashen meadows before the city, the circle found miserable shepherds tending to flocks of starving sheep that were desperately trying to find bits of grass that hadn’t completely withered and lost all nutritional value – but it was clear that they didn’t have long left.

Closer yet to the city, with the mountainous Juggernaut looming to the south with cloudy eyes the size of a small lake, the circle checked their outfits and disguises: Their several days in the shadowland had begun to drain their clothes of color, while Sullen Hoof had used a disguise charm to make him appear translucent as a ghost. Cash Charmer’s unicorn horn was checked up on one last time, and Speaker put on a different set of clothes, so he wasn’t walking up to the city guard wearing an old Looksyan uniform.

At the city gates, which bore no signs of having been repaired since having been torn open five years prior, stood quite a few city guards-ponies. They were clad in blackened armor and wielding sturdy looking spears. There was traffic going in and out, but it was limited: It was mainly peasants wearing partially faded clothes hauling carts loaded with payment out of the city, or carts loaded with fruit, veg and grain into the city. The guards mainly seemed to inspect the carts going out, checking to see if anyone was trying to sneak out – and right before the circle the guards caught one such pony, a young stallion hiding in a barrel. Both the farmer and the young stallion were dragged back into the city, screaming all the way, for they both knew what dark fate awaited them.

With Sullen Hoof as a ghost up in front, the circle was waved through without question, much to the surprise of the circle – but it seemed that the guards simply bowed their heads respectfully to the faux-ghost Sully.

Playing up the role of a ghost, Sully giggled loudly, knowing well how ghosts were quite emotionally unstable through his extensive journeys in the underworld. The thornguard took no notice of it, Speaker spotting the dark rings around their sunken eyes… these were not healthy ponies helming the gate.

Then again, once inside the city the view that met them was not one of a thriving capital city of a prosperous city state – no, it was a drab and miserable scene of famished beggars lining the street, while ‘posh’ ghosts strutted around as if they owned the place, trailed by zombie servants holding morbidly decorated black umbrellas up above, so that no sunlight would scorch them or their masters. It was grotesque in so many ways, far more so than the melodrama of Stygia, for here the living population was being made to suffer and starve like unwanted vermin.

“I would say we have our work cut out for us…” Sunrise noted, her voice trembling with barely suppressed fury.

Speaker had to struggle to remain put – oh he wanted to simply leap forth and throw healing charms left and right – but he knew that he had to stay hidden, for now.

Cash was about to say something, when Shimmer spotted something: “Oh… this is great”

The circle quickly followed Shimmer over to the large wooden corner-post of a half-timbered building, where she scrutinized some scratches on the thing. This turned out to be claw-speak, the secret Lunar language based on animal sounds and claw or bite-marks. With a hushed tone, she read out: “To those seeking a haven, look into the depths. Hold your nose, and avoid the doctor”

Everyone looked at Speaker. He just shrugged: “Was I expected?”

“I doubt it, but if you would all follow me, then I’m sure we can avoid causing a scene” the cheerful voice of an unknown stallion stated.

The circle turned to see a portly and pale stallion wearing a not just blood-stained, but blood-soaked leather apron and a neat silken cap with a round bit of polished obsidian that hung at his forehead from the cap. Beyond that the stallion’s garb was in fancy purple, reds and greys. The number of knives and scalpels the pony had hanging from his saddlebags rounded off the look, along with his sharp black moustache, goatee, and sharp eyebrows. He was also smiling far too much too: “Come now my good unicorn – let’s not cause a scene”

Cash would later remark that he had felt and resisted some middling social charms that were clearly meant to lure him into something nefarious – but instead Cash flipped the script on the creepy pony, throwing some far more potent and subtle mind control charms back at him: “Why yes my good friend, let’s not – how about some tea instead?”

Retaining his exceptionally creepy smile, the stallion with the bloodstained garb led the circle to a nearby tea house, one that turned out to be staffed by zombie servants and a ghost proprietor. There the weird pony introduced himself as the Seven-Degreed Physician of Black Maladies, which was clearly a title for an abyssal deathknight. Indeed, physician bragged freely about being the chief necro-surgeon of the Mask of Winters, the prime architect of the mask’s finest undead war-machines: “…and one day, I tell you, one day I will make something to surpass even my master’s brilliant creation with Juggernaut!”

“Indeed, and such a grand thing the Juggernaut is! Isn’t it impossible to control such a massive beast?” Cash remarked, his social charms having altered his mannerisms and accent to sound like a pony from the blessed isle, for apparently the physician was original from there, and through Cash’s subtle charms the abyssal saw the secretly solar pony as a dear friend.

The physician casually shrugged, speaking like a dreaming poet waxing about his muse: “My master built his palace on the back of Juggernaut, and its deepest levels connects to the beast’s spine. There he can do this most marvellous thing, where he opens a hatch cut into the beast and journeys to its head! I have no clue what he does there, but to control a monster like that from inside its own head… oh… I can only hope to create a control scheme so sublime and inspired when I stitch together my Magnum Necropus!”

It was beyond obscene to listen to the necromancer physician brag and boast about the hideous creations he had lashed together from bone and carven flesh. He had apparently made many of the undead self-moving battering rams that had smashed the gates of Thorns, and now worked out of a secret laboratory manse in the northern fringe of Thorns territory, called the Sanatorium Sepulchral. It was indeed not unlike listening to a gleeful murderer boasting about how many poor souls, both mortal, spirit and even unicorns, that he had lured to his necro-lab and cut apart to make his ghoulish war machines.

“And such magnificent war machines! Say, how about a guided tour? I simply must these see creations – perhaps even a peek at your plans for your Magnum Necropus?” Cash enticed, tempting the physician with more ego-stroking, so that the circle could scout the Masks’s arsenal.

This led to a ghoulish tour just outside the city, at the grand encampment of the Mask’s growing army. There the circle beheld the absurdly grotesque scene that was hundreds of ghostly necro-surgeons sitting in rank and file, stitching together zombies and inserting long barbed coils of soulsteel into the spines of the corpses, which apparently was part of how one animated a dead body on an industrial scale. Within this encampment, in an underground storage facility, stood hundreds of bonestriders that the physician claimed to have made himself.

The circle had seen such things before – warstriders made of bone and flesh, for an abyssal near Chung Do had been making such horrors out of stolen corpses early on in the circle’s adventures – so the circle knew well the strengths and many weaknesses of such things, and now that they learned of the layout and locations of the Mask’s arsenal, they were able to start scheming to dismantle it all.

As for the physician’s dubiously named ‘Magnum Necropus’, then to see that would require a visit to the physician’s Sanatorium Sepulchral, which Cash politely declined, saying that the he had business with the Mask, which of course was quite important. The physician did not question his master’s plans, to which end the circle was able to return to the city via the docks lining the coastline just outside the city walls, all of them breathing heavy sighs of relief.

“Well, he was certainly full of himself…” Shimmer noted, shaking off a shiver running down her spine.

Sunrise nodded: “Indeed he was – Cash, aside from turning him from trying to lure us to his lab to dissect us, did you even have to use any other mind-control charms on him?”

“None – as long as I kept stroking his ego, he was happy to show us around. He reminds me a lot of… well… us… just as a fucked up dark version of us: A powerful exalt who lives out in the open, who doesn’t hide his power… but uses it for unrepentant evil” Cash said, sounding as if he couldn’t quite believe his own words.

Everyone agreed at for such a murderous lunatic to be in the service of the Mask did not bode well, but at least now they knew where the Masks’s necrotech arsenal was stored, meaning they could strike at it later. With that settled, Fire Orchid remarked: “This… is not quite how I remember Brighting Harbour”

Indeed, the harbour district of Thorns had changed quite a lot since last Fire Orchid had marched into Thorns as part of the Lookshyan victory over the nation some years prior to the place being swallowed up by the Mask and his undead forces. The wooden cargo cranes still swung, but the products being loaded onto merchant ships bore the black mark of the Mask, and Fire Orchid remarked that there used to be a lot more small businesses servicing the ships: “…now it’s all workshops and chimneys. At least the nice seaside homes from the Shenjin district still looks to be there”

“I can hear music from down there, and the clink of ceramic mugs – must be some big taverns if they can cut through the noise here” Sullen Hoof commented, his charm-enhanced senses keenest in the circle.

Passing down through the harbour district, towards Thorns’ port-side city gate, the circle saw zombie work-crews hauling heavy goods around. Fire Orchid noted that inside the city wall, in the northern part of the city, was the in-city half of the Shenjin district, but once through the gate she was shocked to see most of the district’s fancy mansions and estates completely levelled, replaced by iron-clad buildings that honestly looked as if they had been plucked out of a certain factory district of Stygia. Cash found the resemblance rather disturbing: “Their walls are even as greasy as how they used to be in the Street of Swords district in Stygia before I ordered the place redecorated. Still, quite the weapons industry the Mask has here – I counted six barges with coal and charcoal being unloaded in the harbour – I guess Thorns has enough iron mines on its own”

Zombies by the hundreds, working in open courtyards next to gloomy foundries, both looked and smelled as if they did nothing but pound out swords and armor day and night. Speaker’s quick looks at the few mortals that appeared to live in the area confirmed symptoms of long-term sleep deprivation and minor inflammations of the eyes and nose, indicative of prolonged exposure to acrid foundry and forge smoke.

It also didn’t help that at every square and larger street intersection loomed a massive black stone statue of the Mask, displaying a visage of the deathlord as a lord dressed in strange robes wearing many masks around his head. It seemed that the Mask of Winters wanted to remind everyone who was in charge.

“So… the message we found earlier, we should look down? Is there a lower part of the city somewhere?” Shimmer wondered, as they saw a large cart full of rusty-red iron ore pulled by a dozen zombies, with a living pony driver sitting on the cart, guiding the zombies along by prodding them with a long stick every now and then.

Fire Orchid tried to recall what else she could remember of the city’s layout, but Speaker quickly pointed out: “This place probably has really good sewers – the architects from Thorns used to be the very best of the scavenger lands… I don’t think it’s the same ponies masterminding these new decorations”

As one might have expected for a city that at least once had been beautiful, then the sewers were well hidden. Indeed, while most places in Creation just buried its waste behind the outhouse, with only a few places having the knowledge and resources to even think of sewers, let alone build them, then Thorns had been built using the finest of architectural wisdom drawn from the realm and its excellent secondary schools.

Sunhill’s sewer system might be a lot better and more efficient, but Sunhill was a lot smaller than Thorns – and based on the writing chiselled into the brickwork at the sewer entrance the circle found, then the city’s sewer had been built centuries earlier – and for such a construction project to remain functional for so long was honestly quite impressive. It was also locked down quite thoroughly, but Sully’s essence had long ago granted him a most subtle lock-opening touch, making all but the most complicated and magical locks yield to him in an instant.

The sewer entrance the circle had found was also checked for ghosts and other hidden observers – none were found, but the circle was still careful to sneak inside without anyone spotting them. Sullen Hoof went in first, using a charm that let him simply walk through the door, which looked very not-suspicious considering that he was disguised as a semi-transparent ghost. Moments later he poked his head back out, signalling for the rest of the circle to follow, having unlocked the door from inside.

“Alright, now since we’re in a shadowland, then going down means we’re technically descending into the underworld labyrinth. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for any sign that the walls, floor or ceiling starts changing” Sullen Hoof said, as he guided the circle along.

Everyone remained vigilant, Shimmer especially so as she looked for more hidden messages written in clawspeak, but after descending a few levels past the actual sewer the circle found itself quite surprised and distracted… by the amount of ponies they ran into after clearing a corridor, in the far end of a long hall where Shimmer had said she was hearing something in the other end.

It turned out that the undercity of Thorns was alive and kicking. Sure, none of the ponies that the circle saw looked well fed and satisfied, then they were alive and surrounded by anti-Mask graffiti drawn or etched into the stone walls. Luminescent mushrooms held in paper lanterns provided a very soft and dim light, but there were plenty of them.

Huddled in rags, the ponies up in front appeared armed with makeshift spears, clubs and other weapons. They did not look happy to see the circle approach, but as they saw Cash and his fake unicorn horn, they seemed to relax a bit. Fire Orchid quickly stepped up and asked about who was in charge.

A fellow unicorn stepped forth, a rugged and scarred but young cream-colored mare clad in sewer-rags and wearing a ghoulish necklace of bits of zombies and skeletons, trophies from the look of things: “I’m in charge of defending this exit. Were you followed?”

“Good for you – and who are you again?” Cash wondered, noting that the green-eyed unicorn mare had no draconic features at all, marking her as a very low-born unicorn, while he was disguised to look quite high-born with several draconic features.

The unicorn squinted her eyes at the circle: “Wrong answer” – and with that the circle found itself with a lot of spears levelled at it.

Cash instantly figured out the failure in communication: “Right, no we were not followed – now can you please take us to your leader?”

The spears didn’t go down, and Cash found himself getting increasingly annoyed that he wasn’t able to just talk to these sewer-dwellers. The rag-clad unicorn mare sighed: “Of course you were. They hide in the walls when tracking you. Red-Eyes, up in front!”

The muffled sound of soft hooves on the carven stone of the tunnel approached, turning out to come from a pale foal that Speaker instantly recognized as a ghost-blooded pony. Her eyes were blood red, her coat thin, her skin pale. Like everyone else she was dressed in rags, and she carried with her an air of the chill of grave… but Speaker saw through essence sight that her eyes appeared to have flecks of… something… in them, things that reacted to essence, though the price of using it seemed to be that her eyes also began to bleed, not that it seemed to bother her much. It was when she scanned the circle and the far end of the room where they had come from, that she doubled over in pain, clutching her eyes: “They… they’re so bright!”

“The unicorn? No wait, they? What are you!?” the unicorn mare said to the circle as she processed what the foal was saying, before the little filly fell over.

Right, someone with natural essence sight might not have as much control over it as someone who knew a charm for it – and solars were nothing if not shiny, at least metaphysically.

Speaker shot Cash an anxious look. He desperately wanted to leap forth and help the filly, but he knew that it wouldn’t exactly do well to make the entire sewer resistance hate and fear them as anathema…

“You’ll have to forgive us – my friend here is a doctor, he would very much like to help your little friend there” Cash said, carefully, as the unicorn mare had her spear right up to his nose.

The unicorn mare was looking oddly frightened, her spear held tight in the grip of her essence as she floated it before her – there was clearly something afoot that the circle didn’t know of.

“Really now Vanilla? We told you not to let any more foreigners in down here. Disobeying us has consequences” said a haughty and loud mare from behind the circle with a thick northern accent – quickly accompanied by the sound of a metal edge being scraped over the rough-hewn stone floor.

The circle turned and saw a pony clad in very heavy armor that was painted bright white, making it surprisingly easy to see her in the dim light of the mushroom lanterns – though the black blur of essence holding her massive scythe, and the silent but moaning faces pressing out against the surface of the scythe blade, confirmed that she was a deathknight.

“You’re absolute right Rip, this simply won’t stand” a second pony said he stepped out of the shadows, revealing a quite nice-looking stallion with a black coat that was just a little too ‘black’, to the point that it hurt a little just to look at him…

Chapter 30 Thorny Engagements

The Path of The Arbiter stylist seeks out soup of evil, and a true arbiter may see that soup devoured with any manner or utensil, for true justice is blind.

…

Facing two abyssals, deep in the underground sewers of Thorn, and standing between the abyssals and a group of what looked like local resistance fighters and refugees, the circle didn’t really know whether to chuckle or flat out laugh.

Their bemused reaction was clearly not what the two deathknights had expected, nor what the Thornese resistance fighters had expected – thought they were quick to begin a somewhat coordinated retreat to get away…

“Oh no you don’t” the dark-on-dark abyssal said, raising a finely hooficure’d limb. The other abyssal, the one clad in pale white armor, stepped aside, as if both of them seemed to know exactly what was about to happen.

…nothing happened. Only the shuffle of the rag-clad ponies as they withdrew into dark sewer tunnels behind them, their mushroom lanterns veiled to not give them away.

The dark-on-dark abyssal frowned, looking behind him: “Wait… where are the zombies?”

“Please don’t tell me that you forgot the shamblers back at some tight corner or narrow door again…” the armored abyssal groaned, leaning on her soulsteel scythe which had a blade as thick as her accent.

“No, they were right behind me – I had Fizzy make me a dozen with fast legs last week” the dark-on-dark abyssal argued, completely ignoring the five ponies before him and his partner.

The armored abyssal shook her head, her helmet rattling ever so slightly: “Fast legs my flank – come on Fives, we can do this ourselves”

It was just as the armored abyssal switched into a trot towards the ponies before her that a voice behind them spoke up: “I am not quite sure what you expect to do – but unless it’s to die down here, then you’re about to be very disappointed”

The two abyssals turned to look, seeing Sullen Hoof in his golden mask standing in the hallway they had come from, amidst the sliced and diced remains of all of the Fives’ zombie troops. Fives snarled menacingly, revealing teeth that were far too pointy to be natural at Sully: “A solar… oh we are going to get such rewards when we present your head to our master”

It was with the slightest of shake that Sully shook his head at the two, then nodding at the rest of his circle behind them: “Not just one…”

The two abyssals quickly peeked behind themselves, only to find a lot of glowing golden caste marks ready to meet them – as well as a single silvery one. They didn’t even get time to cry out, call for reinforcements, or try to coordinate a retreat – for Speaker, Shimmer and Fire Orchid was on them in an instant. With but a touch Speaker had both of the abyssals sleeping, while Shimmer and Fire Orchid caught the two as they began to tip over.

Laying the two sleeping abyssals down gently, to avoid waking them up, Speaker quickly darted over to the zombie remains and picked up bits of bone and cloth rags, fashioning two simple dream-catchers. Returning to the abyssals, he used the dreamcatchers to store the strange silvery wisps of light that he withdrew from the two, inserting it into the dream catchers: “There, all yours Fire Orchid”

The old martial mare loomed over the two deathknights, shaking her head: “Forgetting your own troops… pathetic”

With a long and thin dagger through the white armored one’s helmet eye slits, Fire Orchid quickly put one abyssal into the grave – the poor thing barely got time to wake up and squirm before it was too late. It was as she was about to do the same to the other one, the one called Fives, that the unicorn mare and her ragged rebels reappeared at the other end of the sewer hall: “Wait!”

Fire Orchid shot the unicorn a somewhat disappointed look – both for having been disrupted in her execution, but also because shouting might wake the abyssal and the old mare didn’t feel in the mood for a desperate fight to the death. She quickly knelt down and stabbed the deathknight repeatedly in the head until it stopped spasming, afterwards looking at the unicorn like a grandmother glaring disapprovingly at a whining foal: “Don’t shout when someone’s enemy is asleep dear – kill them first, then you can shout”

The unicorn galloped up to the circle and the two dead abyssals, looking incredulously at them, at the glowing golden mark on Speaker and Fire Orchid’s brow: “What… how did you… who the hell are you?”

“How about you tell us who you are first?” Cash politely suggested, though his tone was firm and authoritarian, leaving no doubt that this request had not been one up for debate or discussion.

Duly intimidated by seeing her two tormentors slain so quickly and effortlessly, but also by seeing that the ponies before him were golden anathema, it was clear that the unicorn was greatly conflicted. Were they friends? Were they foes? They had clearly come not bearing drawn arms, but… they clearly didn’t need such either: “You… I am Vanilla Bean, now who the in the dragon’s bloody scrotes are you, and how did you kill those two demons so easily?”

Cash flashed a brief smile to the rest of the circle. They nodded at him, and so he gave the unicorn their formal and truthful introductions, informing the wide-eyed unicorn and the other Thornese resistance fighters that they were face to face with the lords of Sunhill: “…now, like I said earlier, then we would love to speak to whoever is in charge. We wish coordinate our efforts to liberate Thorns – for we are here on a little fact-finding mission, in preparation for the final push to free Thorns”

Vanilla bean found it all quite too much. The new dark anathema having been slain by the anathema of old that the monks always warned about? And yet the results were difficult to argue with…

Poking Cash and motioning towards the group of rebels, Speaker relied on his fellow lord having enough charms of subtle social signal detection running that he didn’t have to speak, and so Cash quickly added: “…and my friend here, while deadly in combat, is also a magically gifted healer. He can help your ghostblooded filly friend with the bleeding eyes”

Nodding quickly, chiefly because she really didn’t want to end up on the receiving end of that very deadly healer, Vanilla bean saw Speaker dart past her, going much faster than what a grey-bearded old stallion had any business moving.

Speaker quickly found the filly, two of her fellow rag-clad ponies tending to her – but they quickly moved aside as the lord of Sunhill confidently stepped up and ushered healing essence upon her. The filly came to with a start, instantly pawing at her clenched eyes – but with essence he forced her eyes open and washed them out with purifying energies. This did not look pleasant, but she quickly stopped resisting, falling asleep even as her eyes were held open thanks to Speaker’s various charms.

Concentrating greatly, as the unexpectedly complicated nature of the ghostblooded filly’s eyes kept throwing Speaker curveballs, the solar had to actually put effort into the medical procedure. It wasn’t clear which lunatic had put flecks of soulsteel into the filly’s eyes, but Speaker knew for certain that he dearly wanted to kill that heinous soul, for the filly’s ability to see essence clearly had not been natural… no… this was something done to her – and it had inflicted great suffering upon her in the process.

He hoped it wasn’t the unicorn – would be a shame to sour their relationship with the resistance this early, though if they were willing to commit such cruelty to their own, then Thorns might not be worth saving.

As the last fleck was slid out of the eyes of the filly, Speaker breathed a heavy sigh of relief, then flushed her eyes with healing essence. They were no longer red, but instead pale yellow.

“There we go – come on, we’re going to see their leader” Shimmer said over Speaker’s shoulder.

The filly waved enthusiastically as the circle walked into the darkness, led on by Vanilla bean.

It turned out that the central hideout of the Thornese resistance was located in what had previously been some kind of secret, underground brothel, opium and smuggler’s den. In the tunnels around it an underground tent city had been set up, wrought of everything from sail-cloth to scavenged curtains, all of it patched, stained and stitched from years of wear and filthy sewer-living. The huddled ponies that looked out from their tents had sunken eyes and gaunt faces: Nobody there was eating well, though they weren’t as skeletonized as the circle had feared either, indeed the circle walked past a lot of small mushroom farms and even pens with pigs being fed nosh plucked from the sewers.

Inside the curiously labelled Seven-Tiered Sanctuary was a strange mix of… everything. There were dazed ponies huddled in the corners, slim and simple opium pipes hanging from their mouths, along with the sweet smoke from hashish pouring out of other alcoves. It seemed that a lot of the refugees there had resorted to drugs to numb the pain of living, all the while thuggish looking ponies hauled around crates, barrels and other forms of cargo that would likely never see a tax authority, though a lot of it looked like stolen barrels and sacks of food.

As the circle was guided from the top levels deeper down, they all felt the strange change in local essence flows. They were in a manse – a simple and not terribly potent one – but a manse none the less. Cash effortlessly conversed with their guide, one of Vanilla bean’s ponies at arms – a rag-clad mare with a worn spear. Through this pony the circle learned that the seven-tiered sanctum used to be a brothel and drug den, but now it had become the defacto hide-out of the rebels fighting against the mask… though it seemed to very much have been a losing fight.

On the third level their guide told the circle to wait outside a door. Knocking and then entering, the guide emerged a few moments later. Now, the circle had speculated at what the local leadership would be: A bandit king? A smuggler captain? Perhaps some castle guards and army officers who had survived the attack on Thorns?

Their guide waved them in.

The room wasn’t terribly big, and the threadbare tapestries showed motifs of flowery dragons and… playing cards? It wasn’t really possible to see much further into the room, as it was thick with tobacco smoke. Speaker recognized the flowery dragons as images of one of the aspects of Luranume, the god of luck. Cards and luck? This was a room for cardplay – and indeed as the circle ventured deeper into the wall of smoke they found in the middle of the room a decently sized table, around with five ponies sat and played, one of them merrily puffing on what was left of huge cigar, who seemed to be the primary source of all the smoke. A scattered pile of cigar stumps on the floor around the smoker revealed just how much tobacco the stogie-muncher had gone through already.

“You lot in charge here?” Fire Orchid inquired, sounding a bit like an accusatory grandmother who had found a bunch of youngsters doing something they shouldn’t.

A haughty laugh came from the group around the table. The thick smoke around them made it difficult to make out much beyond hazy silhouettes, but one figure rose and approached to greet the circle: “Ah, our vaunted saviours. The ponies who slew our two main tormentors”

The pony was a tall and slim stallion, his bone structure delicate and his features elegant. A short cloak fell from his narrow shoulders, over his back to his hips, a tight shirt of pale silk clinging to his torso. Rounding off the look were loose trousers that flared over his hooves, covering just perfectly so they didn’t get stepped on or dragged along the ground: “I am Silken Laughter, proprietor of this den of sin – and for the death of those two ragamuffins, I am in your debt, which I shall pay in kind through this offer of free stay and entrance to my humble hideout”

Fire Orchid shrugged: “We’ve killed worse for less – and we came here to help. The mask has made enemies of us, and so we’re here to figure out how to end him”

Silken Laughter laughed at Fire Orchid and grinned mockingly, sounding thoroughly amused at her matter-of-factly tone: “Oh really? You six would take on a deathlord, who’s very gaze sees the mightiest of ponies tremble and die?”

“Wouldn’t be the first one we put down” Cash said almost casually, returning a grin to Silken Laughter just as shit-eating and confident.

With a raised eyebrow, the elegant dandy was about to say something, but in the end, he seemed to simply nod, ushering the circle out of the game room: “Come, let us speak somewhere more private”

A few minutes later, in what looked like a much nicer tea salon – one not clouded in smoke, Silken Laughter invited the circle to sit down and get comfortable: “Now, you made a bold claim… but then again, having casually put down two deathknights makes for just as bold a statement. Come sit, I’ll tell you about how I’ve helped organize the resistance here and leveraged my assets to help out, and then you can tell us ho-”

Joining them in the tea salon, Vanilla Bean joined the party via a rather blunt statement as she sat down next to Silken Laughter: “Bullshit. Nobody casually kills a deathknight – those freaks are near impossible to kill!”

Shimmer looked at the unicorn mare, smiling at how funny it was to see the unicorn’s frustration given voice: “Who exactly is she”

Silken Laughter picked up a teapot and poured himself a cup in some very nicely Thorn-made and glazed ceramic cup: “She’s new at this. Got her horn barely a year ago down here. She’s my latest head of security, used to be just another of my smugglers, one of my best mind you – now she keeps us safe from ghosts or whatever other stitched-together horrors the Mask and Fizzy flushes down here”

Cash looked at Silken Laughter as he sipped his tea, then back at his circle: “You know, I’m getting a funny vibe from giggles over here, what do you see in him Speaker?”

With essence sight, Speaker tried to look at Silken Laughter, but even squinting he couldn’t… see… but he could that he couldn’t see: “He’s… veiled. Can’t tell how, with what kind of essence, but he is enlightened”

Silken Laughter shrugged, speaking quietly: “Few can see through my glamour – still, impressive that you can even see one is there”

Vanilla Bean seemed a tad annoyed that she was being ignored: “Hey, I still have questions about you lot”

“Oh, I know – and like you, we know it to be wise to know who and what you’re talking to considering where we are and who reigns up above up. For example, in confirming that Silken Laughter is more than just a mortal a bandit king here, we can infer that he is likely on very bad terms with the local immaculates due to their stance on god-blooded or anathema ponies, to which end we can estimate that at least he won’t be as upset about our presence as you might. Hell, he might even have heard of us” Cash eloquently stated, leaving the Vanilla Bean to nod as she found wisdom in his words, even though she also looked a bit confused.

A chuckle from Silken Laughter revealed his approval: “So the mighty Lords of Sunhill are not just great warriors, but clever ponies who knows how to pick their fights..”

The unicorn mare shot Silken Laughter a quizzical look: “These ones? You must be joking”

“Not at all – these are the very ones who fought with Lookshy at Deep Rot according to the stories, who convinced Lookshy to wage war in the underworld to begin with, who brought brief ruin to Lookshy – oh the stories they can no doubt tell…” Silken Laughter said, prancing around Vanilla bean to lord the fact that he had clearly heard tales about Sunhill and its lords from his smugglers and their connections.

The mood quickly changed into one of serious discussion as the unicorn explained what they had been doing: “Silky here handles internal operations, keeps everyone fed and from stabbing each other in their sleep. As he noted, I handle security, keeping the sewers somewhat safe, and then we’ve got a third party – the leader of our smuggling operations in and out of the city: A lunar called Anja Silverclaws”

Shimmer perked up at the mention of that name – well, part of it. Sage had told her the legend of Silverclaws, the lunar who had rebuilt the silver pact after what little organization they had had having been shattered by the same great contagion that brought an end to the shogunate, reorganizing the lunars into what they had now: “…all lunar owes Silverclaws a great debt, even after he died and reincarnated”

“Interesting – a lunar in charge of your... outside operations? What’s her skin in this game?” Cash wondered, well aware of what the obvious answer might be, but hoping to gleam some deeper clues to what was going on in Thorns.

The unicorn mare gladly explained this, though her tone remained serious: “The ghosts and deathknights sniff out essence veils in no time at all – Anja always had trouble sneaking around unless she shapeshifted into something to hide that way around. Our regular smugglers can move around with just some simple makeup to colour our coats. There are enough unicorns still living up in the city that I can blend in easily too if need be. It makes it much safer to scout or make contact with merchants and smugglers up top”

Sullen Hoof nodded: “Makes sense – you need some very powerful disguising charms to hoodwink an abyssal who is actually looking for disguised ponies”

Silken Hoof and the unicorn were both startled from the sudden appearance of Sully, mainly because he still looked like a ghost – but he quickly dropped the charms he was using, reverting to his appearance to his normal silken chefs-uniform and orichalcum helmet.

“…how the… who are you?!” Vanilla Bean said, looking oddly offended.

Cash laughed: “He is Sullen Hoof, chosen of Celestia of the night caste. Sneakiest pony I’ve ever met, and a master chef blessed by heaven. Once sauced an assassin and made the poor thing eat itself”

“Must have been some sauce” Silken Laughter chuckled, hiding the fact that he was screaming inside over this sudden reveal surprisingly well, though not well enough for Cash to not detect it.

The plain-looking unicorn scowled at Sully: “How did you look like a ghost? The mask’s watch towers detect all essence veils we use!? And why the golden mask?”

“I don’t know you, so why should I do a show and tell of my disguise charms and tricks?” Sully shot back to the mare, leaving her face twisted in anger.

Silken Laughter quickly put a hoof on the unicorn mare’s shoulder: “Easy there”

It was obvious that the mare didn’t like that Sully wouldn’t reveal his identity to her – the circle understood that, though as far as they were concerned then the opinion of some random unicorn was quite inconsequential, while the unicorn probably felt it quite vital for operational security or something.

“You were talking earlier about your assets and what you brought to the resistance here. What do you have and how have you been using them?” Cash inquired, trying to bring things back on topic.

Silken Laughter nodded, continuing: “Right, well – when the city fell, we were flooded by ponies seeking refuge. I helped where I could, and we’ve always had a solid store of emergency food, rations, tents and whatnot. The second thing we brought to the table was experience in leadership. Anja is amazingly sneaky, and can fight any of us to a standstill and then some, but she’s not all that good at training others. Me, I’ve commanded troops and know from experience how to train them – that’s how we were able to set up our sewer guard system. We also got a few runaway palace guards who helped train my goon squads on proper realm legion-style fighting techniques, at least until they got captured. And finally, I’ve got the money to make things happen when it needs to”

Speaker recalled that there were some lunar training charms – but they weren’t as scalable as his own mass educational charms, and he truly couldn’t remember if unicorns even had any such charms… Of course, simply having practical experience was undeniably useful too – you could always teach ponies the normal way, if you had the time.

“You’ll have to forgive me, but the ponies here do not appear flush with cash nor trained to be expert resistance fighters. They look starving and scared” Sullen Hoof pointed out.

Vanilla Bean nodded: “Oh you are absolutely right – but they’re also not starving to death… it was very different when a lot of us arrived. With his funds and organizational skills, Silken Laughter has turned his smugglers into a very regular food delivery service. Everyone here goes hungry, but they also know that they’ll get at least one meal a day to stay alive with – which does wonders for morale. We can only smuggle in so much food, but we’re keeping the ponies here alive and picking off the traitors who sided with the Mask up above one by one”

“Interesting – but you’ll have to forgive me. Since we got here, between the whispers I heard while being guided in here, and you being hounded by those abyssals… makes it sound very much like you lot are on the defensive” Cash pointed out.

Silken Laughter nodded: “Oh we have never been in a position to strike directly at the Mask – and his deathknights are powerful anathema… but we’ve been chipping away at the Masks’s government, making him assign his deathknights to increasing amounts of managerial or bodyguard work to keep his administration working. We’ve slowed the Masks’s weapon and armor production to a crawl, and the craftsponies in his employ show up to work each morning shaking with fear that they’ll be the next one we kill…”

“So… you have the organizational skills, the funding to keep everyone fed enough to be useful… what are you missing? Muscle? We took care of the two deathknights” Fire Orchids mused, sounding as if she was trying to find the missing piece of the strategic puzzle – or identify what niche that the circle could best fill out.

Vanilla Bean sighed deeply, putting his cup down: “In a word… headcount. I’ve helped train some of the most promising of our goons into serviceable saboteurs and guerrilla fighters, but we lost the last squad of them a week ago to a ghost ambush. We barely have enough hooves left to sneak in food”

“All killed?” Speaker simply had to ask, not really wanting to know the answer, but his heart gave him no choice.

Briefly shivering, Silken Laughter motioned for servants to bring more snacks: “In Thorns you never just die – and the Masks’ forces prefer live captures. They take you Shackle Maw Penitentiary… and there you’ll die a thousand times, before they carve you up into a zombie and make you into a new ghost-slave for the Mask”

Shimmer put a confident hoof down on the table: “Sounds like a good opening move would be a prison break then – let’s get your ponies back”

Chapter 31 Into The Palace Of Pain

Any soup hiding in trees is quickly found and devoured, while unsuspecting waiters with soup walking around on the ground quickly finds themselves ambushed from a Terrible Ascent-Driven Beast up in the trees.

…

Getting out of the sewers was easy enough, now that the circle had guides from Silken Laughter’s smuggling crews to see them through. They were led to an exit on the west side of what the guide called the Shroudwant district – a truly palatial district, replete with towering black marble monoliths topped with statues of the Mask, which was covered in a thick fog… but it wasn’t a natural one: It was a smog wrought of incense.

“They must be burning the stuff like firewood… good heavens” Cash said from under his disguise of dirty rags, his usual heavenly silks and golden collar of dawn’s cleansing packed away elsewhere for the time being.

Of course, the incense was being burned for a pretty obvious reason: It kept the smell of rot that wafted in from the harbour and the rest of the city out, allowing the ponies who lived in the district who worked as the Mask’s bureaucrats to live in relative luxury, even if it meant some difficulty breathing. The circle’s guide used much more coarse language to describe the traitors working for the mask. It didn’t help that the ponies who trotted around on the street all wore clearly forced smiles, regardless of whether they were clad in servant uniforms or bright purple and crimson silks and heavy golden jewellery – it made it all look so fake… which it arguably was – all of it clearly pageantry for the mask and his ghosts.

The circle was led through the district via back alleys, past hundreds of sleeping homeless and probably quite a few corpses among them, though they did have to cross a few squares to avoid certain heavily patrolled streets where important government ministries or bureaus were located. This included a square next to the recently built Twilight Amphitheatre, where government sycophants and foreign dignitaries wiling to deal with the Mask were gathering in the soft evening light. These crowds were easy enough to ignore, and considering how the circle was disguised and how they sculked along the periphery, so too were they ignored.

What couldn’t really be ignored was the shattered radiance from the skewered god-corpse proudly on display in the middle of the square square, impaled on a massive and very tall barbed soulsteel spike where it seemed that the corpse was still slowly sliding down its length. To Speaker’s great horror then his charms and insight told him that the poor god wasn’t even quite dead… but slowly being bled of life. Their guide agreed that it was horrible, but added to the horror of it all by explaining: “…about once per season the Mask will make a big show out of coming out and raising our city-father up the spike again, not wanting it to ever reach the ground where it would be allowed to die – he says it is important for the growth of his young empire”

It was difficult for Speaker to imagine how anything else in the city could worse… and yet… well… Shackle Maw Penitentiary. To Speaker’s absolute horror then it had once been a grand hospital… a house of healing. Now it was the polar opposite, a place where the innocent was tossed in and zombies and chained ghosts marched out.

Located in the north-eastern corner of the city, it was surrounded by a ring of quite thoroughly abandoned structures – because who would ever want to live near such a horrible place. The Mask had the hospital rebuilt into a prison, decorating its facade with grim sculptures that jut out from its corners instead of the previously warm and welcoming stone carvings that ushered the sick and ailing inside. Worse still were the grotesque ‘decorations’ of still-shivering corpses that decorated the black-iron barbs atop its fences. The dark bricks and thick mortar of the place stank with rot and fear, and you could actually see from within the prison a heady miasma of pain and tears appearing, made of sour yellow fumes, rising into the air.

The circle quickly agreed that a ‘mere’ prison break wouldn’t be enough – this whole place had to go. It would double as a great welcoming gift to the Mask, to announce that now a true force of freedom had arrived in Thorns.

This of course begged the question of how. Sully, with his ghostly disguise, could probably get in fairly easily – but the rest of the circle’s best option was likely as prisoners… and quite frankly, then that kind of waste of time just didn’t make sense.

“Well let’s be honest, we’re not here to stay hidden… we’re here to raise hell” Fire Orchid said, sounding quite enthusiastic as they peered out from inside one of the abandoned buildings near the torture-prison.

Speaker nodded, a little, but not quite: “Yes and no – I’ve been thinking. I looked at that impaled god back in the Shroudwant district… I looked at it with essence sight, and it looked like it was creating the central snarl of necrotic essence that’s causing the shadowland. I think that’s the place where we’ll have to perform the shadowland fixing spell. I think we should save our big reveal for that, because we won’t be able to hide that no matter what”

Of course, one thing is not revealing one self, but another was being subtle. A simple way of ensuring that your identity is not revealed was simply to kill all the witnesses… and the circle didn’t imagine that the ghosts in charge of the prison would be very cooperative, so that problem would solve itself. Their guide didn’t really look as if he knew what to expect, but he liked the circle’s attitude, bragging that he’d cut down at least a dozen zombie guards and whatnot during his own illustrious career as a smuggler.

Not terribly keen on listening to the braggard, the circle thanked him for his help but urged him to get going, reasoning that once the fighting started, he wouldn’t be safe. The guide didn’t need much urging beyond that, saying that he would take a longer route back to the seven-tiered sanctuary, to avoid anyone following them.

This left the circle with the challenge of dealing with the prison and the ghosts within. Shimmer wanted to turn into a seagull and circle the place, but Sunrise quickly pointed out that there weren’t really any seagulls in the city, despite the sizable port. Shimmer did a double take and confirmed this: “Ok… right, a lone seagull would stand out like a sore hoof. How about… an insect form? This place has no shortage of flies”

The rest of the circle waited patiently while Shimmer did her scouting, Sullen Hoof applying his disguise charm and using the power of his magical mask, to make him look like a pony ghost with a partially severed head, while everyone also kept a lookout for ghosts using their spirit interaction charms.

“Our priority has to be finding the resistance ponies, though if we’re clearing the whole place out it won’t matter much who we get out first” Fire Orchid mused.

Cash shook his head: “No, we need to find the prison’s messengers first and cut that off. We need to buy ourselves as much time as possible before the mask sends reinforcements – this place would have the means to call down hell on us if we don’t do that first”

“That… is not a bad idea. You and Sunrise can lead with some mind-control attacks at the guards at the gate, to get them to tell us everything” Fire Orchid said, appearing as if she was contemplating the exact wording they should use for such an attack.

When Shimmer returned, she was able to give the circle a solid count of the ghosts patrolling around the prison’s outer walls, courtyards, outer and inner gate. When quizzed on whether she had seen anything that looked like paths for messengers, she noted that there weren’t any obvious paths or tracks leading out of the place… so no dice on having spotted messenger routes to block.

“That‘s because they’re not up here. I can hear things moving around underground, we ‘ll need to check the local sewers under the place” Sullen Hoof noted, as he dissipated his sensory enhancement charms, because enhanced sense of smell near the prison was… less than nice.

Rooting around in the abandoned buildings revealed a sewer entrance in a cellar, and from there the circle was quickly able to confirm that a steady stream of messengers were going back and forth from the prison via underground passages. A surprising amount really.

Snatching one messenger and blasting the pale pony with mind control charms to ensure the poor emaciated colt didn’t scream or do anything stupid, resulted in the pony telling the circle everything he knew – like how the prison would dispatch messengers for even the most petty or useless notification to the Mask’s administration. He also told about the underground entrances in the prison used by messengers and cargo deliveries, and wept when asked why he worked as a messenger for the Mask, saying that it was the only way he could ensure that him and his family was given food and kept off the “Send them to Shackle Maw for zombification if we need more work crews” list. It wasn’t difficult to understand his plight, and Speaker confirmed that he wasn’t lying.

With his dream-based martial arts, Speaker put the pony to sleep so he could sleep out the oncoming battle in relative safety, instead of Fire Orchid’s idea of knocking him out.

“Why have underground messengers and deliveries? That doesn’t make sense” Speaker wondered, his mind boggled at how much it would have had to cost to build such secret tunnels leading out to the city, and making sure none of it conflicted with the sewers.

Fire Orchid was surprised that Speaker hadn’t figured that out: “This place was built to help defend against Lookshy… what’s Lookshy known for?”

“A lot of first age weapons?” Speaker quickly replied, unsure of where Fire Orchid was going with that line of reasoning.

Bobbing her head side to side, Fire Orchid gave Speaker a so-and-so expression: “Partially… but also its sky-fleet. Underground tunnels let you hide from skyreme bombardments a lot better – which is also why I’ll bet that the paths connecting to the prison down here will lead out to the city walls and other key locations for the… old government, so any wounded could quickly be moved here, or so this place could be resupplied from what I’m guessing is an underground warehouse somewhere”

Speaker’s expression said it all: He clearly felt rather silly that he hadn’t figured out that kind of strategic use of underground tunnels. Of course, one thing was puzzling this out, another was finding a way to exploit it all: “Well I be… but ok, we’ll need to check if there are messengers going out other routes than this – and we’d need to plug them all. I don’t think they’re using all of them, in fact I’d expect to find a lot of them blocked off to avoid prison escapes”

Shimmer turned into a small lizard and crawled into the tunnels, mapping them out in the relative darkness. While she was off, the rest of the circle conferred once more about how to exploit the tunnels, chiefly basing their plans on the idea that any tunnel blockage could be cleared pretty easily. Cash wanted to use the tunnels for the smugglers to easily access the city walls and have Speaker create some hidden doors out of the city for them. Fire Orchid wanted to use the tunnels to make a series of quick attacks on various government buildings. Sunrise suggested they use the tunnels to sneak the prisoners out.

“We can do all three sequentially, but we’ll need to scout and secure a route back to the sanctuary to make sure there’s no ghosts along the way who can report us to the Mask” Sullen Hoof cleverly pointed out.

Speaker nodded, pointing out that he could easily use his singing staff to make connections between the messenger tunnels and the sewers, but keeping ghostly spies away for gods knows how many prisoners would likely be a problem: “…of all the things we’ve seen in the city, salt isn’t one of them. It stands to reason that the Mask has basically made having more than a pinch of salt is probably illegal”

“True – if we ward the prisoner escape route with salt, it’ll raise the alarm. Do we have any alternatives?” Fire Orchid noted, not liking the idea of a running underground battle across the city.

Sunrise gestured for attention: “If you could mark the route out for me, I could place a series of wards that force dematerialized spirits and ghosts away – its basic sorcery. At worst the Mask will think that the sanctuary rebels have a unicorn sorcerer in their service”

“Not a bad idea. When did you learn how to do that?” Speaker wondered.

It turned out to have been one of the things Sunrise had learned to do while Speaker had been off traveling to find and bring back Shimmer. Speaking of lunar, Shimmer returned shortly thereafter in her form of a jewel-eyed lizard, reporting that under the prison there was indeed a messenger hub: “…but all but the one passage I came from was bricked up. Even the air vents looked closed off”

“Do they want their messengers choking down here?” Speaker wondered, confused about why it would be necessary to block air vents.

Shimmer had no answer to that question, but Cash instead had a brilliant plan: “Ok, here’s an idea. While you lot sneak into the prison via the messenger hub and raise hell, I can stay out here and intercept all the messengers coming in. I’ll have them return back to wherever they came from thinking they have new messages, to make sure nobody suspects the place has been compromised”

“Clever – I like it. But you should be disguised as a city bureaucrat first… can you do a quick supply run for that?” Fire Orchid said, sounding a little too much like a giddy young mare who had just been given the opportunity to give a friend a surprise makeover.

Well, it wasn’t as much a surprise a surprise makeover – and Cash gave a lot of feedback and suggestions himself, drawing on his extensive experience in dealing with vain bureaucrats on how to disguise him. The end result was a very convincing appearance for Cash in the form of a scarlet and purple-clad stallion, absolutely marinated in rich perfume and bits of smouldering incense hanging from his pockets in a silver burner.

While Cash had been dressed up, Speaker and Shimmer had scouted the tunnels for ghosts, finding none. This was rather odd at first, until Shimmer detected some kind of strange ghost-lure working from inside the prison. Speaker quickly figured out the idea behind that: “Of course – the ghosts of all the prisoners have to be kept locked up, so they can condition and brainwash them. Can’t hold ghosts back with brick walls – so they probably have something that forces ghosts to remain here, or draws them in. All the other ghosts in the city we’ve seen so far… no wonder they don’t want to be anywhere near here”

“Using ghost wards to trap ghosts. Hilarious Lord Bright” Shimmer quipped, as she used a sensory awareness charm to get a perfect understanding of the terrain around her, letting her guide Speaker and his singing staff on where to tunnel into for connecting to a passable sewer line. Sunrise arrived once done with Cash to ward the escape route, and with that done everyone took up positions and readied themselves to storm the prison.

“Should we have some kind of battle-cry?” Fire Orchid quietly wondered.

None of the others felt a need for one, but Cash said that if she could come up with something catchy then he was all ears – though he’d prefer they discuss that later.

The ghostly guards at the messenger station had no idea what hit them. The mortal messengers inside were quickly instructed/mind-controlled to temporarily shut up and cooperate, making them quite handy in preparing the messenger station for funnelling escapees out via.

The bricked off staircase up to the lowest levels of the prison was quickly smashed open. It wasn’t exactly subtle, but Shimmer had already snuck in through the cracks as a bug and come back confirming that the noise inside would cover everything… and indeed, the cacophony of screams was deafening.

Finally able to give in to his more compassionate urges, Speaker led the charge into what turned out to be gruesome operating theatres where they discovered a horrible serial production: Starved, tortured and beaten prisoners were strapped onto cold stone tables and were set up to have their souls straight up ripped from their bodies. The ghostly torturer-surgeons there were quickly slain, saving what few ponies they could – though in the case of a couple of the prisoners their souls had already been yanked from their now dead bodies via the use of absolutely horrible soulsteel hooks.

These poor souls were given peace by Sunrise, each of them crying spectral tears of joy as their fears of becoming the Mask’s new ghost minions were alleviated. The corpses of already soul-stripped prisoners were stacked high over in a corner of the blood-stained hall, clearly awaiting pickup to some processing facility within the prison. Sully quickly retrieved a little pouch, from which he retrieved a hoof-full of seeds that he tossed on the corpses. In seconds the seeds had burrowed into the decaying flesh, sprouting a dense web of roots that encased them. In mere minutes the whole pile had been reduced to mulch, the root-web dissolving in kind, leaving behind a set of sprouting flowers that each bore a new seed, which was quickly harvested before the circle moved on.

“Nice little trick there – good for covering up bodies” Fire Orchid noted.

Sullen Hoof shrugged as he stashed the pouch of strange seeds elsewhere: “It’s a new strain of bulbs of demise and renewal – faster acting seeds. They need a bit of essence to work this fast, but they work really quickly, and blossom just as fast, self-pollinating too”

“Ok that’s neat – I’ve only heard of them used by jungle barbarians as a torture device” Fire Orchid noted, having heard one too many stories of barbarians stuffing bulbs of the same magical plant into open wounds and seeing the rapidly growing roots spread out and drain living tissue… which of course would hurt an awful lot, hence the use of the things as a torture device.

Shimmer shot Sully a curious look as they approached what looked like a simple elevator of some sort: “Where did you get those seeds?”

“Crashing Wave gave them to me in exchange for a copy of my recipe book – he said he’d try to train his flower-servants to cook” Sully remarked as he stepped over the dissolving remains of the elevator’s ghost guards, just before ghosting through a door.

Looking at the tail-end of ghost-sully move through the door to the elevator; Cash had a ponder: “Does he have to be disguised as a ghost to do that?”

Fire Orchid shook her head: “I think he told me that it just has to be a real door – which is true, because I tricked him once by having a door installed on a wall that just had stone behind it. It was hilarious”

“Wait, so it was you who ordered that door put on the side of the foundry? I thought it was a sidereal pulling tricks on us” Speaker groaned, recalling the confusion he had gotten from the facility management of the place.

Sullen Hoof popped back out of the elevator: “We’ll have to climb up – the platform is kept topside when not in use, I’ve opened the service door to the left”

The climb up was surprisingly easy – there was a full-on staircase that ran up and around the shaft, clearly originally put there for when the place was a hospital, to permit messengers easy access.

As they got closer to the surface the true stink of the prison started to seep in. The lower levels had smelled of fresh blood and gore, but this was different. This was old blood, sweat, tears, shit and piss all mixed together in cells that probably hadn’t been cleaned since Thorns fell. It was a struggle not to retch, not at all aided by the clamour of thousands of poor wretches that hung out from the cells along the hallways, their skeleton-thin limbs hanging out to elicit pity or the mercy of a swift death.

Speaker could not think. This much suffering made his very soul cry out and his eyes go blind with tears – action had to be taken. He called Homage from elsewhere and ignited its essence-edge, the golden glow of the gyroscopic chakram’s special feature leaving a glowing trail of light as the solar healer broke into a gallop down the nearest hall, Homage slicing through the iron bars as if they weren’t there as he called for everyone else to join him.

The rest of the circle wasn’t entirely caught off guard by Speaker’s impulsive behaviour – they had expected something like that happening – but still…

Cash sighed and organized the rest of the circle: “Sully, find and detain the warden. Shimmer, follow Speaker and keep any guards off him. Fire Orchid, find what passes for an armory here and take stock – I’m sure the resistance would love some extra weapons. Sunrise, you’re on ghost patrol: Either talk or shout them down. I’ll start organizing the ponies Speaker is freeing. Let’s go!”

Everyone split up, heading in each their own direction. Cash and Shimmer headed in Speaker’s direction, while Sunrise and Fire Orchid started looking for their designated targets. Sullen Hoof had already disappeared, seeking the warden of the accursed place.

The hallways of the once-hospital were wide enough to make room for groups of doctors hovering around patients, so there was plenty of room for Shimmer in her warform, as long as she kept her wings folded up. Her silvery talons, enhanced further by spirit-slaying charms, tore prison guard ghosts apart left and right, splattering the walls with pale fading ichors, much to the cheering of the prison inmates.

Cash trailed after her, his words loaded with golden essence and gilded promises, giving new energy to starved prisoners who otherwise had none, making them stagger out into the wide halls and make their way towards the messenger station: “Those of you with the strength, help someone weaker than yourselves – this is make a friend day!”

So many of the prisoners wept. It was difficult to tell if it was tears of joy, or due to the torture they had received – likely both.

With Shimmer covering for him, Speaker was able to very quickly free multiple wings of the prison’s population, while Fire Orchid raided the armouries and took what she could carry, destroying what little she had to leave behind, which left the remaining ghost guards scrambling for weapons to defend themselves. This in turn rendered the guards quite vulnerable to Shimmer’s verbal assaults, resulting in quite a few of them trying to flee the prison… but as Shimmer had figured, then there was indeed something that kept all ghosts from actually leaving the place, leaving them nowhere to run.

Trying to hold their spectral hooves over their ears didn’t help, for Sunrise would simply blast them away with targeted warcries – then switch tone and pour honey in their ears of how easy and lovely it would be to seek a new life via reincarnation. So many swords, clubs and uniforms fell to the floor, clattering against filth-stained tiles that hadn’t been scrubbed for ages, as ghosts by the hundred faded into blissful reincarnation.

By cleverly sampling the ectoplasmic ichors left behind by the ghost guards she slew, Shimmer was able to briefly shapeshift into onethem. With this she would skip up to the barred windows and call to the guards patrolling the outside: “Hey, we’ve got a riot in here – come help beat up everyone!”

As giddy and manically enthusiastic guard patrols rushed inside, their ghostly eyes shining with mad malice, they were ambushed one after the other. It was either Fire Orchid falling upon them, her saddlebags loaded with weapons to the point that she looked a bit like a porcupine, or Sunrise pummelling them with words, or Shimmer webbing them and then enveloping them in long tentacles that let her crush them all at once.

Once Speaker had run through every prisoner wing, he joined Cash at the messenger station. Using his medical charms there, many of his newer charms having been developed at the Sunhill hospital to enable him to more efficiently treat large number of patients rapidly, he was able to restore starved and skeletonized pony prisoners, one after the other in no time at all. Once thusly restored, Cash sent them down the messenger stairs, where Cash had left instructions on how to find their way to the seventh tiered sanctum.

It took a bit over two additional long hours to have all of the prisoners funnelled down into the sewers. Once everyone arrived down there, they were met by three dozen messengers who looked very bored… oh right, the messengers…

A quick round of social charms bent the minds and memories of the messengers, convincing them that the reason for their hold-up was a petty conflict between the ghosts that had managed the messenger service. They all departed with new messages memorized for various random recipients, leaving the messenger tunnels open for the escapees to get into the sewers.

While the rest of the circle shepherded the escapees, Sunrise and Speaker prepared to bring down the prison: Sunrise sent a powerful prayer to the gods of ruin, offering them the dread prison as a sacrifice.

With his singing staff, Speaker forced cracks all throughout the foundation of the grand structure. Sound transmitted well through the dense stone, making his reach far as he wasn’t moving very much stone around – just separating some very discrete amounts… and thus the whole structure was physically disconnected from the ground around it.

“This is my gift to you. Roots severed, let this be your glorious ruin!” Sunrise finished her prayer, golden essence wrapped tightly around her words to all but guarantee that it would be heard.

Speaker quickly felt the tremors coming: “Alright, we’re leaving – let’s go!”

Sunrise didn’t object, but didn’t move back much either. She knew exactly what had been offered, and trusted the gods of ruins to not be greedy – especially considering her own well-earned reputation in heaven for brutally verbally abusing corrupt gods that stood in her way.

For the rest of Thorns the experience was far more confusing – at least initially: Streams of essence, the long fingers of various lesser gods and elemental minions of the gods of ruin, streamed down from the heavens and washed over the prison. Sure, you had to have essence sight to see any of it, thought the instant that the amount of essence wrapping around the prison reached critical mass it contracted: In a snap the whole structure imploded, collapsing into a spectacular ruin as its towers and walls fell out into its surrounding prison yards, splashing up against the prison walls that rimmed the cruel institution. The plume of dust that erupted from this whirled high up into the sky, many an air elemental dancing around in the cloud with irreverent glee.

In an instant hundreds of ghosts chained to high poles across the city that had been modified via necromancy to have grotesquely large mouths and tiny atrophied bodies, started to cry out into strange devices that amplified their screams, like a living weeping alarm system, as they saw the prison implode and the plume of dust rising.

Ghosts, being generally quite easily excitable – especially new and novel experiences – quickly gathered at the ruined prison to cheer and dance, simply because it was so different, so unexpected. It took roughly twenty minutes or so before the first deathknights showed up, bringing order to the scene – not that they could do much to restore the prison before the Mask would show up and be angry with them.

Down in the depth under the city, deep in the sewers of Thorns, the circle and just under three thousand escapees flooded the seven-tiered sanctuary.

“You were supposed to just bust out our missing operatives… not bring everyone – where are we even going to fit this many ponies? We don’t have food for this!” Silken Laughter cried out in a most distraught tone, looking on at the near endless stream of miserable ponies coming from the sewers.

Shimmer shrugged: “Oh we figured that food would be an issue here – so we brought some from home”

Sauntering up to the circle, looking rather angry– but still in a very dignified manner, Silken Laughter spoke through gritted teeth: “…and you lot didn’t screen the prisoners you brought here, did you?”

Cash instantly picked up what Silken Laughter was talking about, without the mystery dandy actually saying it, to which he quickly noted: “We did not – there are plenty of immaculates among these ponies, immaculates who know full well that their prayers to the dragons for salvation went unanswered, and that they have been rescued by golden anathema. I honestly suspect that all but the most zealous of them will be very open to reconsidering their dogma, and if you need help with those we can pitch in”

It was clear that the bandit king wished to continue the discussion, but a sudden spike in noise from a nearby hall grabbed everyone’s attention.

A lot of eyes went quite wide as Shimmer opened her elsewhere portal and started to retrieve crate after crate of densely pre-packaged rations, barrels of fresh water, and quite a lot of fresh fruit – for when there are no ponies in her elsewhere-den, then it was frozen in time. For pretty much all of the refugees and rebels in the sanctuary, this was the first fresh fruit any of them had tasted in years. Adding to that was what Shimmer had simply stored elsewhere, which turned out to be three yeddim-sized cargo wagons loaded with rice and other foodstuffs. A lot of furniture and a few ceilings had be ‘gently’ moved out of the way to properly fit these in, Speaker expediting the ceiling removal via his singing staff while Silken Laughter’s minions cleared away druggies and futons to make space to store the crates – though having some three thousand new residents didn’t exactly make that easy.

At a very newly made balcony that overlooked the unloading of one of the massive three-story yeddim-wagons loaded with rice, the circle and silken laughter celebrated the developments of the day, all the while looking down on the ant-hive of activity below as hundreds of ponies of ran around to distribute food and blankets for all the new arrivals.

“This… this is enough food to feed an army for months!” Silken Laughter said, sounding very much as if he didn’t quite believe his old eyes.

“I know, they’re making me look bad” a new voice said, coming from a young mare with a beautiful white coat and a long blond mane who sauntered up to the exalted gathering.

Silken Laughter, still looking somewhat near his wits end from the appearance of massive volume of everything and everyone who had showed up within the hour – all of which he in theory had to somehow manage, sighed deeply of relief: “Oh Anja thank heavens, finally – this place is turning into a mad-house… more so than usual”

Introductions were made, and Anja Silverclaws – a fellow lunar, chosen of the changing moon caste – was more than happy to see some proper celestial exalts showing up to help: “Oh finally… Giggles here, with all due respect - he never leaves this place, and his goons all smoke up after a run so it always takes them days to sober up”

The circle was a bit surprised at Silverclaws’ blunt and direct tone, but as it turned out then she was the daughter of a lesser noble house of Thorns who had escaped the shadowland leading a dozen foals away from the horror of the city. Following that hardship she had exalted, and after receiving her training she had set up shop in Thorns, smuggling ponies out, smuggling food in, and taking ‘swipes’ at the Mask’s forces to keep them from sleeping too easily.

“Sounds like fun” Shimmer said, nodding to Silverclaws’ story.

Shaking her head, her long blond mane going a little all over the place, Silverclaws frowned: “Not really. It’s been more like every time I come back more ponies were missing. I’m good at being sneaky and clever, not training others. When the escaped palace guards showed up, they helped a lot by training the smugglers that Giggles had, but the Mask just started catching them as fast as we could train them… we never had an advantage for more than a few days before we’d lose it again”

“Rough – but with our numbers now that shouldn’t be an issue” Fire Orchid noted.

The catty lunar groaned and face-hoof’d: “Oh sure, we’ll just marched a few thousand random ponies with no combat training against the Mask’s undead armies. That’s sure to end well”

Vanilla Bean agreed with this, arguing that with these bold moves it would be important to lock down the sanctuary and train everyone into competent fighters first, which of course would take months – but now they had the food to allow them to do that.

The lords of Sunhill found this far too slow, Speaker especially so: “We didn’t mean numbers like that… we meant just us exalts. We just took down the Mask’s zombie factory. Tomorrow we’ll find something else to hit. In a week he’ll have nothing else left and will be forced to retreat back into the underworld lest we take him out too”

Silken Laughter found this quite amusing for some reason: “They’re like you Vanilla Bean, when you had just exalted – wanting to save all of Creation and do it in a day!”

“Perhaps – except it’s pretty obvious that these ponies might actually have the power to actually do that” Vanilla Bean noted, sipping her mug of pineapple juice and relishing in finally having something other than her usual smuggler moonshine and sewer-water to drink.

Cash found this exchange amusing as well, but kept himself in check to maintain decorum: “Indeed – though we had our own teething issues. We learned a lot of things the hard way, and those experiences humbled us. Hell, if it wasn’t because the Mask having been sending barges loaded with hidden cargo holds full of zombies at us, then we probably wouldn’t even be here”

“Which he started doing after Sunhill worked with Lookshy to take down this Deep Rot place, right?” Said Anja, finally having pieced enough of the narrative together to see the big picture of why the circle was there.

Sunrise nodded: “The Mask used Deep Rot to process all the knowledge reports he gets from kidnapping and interrogating ghosts here in the east. Without it, he gets lots of reports, but has little capacity to read through them and find anything useful. Plus, at Deep Rot Lookshyan forces skirmished with Thornguard – this ruined the Mask’s diplomatic efforts here in the scavenger lands, because you can’t really sell the idea of you being a friend of the river provinces if you’re overtly picking a fight with their primary military protectors. We’ve also killed at least one of the Mask’s deathknights back then, plus the two today, so he has plenty of issue with us”

Everyone agreed that with a combination of all of that, then it made sense that the Mask had begun targeting Sunhill.

“Right, well the real question is what to do next – or better yet, how about an overall strategy for what should be dealt with first?” Vanilla Bean said, floating a notebook out of her worn and patched saddlebags.

Silverclaws shot the solars a miserable look: “See what I mean – they just sit and plan all day! They never actually do anything”

“Hey, plans are important. Now, let’s see what you have and then we’ll tell you our plans” Cash said, looking all kinds of eager to enter into a thrilling planning meeting.

Chapter 32 The Cheerful Shadow Courtier

The art forceful of declaration stylist boldly grabs his soup and scarfs it down aggressively.

…

Despite the complaints of the young lunar Anja Silverclaws, then the sanctum’s leadership hadn’t been lax during the Mask’s reign: Using Silken Laughter’s smugglers as spies, and having trained many of them in the arts of stealth and quiet observation, they had engaged in a thorough and systematic program of espionage up in the city. Sure, most of those spies had been caught eventually, but the information had allowed them to make an extensive list of the names, locations and staff at all the various parts of the Mask’s administration and war machine – and it was a prioritized list, both for low priority targets that could allow for a death by a thousand cuts approach, or for high priority targets in case you wanted to quickly paralyze the Mask’s operations.

The circle loved this, as it meant they didn’t have to do any of the grunt work in finding where and what to hit to distract the Mask from what they had planned…

“And exactly what do you have planned? Anja inquired, curious about what the circle had in mind, as she had clearly sensed that the circle hadn’t arrived with a few of their own.

It took a bit of explanation, between Sperimin and whatnot, but Fire Orchid was able to sum up their plans as: “…and there we got our hooves on a first age spell that removes shadowlands. Sunrise will cast it in the square where the dead god is spiked, but we’ll need some very good distractions to keep the Mask away from us, because the shaping of magic like that isn’t subtle”

“Sorcery that can remove shadowlands… that would be something everyone would want, all across creation” the unicorn mare noted, reaching for a snack.

Silverclaws nodded enthusiastically: “It would be a hell of a way to sell the rest of Thorns on Solars”

“Perhaps, but we didn’t come here to take over Thorns – we came here to get rid of the Mask so he’ll leave us alone. We’ve got plenty of territory to manage already” Sullen Hoof quickly pointed out.

Servants came and went, new refreshments distributed. One of the servants whispered in Silken Laughter’s ear.

Silken Laughter breathed a quiet sigh of relief: “Good to hear – because I’ve just gotten the first notification of immaculates down in my sanctuary making trouble, shouting at my costumers, clients and employees. The general population of Thorns would never accept solar or lunar rule”

Silverclaws shrugged, bobbing her head about as she thought about things: “True – and none of us have any plans for staying here permanently, but I think I have a solution for that… I found a distant relative of mine the other day while sneaking around up top. I’ll set up a meeting if it looks to be relevant”

Discussion continued on what places to hit and what the Mask’s forces looked like. The circle had already met the Seven-Degree’d Physician, the Mask’s chief necrotech artificer – or as Anja called him “Fizzy”. Silken Laughter explained that the two deathknights that the circle had downed had been part of the mask’s circle of primary enforcers. Silverclaws told the dark tale of how the Masks’ undead goons had done a grand tour throughout the territories of Thorns: “Every village and town got a visit. The mayor would be made to swear fealty to the Mask, and if they refused – or even hesitated – they would be dragged back to the shadowland, killed, and their ghost brought back, brainwashed into obedience”

“That’s horrible. There’ll be so much clean-up work once this is over…” Cash said, feeling happy that he wouldn’t have to be the one doing that, but also feeling sorry for whoever had to.

Sunrise appeared unphased: “Once the shadowland is banished all the ghosts will be forced back into the underworld or suffer the consequences – they can’t exist in creation under the sun”

Silverclaws smirked at the notion, nodding ever so slightly while toying with a cookie – one of the many snacks and treats that Shimmer had stashed in her elsewhere den: “The Mask is a ghost – he can mess around outside shadowlands, and so can the ghost-mayors he installs… though most of the towns they’re set up in quickly got swallowed by the expanding shadowland – or at least they’re able to exist there briefly”

“Interesting. Say, do you know exactly how the shadowland here is expanding? Normal shadowlands don’t do that – not even in the first age” Speaker wondered, finding the mention of the expanding shadowlands quite interesting, even if he had his own theories.

Shrugging, Silverclaws shivered briefly as she ate the cookie: “Oh that’s good… but no, I have no idea. I know the basics of how to wrangle spirits, but shadowlands that behave like this? I have no clue”

“That’s because you’re not as deeply connected to your essence as the dragonblooded. We live with our essence in our blood – we feel it differently – and I think I know what’s causing it” Vanilla Bean noted, arguing that it was indeed the dying god impaled in the middle of the city doing it, Speaker nodding along.

It turned out that the god in question was the old city father of Thorns, the very god of Thorns. City Father, which was the god’s actual name, had been a benevolent and sophisticated god, enjoying a good relationship with the local immaculates and wielded great power on account of the monetary, cultural and military power of Thorns when he represented Thorns in heaven… right up until the dread night when the Mask had invaded, where the mask had dragged City Father out and impaled him. Yet the Mask’s greatest cruelty was denying him death. Vanilla Bean’s theory was linked to this: “I’ve been near him in disguise, heard his quiet whispers carried on the wind – begging for death. For every drop of blood that leaks out of City Father, the shadowland gains power and I’ve felt that dark power flow out of the city. We will need to rescue him, nurse him back to health, and destroy the spike he was put upon to end that effect – or we risk that the shadowland will just grow back around Thorns”

The circle noted that they had already planned to do something about the god, since they had identified the plaza as the spiritual centre of the shadowland – but it was good to get the more in-depth analysis from a local who had a better sense of it.

“By the way, how long do you think it’ll be before the Mask realizes that he’s short two deathknights?” Silverclaws wondered in the general direction of the circle.

That was a difficult question. Various ideas and possible answers were discussed, ranging from how well organized the Mask was when it came to checking in on his deathknights – which Anja noted wasn’t very much at all – while Sully pointed out that if the Mask at least kept tabs on their monstrances then he would quickly be able to detect that their black exaltations had returned.

“Well, that begs the question of whether the Mask brought the monstrances with him here to Creation or not” Sunrise noted, to highlight how much of a security risk that would be.

Cash nodded, but waved his pot of tea at Sunrise: “True, but ever since we got the ball rolling on redeeming abyssals then the deathlords have been keeping their minions on much tighter leashes – and yet, how that works for the Mask is anyone’s guess. I could easily imagine that unless they want to leave Thorns, then they wouldn’t have to check in – Fizzy didn’t have to sign in on a log or anything when he showed us around outside the city”

Smirking, Silverclaws nodded: “I’ve snuck through most of the offices in his administration, seduced quite a few of the department heads too – they’re all scared shitless of the Mask’s abyssals. Told me that they never know when they might show up, and I never found any kind of ledgers or logs for keeping track of them”

“Interesting. I could probably exploit that – impersonate the physician and start ordering things around to spread chaos” Sullen Hoof mused.

The circle agreed that all of this could be exploited – though the conversation was briefly interrupted by a tremor. This startled everyone in the circle, though they quickly noted that everyone else around them didn’t seem very worried.

“What gives?” Speaker wondered, not at all liking the idea of tremors when one was that deep underground.

Wind Dancer breathed deeply: “It’s the sewers – the sewers of Thorns do not lead to the ocean, they lead down, down around the sanctum. There’s a water aspected demesne about half a mile further down, not the one powering this place, but anything that flows into it is crushed by infinite pressure. That’s why the mask can’t just open the drains and flood this place with ocean water – but it is how Thorns stays so effortlessly clean, being able to flush away everything”

“Interesting – was this demesne cultivated for that, or did it occur naturally?” Speaker inquired, finding such a phenomenon above a heavily populated city quite interesting.

Nobody present knew that – though Silverclaws was sure that in the palace archives there might be records about that.

The next day, a while before dawn, the circle awoke to cries of alarm ringing out in the sanctum. They quickly rushed out, finding Silken Laughter in panic and the unicorn mare shouting orders: “Check all the salt lines, make sure all entrances are covered!”

“What’s going on?” Fire Orchid called out, not quite shouting, but speaking in a loud manner like that of a soldier reporting to a superior officer.

Vanilla Bean shook her head, her crude makeshift armor rattling noticeably: “It’s nothing new – the Mask periodically swarms the sewers with ghosts to find any stragglers hiding down here. Only the sanctum is safe, and that’s only if the salt lines hold – and it’s not that long since the last time he did this, but with your stunt at Shackle Maw then it’s clear he’s looking for a lot of escapees – and we’ve barely got room for everyone in here”

“Fair enough. Say, how exactly are we hiding that many thousand ponies in here? The sanctum manse is big, but it’s not that big” Fire Orchid wondered, trying to have what she had seen of the internal layout of the sanctum make sense.

The black-maned unicorn mare gave Fire Orchid an exasperated look: “This place is a manse – its magic, that’s all I know. I’m thinking it has something to do with how Silken Laughter hides all the smuggled goods in here”

Speaker was about to join in the conversation, knowing quite a lot about manse construction and their various magical effects, but that’s when a new voice spoke up – one that only Speaker and Fire Orchid had heard before: “It’s bigger on the inside”

Fire Orchid and the rest of the circle turned to look at the fez-wearing brown-coated stallion with the hour-glass cutiemark. Speaker perked up: “Doctor!

“Indeed!” the Doctor exclaimed cheerfully, sauntering past the rest of the circle to approach a Silken Laughter who looked a bit tired.

The mysterious master of the sanctum gave the Doctor a look with tired eyes: “How can I help you in this time of peril old friend?”

“Well, the way I figure it, we need her” The doctor said, pointing a hoof at Sunrise “up on the pulpit, and you need to refit this place for public address, extra on the acoustics”

Silken Laughter looked at the doctor, then Sunrise, then back at the doctor: “This will help?”

The doctor nodded, his confidence radiating off of him like a soothing scent.

To the circle’s surprise – and evidently also the surprise of the unicorn mare – Silken Laughter reared up and started to dance, his steps making the tiles underneath his hooves light up. His moves were slick and stylish, but it seemed that the manse itself responded to his dancing. With a light rumble and the scouring sound of stone grinding against stone, the manse began to rearrange itself. Quite a lot of yelps of surprise rang out, as countless ponies got caught by walls that folded in, pushing them into other rooms and leaving them quite confused. That nobody was getting crushed was… a relief, if nothing else, at least for Speaker.

Once the sanctum was done reorganizing, it looked strangely like huge a circular amphitheatre, with a central podium where Silken Laughter beckoned Sunrise to approach, though quite a lot of the ‘seats’ were filled with barrels and crates: “The acoustics in here are to die for…”

Sunrise nodded, getting the hint. She ascended the podium and raised her hooves. Golden essence whirled around her as quite a few charms were brought to bear all at once, all of that essence being sucked into her as she drew one mighty breath. For a few precious seconds she held her breath, feeling the air around her, sensing the discordant clamour of armed struggle at the doors, distant shouts of panic and cries for help.

Her song made everyone stop, even the circle. It was the filthiest and most dirty-mouthed sailor shanty anyone had ever heard. Of course, despite everyone in earshot having stopped what they were doing, then one would not have been able to hear a pin drop. This was chiefly due to the roaring white fire that several ghosts and a dozen or so zombies at the periphery of the sanctum had burst into. Their howls were quite loud but only for a brief few seconds, as they fell over quickly, smouldering as they fell apart into spectral ash or toasty zombie remains. Everyone who had seen them go up in smoke quickly began sweep away the ashes and ‘chunks’, a testament to their discipline – but in the places where the salt lines had been breached a few more ghosts and zombies came in and burst into flames before the attack ended. In the chaos, nobody noticed that the doctor wasn’t there anymore… and yet nobody questioned that either – perhaps they had forgotten him? Nobody asked, nobody wondered.

With peace restored the salt lines were fortified, and a headcount was made. A few poor souls had been snatched, and several others had been wounded. Speaker quickly tended to the wounded, while the rest of the set off to rescue those missing.

Silverclaws remained in the sanctum with Speaker as the others left: “I’ll guide him to you – you lot can clearly fight a lot better than I can, but I can track for you no problem”

Speaker didn’t object, being hoof-deep in a smuggler who had been bitten and eaten almost to death by zombies.

The rest of the circle was gone in an instant, hunting the ghosts and the fading cries for help of their recent captives. The unicorns worked to organize the remaining smugglers, bringing order to the chaos of the sanctum: As Silken Laughter restored the normal layout of the place, Vanilla Bean had squads sweep for ash and undead debris, checking the food stores for contamination and generally trying to track where the ghosts and zombies had been – which probably wasn’t made easier by the whole sanctum having been physically reorganized once more.

By the time Speaker had finished, he found Silverclaws standing ready with saddlebags loaded with salt from the supplies that the circle had brought in: “Let’s go – we’ve got a city to burn”

He couldn’t exactly fault her very forward and direct approach – and her enthusiasm was infectious, as she led Speaker up through the sewers. They emerged in an alley somewhere in the city, some piles of rubbish near the exit containing ragged disguises. Speaker couldn’t tell exactly where they were, but Silverclaws was sniffing the air, so he trusted her as she guided him along.

“This pillar, can you see the ghost up top?” Silverclaws said with a hushed voice, not quite a whisper, but quiet enough that Speaker was not in doubt whether she was trying to be low profile.

Quickly checking the pillar with a mix of essence sight and his investigative charm, the one that let him instantly intuit all salient information in a glance, Speaker nodded: “Yes, it looks hideously deformed… poor thing”

“I know – it’s part of the Mask’s alarm system for the city. If the ghost sees or hears anything too much out of the ordinary, it’ll start howling an alarm into the vocal amplifier – we’ll need to bring these towers down so their screams can’t be heard, but we can’t be doing them one by one… that would alert the other ones” Silverclaws said, looking intently at Speaker.

It struck Speaker that the two of them might not be linking up with the rest of his fellow lords of Sunhill any time soon. Lovely. Looking at the pillar itself, he evaluated the masonry: “Right, we would want to take as many of these out before discovered. Some kind of delayed demolition…”

Silverclaws nodded energetically: “Exactly – can you do that?”

“Probably… give me a moment to think” Speaker said, examining the masonry in detail for weaknesses. His disassembly charm, learned while he had been kidnapped a while ago in order to free himself, quickly gave him a multitude of insights into potential micro-fractures he could exploit, and how they might propagate and how fast.

It was while looking very carefully at the dark grey mortar that shadows crept over the rooftops, despite Silverclaws keeping watch. Speaker first noticed anything happening when he was tapped on the shoulder.

“What, I’m not done ye-“ Speaker said, turning just enough to look – and seeing a grinning smile flash, only for an instant, before he found himself encase in ice.

His elemental immunity charm kicking in instantly, so the pressure of the ice and its chilling cold could not touch him, and for some strange reason whatever attack had encased him had left him quite conscious. Looking around, though no able to move his head, Speaker was able to just barely make out the shape of another blob of ice next to him – Silverclaws, obviously.

Ok, now what? Speaker’s first impulse was to think things over, though as a matter of basic precaution he raised his magical shield charms just the same. That’s when he felt the block of ice he was in tilt… was someone trying to break him free? No… wrong kind of motion – this was like being in a boulder that was being shuffled around by a work-crew. Oh, he was being captured and taken away, of course.

Can’t have that.

Using his deconstruction charm, Speaker had the ice melt around him in an instant, drenching the crew of witless zombies that stood around him, though it also melted away his raggedy disguise. Their deathknight overseer standing behind them did not look pleased: “What the – seize him!”

It struck Speaker as rather odd that the voice of the deathknight was so… plain. Then again, pretty much every deathknight he had met, at least those he’d had the mixed blessings of talking to, had sounded as if they spoke from beyond the grave.

Right, there were zombies trying to grab him.

Dodging the first zombie that lurched and lunged for him, Speaker simply ducked and placed all four hooves on the sturdy cobble under him. Using his deconstruction charm again, he had the cobblestone explode into a plume of thick and hot dust that just hung in the air as if glued, like setting off a smoke-bomb, using the wisdom of one of his old special forces buddies: “Anything can be a smoke-bomb if you use enough alchemical explosives”

“Oh please, you think that’ll hide you?” the deathknight called out, sounding as if he was applying some kind of mask or something on himself as his voice was momentarily muffled before it cleared up again, likely to keep the dust out.

It just so happened that Speaker very much expected that, for he activated the latest charm he had learned in his sleep back in Lookshy, the latest of his dream based martial arts: The Ephemeral Presence Technique, which had taught him how to reshape his own essence so that he became as fleeting as a dream, and as difficult to pin down or strike. The smokescreen from the disintegrated stone further worked in conjunction with this, making him next to impossible to detect.

The charm likewise saw Speaker’s senses attuned to the infinite subtleties around him, allowing him to peer through the smoke as if it wasn’t there. With a series of swift blows, he effortlessly removed the heads of each of the zombies, before making his way over to the iceblock with Silverclaws. Melting the ice, Speaker heard the deathknight swear and turn in his direction – right, the melting ice and Silverclaws dropping to the ground wasn’t covered by his charm.

Seeing how the Deathknight extruded a rather nasty looking dart of bone from the soft sole of his hoof and made ready to throw it, Speaker called Homage from elsewhere and positioned himself between the Deathknight and Silverclaws, so she wouldn’t get hit – he knew he couldn’t speak up lest he reveal himself, so he couldn’t tell her to hide, but this seemed acceptable.

The deathknight threw the barbed bone dart with an angry shout, but Speaker parried it quite easily – though the sound from the metallic impact gave the Deathknight something to lunge after, but Speaker swatted him aside and grabbed him, then flipped him around and threw him… up. Where he he stayed, because Speaker also knew magical martial arts that let him do that.

“Do you give up?” Speaker asked, knowing full well that saying anything, even while still covered in stone dust, meant giving his position away, at least partially.

Clearly quite confused by the strange sensation of being stuck in the air, the deathknight screamed in rage, swearing like a sailor: “Give up? I swear I’ll gut you so hard your mother and your children will bleed from their rears! I’ll catch them and make them eat your eyes!”

With his jumping charm, Speaker leapt up in the air right in front of the deathknight: “I gave you a choice. You chose poorly”

While obvious that the Deathknight wanted to say something back, then he didn’t get much of a chance as Speaker’s hooves blazed and he used the Heaven Thunder Hammer technique to punch the abyssal straight down into the cobble, coming down to land next to… hold on, where was the crater?

“That… that’s not a normal hoof of the daystar ability, making me hang in the air like that!” the abyssal said, the direction of his voice making Speaker home in on his position: he had hidden behind the pile of beheaded zombies, but seemed largely unharmed.

Silverclaws finally staggered to her feet, Speaker turning to check on her. Her eyes were red – which made sense, since the hot stone dust was quite the irritant, plus she might have been hurt by being encased in ice. She coughed: “What… ugh I can’t breathe in this”

Oh, where was an air-aspected unicorn when you needed one. Or an air elemental – or some… wait… wings! Speaker ignited his ruby pinions, bright wings of red and golden flame erupting from around his shoulders. Beating the wings a few times, he cleared the smoke – and parried two more darts from the abyssal, before he extinguished the wings again.

“Thank you… and that’s the Hollow Arbiter of a Perpetually Painful Year, or just ‘Happy’ for short” Silverclaws said, glaring hatefully at the abyssal.

Stepping out from his cover, the abyssal revealed himself in full: A young but adult stallion, clad in a fine black silken vest replete in shimmering embroidery, along with some very pretty metal bands around each of his legs, his stance martial and his dark and pitiless eyes locked on Speaker and the lunar: “Oh I do love it when someone uses my full title, though having it come from the argent whore of Thorns does tarnish it a bit”

“I care not for your scorn, for I know what makes you cheer” Silverclaws shot back.

Speaker got the impression that there was a lot of bad blood between the two, to which end he calmly inquired: “Right, you two don’t like each other – can we get to the part where we kill him and get on our way?”

“Just grab him alive – we need all the information we can get from him” the lunar said, hate in her eyes as she shapeshifted into a half-cat half-pony warform with paw-hoof hybrid limbs featuring some very sharp-looking three-inch claws.

Shaking his head, Speaker simply walked up to the deathknight – the barrage of wicked bone darts he got in return bouncing off his shield charms much to Happy’s dismay: “Why won’t you die!?”

“I’m a doctor – my stock and trade is making sure ponies don’t get hurt, including myself. Now, here’s what I offer: We’ll send you on your way with a message for the Mask. You’ll deliver the message, and that’ll be it” Speaker stated firmly and clearly, looking the deathknight right in the eyes.

Looking about as confused as a confused cat-pony hybrid could, Silverclaws approached the two: “Hold on, weren’t we fighting?”

Happy looked back and forth between Speaker and Silverclaws, his body tensed up and ready to strike or fling more bone-darts: “We were… but who are you? Why should I be you messenger?”

“You’re not answering my question. That means you get to become the message instead” Speaker stated, striking at Happy’s forehead with… no force at all – but done so quickly that the abyssal was left looking cross-eyed up at the hoof touching the head.

Silverclaws was quite startled by this sudden motion, having no clue that Speaker could move that fast: “Holy… wait… why is he not moving? Have you hypnotized him?”

“No, he’s just asleep. Could you pick him up, or stuff him in your elsewhere den? We’ll need to sneak off with him without anyone seeing anything” Speaker mused, looking the abyssal over quite carefully, then laying the sleeping pony down and closing Happy’s eyes.

Shifting back into her normal pony form, somehow manifesting a new ragged disguise, Silverclaws shook her head: “I’ve heard of the den charm, but I don’t know it… but if we want to be able to sneak around with him, we don’t need to hide him… just dress him up properly. Also, you need a new disguise”

Stripping the abyssal and putting on his clothes, Speaker discovered that the outfit that Happy had worn was some kind of magical silken armor outfit. It was eerily smooth, but clearly not of the same make as the heavenly spidersilk that Cash’s blue shirt was made from, and had a strange quality about it: It was quite cool to the touch, and didn’t seem to heat up by exposure to body heat. The bracelets that Happy had worn had similarly been emitters for a discrete essence shield system, the silk outfit and the bracers combining to shield its wearer about as much as if wearing a light plate armor or a heavily reinforced leather outfit, while being as light as a thin cotton shirt.

To cover up the body, Silverclaws smothered Happy in goop and gore from the zombie corpses, lathering the sleeping abyssal up so well in various bodily fluids and gore from the zombies that Speaker found him passing quite well for a corpse: Dried blood mixed with rotten ichors made Happy’s coat look very bloody in places, and by mixing that with bone chips and other small bits then he was given some fake but passable lumps and whatnot, giving the illusion of open wounds and gashes.

“You’ve done this before” Speaker mused, observing the lunar’s handywork.

Shrugging, Silverclaws noted that it helped being able to dispose of high-profile corpses… or warm bodies “I’ve done that a lot to hide ponies I’ve had to sneak out of the Mask’s custody, whether they were dead or alive… and cooperative or not”

Using the very same cart that the zombies had brought to haul the two previously frozen exalts, Silverclaws hauled the sleeping Happy out into the street, with Speaker walking next to her in the dark silks they had stripped from the abyssal, guiding her along.

It turned out that they weren’t the only ones hauling corpses around out in the open, which initially greatly confused Silverclaws: “Hold on… what’s going on here?”

“You’re saying this isn’t normal?” Speaker wondered, not having much of a point of reference for what was normal for a city ruled by the dead.

Her ragged disguise giving her a truly pitiful appearance, Silverclaws shook her head: “No but… ah of course! You and your circle took out Shackle Maw, the zombie factory! They don’t have anywhere to deliver corpses! This is perfect! We can wander the city without it looking weird at all! Where do you want to dump this idiot?”

“Well… First off, you seemed to know him, what’s his deal?” Speaker wondered, wanting to know more before he decided the fate of the deathknight.

With a slight shiver, Silverclaws spat on the ground, then recounted the long list of villainy and cruelty that ‘Happy’ had committed as the Mask’s most stealthy enforcer and assassin: “Happy is the one the Mask sends out to kill nobles and princes who refuse to engage him in diplomacy. He’s also very good at capturing his targets so they can be brought back and tortured to death – he has more blood on his hooves than you can imagine”

“Delightful – well that makes this so much easier” Speaker said with a face of disgust, guiding Silverclaws over to a nearby alley where he started cranking up his medical and surgical charms.

An hour or so later, a somewhat worried Silverclaws walked next to Speaker down a street, her voice quivering: “That… I had no idea you could even do that to a pony”

“Abyssals work like solars – if you kill them they can just be reincarnated. By weakening and disabling them instead, you don’t get a new fresh enemy, you get a weak enemy who’ll hopefully tie up a lot of his master’s resources to fix him. It’s all about sending a message both to the Mask and his minions” Speaker noted, sounding quite satisfied with himself.

Finding both Speaker’s tone of voice and topic of conversation rather disturbing, Silverclaws didn’t quite know what to say. “I get what you mean, but… damn… I thought Ma-Ha-Suchi was fucked up”

“Really? What’s wrong with partyboy? I mean, I remember him from the first age… and I think Shimmer once said to stay away from him” Speaker mused as he looked around, wondering where the rest of the circle was.

Silverclaws groaned: “Oh he would get so mad if anyone called him that. Gods, where to even begin… let’s just find the others after we’ve put stinky here somewhere awkward”

Chapter 33 Darkness Before Dawn

The art of meditative discussion stylist waits for her soup to cool, taking measured sips, appearing deceptively normal right until someone tries to take their spoon away.

…

Searching for his circle, Speaker wanted to send them a magical message – but Silverclaws warned that the ghostly observation towers dotted throughout the city, which they had originally been out to take down, would sniff out sorcery instantly: “…they’ll also cry out if they see anything but a black anima flare up – learned that the hard way”

“Right – that’s why you want the alarms down. We should have another crack at that while we’re looking for my circle” Speaker mused, looking down the drab streets of the dilapidated neighbourhood they were in with all the weary, frightened and hungry eyes peering out at him.

Spending a few hours walking around the city to fiddle with the towers, with Silverclaws touching base with a few informants and other contacts, they also confirmed that no alarms had sounded that morning – so… there hadn’t been any big fights, so the circle had either failed or succeeded in saving the ponies they were trying to rescue. Silverclaws argued that either way their hunt was over: “At this point, unless they’ve been saved, those ponies will have been ripped apart. We should just return to the sanctum when we’re done”

“True – but I would have hoped that they would sent me a message about that then…” Speaker said, all the while infusing essence into the last of the towers.

Acting as the lookout once more, Silverclaws could only guess: “Well, messenger spells aren’t that subtle here – I should hope that your circle is clever enough to realize that you receiving a golden magical scroll hovering in the air would be a bit revealing…”

That was a fair point, so Speaker simply nodded: “Alright – well, I’m done here. That’s all the towers here weakened without being loud about it. Now we just need to arrange some bad weather and all of these should be coming down”

“And you’re sure that Sunrise will be able to talk the local weather gods into delivering a storm?” Silverclaws wondered, as her ears flicked around several times a second, as if desperately trying to catch every rustle and noise around them.

Speaker nodded, looking towards the palace towering above the rising Shroudwant district in the middle of the city, then towards Juggernaut with the much greater palace built on the back of the mountain-sized monster: “Oh completely – But tell me… where does the Mask reside? In the autocrat’s palace here in the city, or on the palace on top of Juggernaut?”

“Old two-face stays up on his corpse-mountain most of the time, though he comes down here regularly to oversee things and leads a parade in his own honor at every full moon” the lunar said, venom in words.

Still nodding, Speaker had to ask: “Right… and when was the last time he did that? I don’t want our big stunt to be derailed by him showing up and attacking us. Sunrise will be quite vulnerable while she does her thing”

To Speaker’s relief, Silverclaws was able to tell him that the next full moon wouldn’t be for another two weeks or so. Of course, Speaker in turn noted that it would be a few days until Sunrise would have fully internalized the spell she needed to know – so they would have to hold out until then.

“Shouldn’t be a problem – especially not with the ‘message’ you left with stinky back there. But is that it? Are we just going to pray for a storm and wait for a few days? Is that it?”

Thinking about the question for a moment, Speaker found himself wanting to nod – but in stroking his beard he thought of an idea: “We brought a lot of salt with us. It would be amazing if we could get away with circling the city in salt – or at least the area we’ll be in when Sunrise does her thing – to block the mask from getting near us”

“Ringing the city in salt? Well shit, I’ll go ask the mask’s road workers if they could just look the other way for a day or so” the lunar snarked jovially.

Chuckling, Speaker shrugged: “That’s one way of doing it – I think Cash could work that into a better plan, one that actually does involve the city’s road workers”

That got Silverclaws’ attention, but Speaker said she should wait until they got back to the sanctum to discuss things.

Returning to the sewers, the two made their ways towards the sanctum, constantly checking that they weren’t being followed by ghost spies – and catching and slaying eight of them while on their way. At the sanctum they took care not to disrupt the salt lining the doors, the guards waving them through as they recognized Silverclaws.

“Alright, spill – what’s this plan of yours!?” the lunar said, holding Speaker up against the wall next to the door, as if senpai had noticed him.

Speaker didn’t answer – he just smiled – because he saw Shimmer galloping towards the two of them. Silverclaws only barely managed to let out a surprised cat sound as she was tackled, Shimmer shouting: “What are you’re doing!?”

Prying Shimmer off her catty peer, Speaker explained the situation – and informed her that not only was the city’s warning system primed for destruction, but a subtle message had been sent to the Mask. Shimmer was happy that the pillars were ready to fall, but still unhappy about Silverclaws’ behaviour: “You stay off my man”

“Oh catty, I thought I was the only one like that here – but seriously, what’s this plan with the city road workers!?” Anja laughed, as she brushed out her mane after the tumble Shimmer gave her.

Cash approached, helping Silverclaws up: “Really Shimmer, this is no way of treating a lady – she’s a noble”

Silverclaws graciously accepted the hoof from Cash to help her get up: “Why thank you – you really are a real charmer”

“It’s my name for a reason” Cash said, smiling far too much.

The rest of the circle let out a spread of groans. Speaker shook his head in bemused dispair: “Oh gods she’s just as bad as him…”

Shimmer chuckled, leaning on Speaker: “Nah, the moment Lilith catches wind that another lunar is hitting on him she’ll swing by and eat her”

Silverclaws’ ears swivelled around in an instant, the rest of her body freezing: “Lilith?”

“My lunar mate… we’ve gotten on quite well actually, but yes she still exhibits some very overprotective yet oddly hostile tendencies” Cash said sheepishly, as Silverclaws quickly drew away from him.

Looking at Cash as if she suddenly realized that he was poisonous to touch or even being near, Silverclaws briefly shivered: “That means you’re the reincarnation of… oh gods, eww”

Shooting Shimmer a very displeased glare, Cash said: “Thank you Shimmer…”

Sticking her tongue out at Cash, Shimmer gleefully replied. “No problem – now you can stop leaving me books on etiquette in my quarters back in Sunhill”

The standoff between the two was broken by Sunrise asking what time exactly she should try to order the storm over the city for: “The bureau of weather usually doesn’t mind special requests, but this would be an out-of-season storm – and how strong winds do we actually need?”

Speaker did some quick math and gave Sunrise an estimate, framed via analogies and references to things like the dive speed of certain species of hawk, since he didn’t expect Sunrise to understand references to first age meteorological storm categorizations: “…but yes, when should we try to schedule this?”

Fire Orchid perked up from her hoof-wrestling session with a beefy smuggler: “Just book it for the same day Sunrise is done learning the spell – two days from now, around an hour before noon? We need daylight for the spell right?”

Nobody objected to this, so Sunrise accepted the information, repeated it back to Speaker once to confirm that she’d gotten it right, then she left for a private room to pray in.

Silken Laughter came running shortly thereafter, looking rather angrily at Cash: “You! You said you had talked to the immaculates you let in here!”

“And I can talk to them again if need be – how bad is it?” Cash wondered, shifting his position to face the bandit king.

Letting out a very deeply frustrated groan, Silken Laughter glared at Cash – speaking not with words, but venting his frustration via a series of somewhat aggressive strangling gestures.

A quick visit to some of the biggest dormitories within the sanctum, and tent cities just outside the sanctuary, saw the immaculates causing trouble – well, trying to council addicts out of their addictions, and encourage whores out of their life of prostitution – much to Silken Laughter’s fury. This worried Sully and Fire Orchid, them not liking the idea of the master of their refuge ending up on bad terms with them, but Silverclaws reassured them: “It’s been difficult enough for him to keep the sanctum running the last five years – he doesn’t want to lose his control over the residents like this, but he’s known for a while that he can’t prevent this either… just give him time to get used to it”

Cash and the others could see how that made sense, nodding at Silverclaws as she continued: “The immaculates usually always stayed topside, trying to help the poorest and hungriest in Legacy – I think they knew that the ones who fled down here were taken care of. The average citizen of Thorns is far too proud to ever crawl down here to seek shelter, even with the Mask taking over – so there are plenty of souls up there who still need help, and the immaculates do what they can”

“Sounds about right – though I guess your exaltation means you’ve abandoned that kind of pride?” Fire Orchid commented.

Silverclaws’s face drew into a smirk: “Can’t deny that – but yes, I mean the monks know they aren’t welcome down here, but the ones you freed didn’t have much of a choice. It was only a question of time until enough immaculates showed up here that he couldn’t stop them from coming in – he’s good at fighting, but a couple of temple-trained unicorns would probably be more than he can handle if they put their minds to it”

“Fine. By the way, you said earlier – before we had to run off on that impromptu rescue mission – that you had an idea for how to resolve who’ll run the city once we clear the Mask out?” Sullen Hoof inquired, not liking that the circle didn’t quite have a proper plan for wrapping their activities in Thorns up.

The way Silverclaw put it, then she wasn’t entirely sure, but she had some clues: “A couple of weeks ago we started getting ‘competition’ along our smuggling routes – maybe that’s why the Mask’s patrols got alerted to some of them. We’ve tracked some of that activity to somewhere in the south-eastern part of Legacy, and I’ve smelled new scents in the air there… unicorn scents – so I think we got another team of would-be saviours who snuck into the city”

“Another team of unicorns? This has happened before?” Fire Orchid wondered.

It wasn’t quite a sigh, but Silverclaws walked over to a bookshelf and rifled through the ledgers there: “Here we go… yes, over the last five years we’ve had so many circles of unicorns show up, thinking they would poke the Mask with their horn and make him go away. If they brought troops, Juggernaut would swat them, if it was immaculates with their martial arts, then the mask would send his enforcers like the Master of Five Agonizing Torments, or Reaper of Bloodstained Snow… their heads and horns would be on separate pikes spread around the city by sundown”

“Good thing that ‘Fives’ and ‘Rip’ are both dead then– and the abyssal we met earlier today will be in for an ugly surprise next time he tries to fight” Speaker said, trying to make things sound a tad more cheerful.

Fire Orchid looked like she had a ponder: “Say, Silverclaws – exactly how many deathknights does the Mask have in his employ?”

The lunar didn’t have an exact answer to that – but noted that beyond the four abyssals that the circle had met, then the Mask had at least a few more: “He has one that works as his high priest. You either kneel to him or you just drop dead – and he’s freaky good at raising the dead to do his bidding”

“Ah yes, we’ve encountered the ‘killing words technique’ more than once” Cash noted, his voice clearly giving away discomfort, as he clutched his chest without thinking.

Silverclaws gave Cash a nod that spoke of shared pain: “I’ve found the best way to avoid that is either get away from them, or make them stop talking – ideally with a good knife in the ribs”

“That’s about what we’ve figured too” Speaker chimed in.

Fire Orchid sat down, thinking even harder: “Ok, but how about this one: Do you know long it takes for the Mask to reincarnate dead abyssals?”

“Well… again, we don’t know if the Mask is even aware that Rip and Fives are dead” Silverclaws responded.

It was quickly pointed out that with Speaker and Silverclaws’ run-in with ‘Happy’ earlier that day, then the Mask was likely to do a headcount – if for nothing else to brief and warn his minions that there were solars loose in the city. Silverclaws had to agree that such a course of events was quite likely, but first once Happy woke up: “…say, Speaker, when will Happy wake up?”

“I honestly don’t know. He’s not dreaming, I made sure of that – but the Mask won’t get word from him until he wakes… so I think we still have some time – but if we assume he’s woken up around this afternoon and reported in, then the Mask would become aware of his two dead abyssals about now. So how quickly does he reincarnate them?” Speaker stated, turning the question back to Silverclaws.

Appearing unsure, Silverclaws looked at Silken Laughter who thought at about it for a moment: “Well… a couple of years ago you did learn that Typhon had died – and the Mask spent months looking for a suitable replacement, but after we heard that the Mare with the Mirthless Smile was killed the Mask had her replaced by Rip in just a few days – so I guess it depends on whether he has a suitable host ready or not”

“Interesting… but that gives us a few days at the very least – though it also means we shouldn’t wait too long. I guess that fits well with Sunrise trying to order the storm for the day after tomorrow” Fire Orchid mused.

Cash took a deep breath: “Right, but that means that some of us will have to work quickly tonight if we’re to set up our last trick so its ready for the big show”

Silverclaws shot the solar a curious look: “What trick?”

“One that involves quite a lot of salt, come – I’m sure you can help out too, and Silken Laughter we’ll need a lot of hooves to haul cargo on the sly!” Cash said, sounding as devious as ever.

It was thus that the circle called for an assembly of Silken Laughter’s smugglers, briefing them on their plans for the evening: It involved sneaking dozens of crates of carefully carved and painted blocks of salt into various city warehouses, as well as forging orders to the mortal foremen managing the city’s zombie road worker crews.

The plan itself was beautiful in its elegance, and Speaker found it quite impressive too – apparently based on stratagems devised during his travel west for Shimmer. The basic idea was almost as old as time itself: Ghosts could not cross unbroken lines of salt. That combined with Sunhill’s very strong trade ties with the lands of the Bull of North, in particular the salt-spire city of Plenilune, meant that Sunhill had some quite impressive stores of salt in the form of massive solid blocks of the stuff.

This had led to an initial scheme of maintaining salt lines around Sunhill, to keep out ghost spies and whatnot – but with normal commerce going in and out of the city, such lines were near impossible to maintain. To solve that problem some enterprising ponies of Sunhill had found that carving solid salt blocks into long boards, as if cutting a log into planks, allowed them to slot such salt bars into the ground and achieve the same effect as if pouring a line of ground up granulated salt.

Once Sullen Hoof had caught wind of this clever scheme, the ponies in charge were greatly rewarded and honoured, the mare who had gotten the idea being adorned in an official robe of honor, after which Sullen Hoof had applied his culinary genius to further refine the setup for covert use: Carving the salt planks with patterns akin to wood grain, and painting them with food dye so they looked indistinguishable from real wood, they could be snuck into places where white salt was no allowed – such as Thorns.

Vanilla Bean found this idea of solid salt blocks quite interesting – chiefly because such blocks were a lot more durable than normal salt powder for making lines: “Can we have some of those too? What happened earlier today can’t happen with blocks like that – especially if we fit them into the floor”

“Are you sure? Have these painted salt blocks been tested? I thought salt had to be uncovered to provide protection?” Silken Laughter said, expressing worries about the plan.

Sullen Hoof nodded, his many-faceted orichalcum helmet reflecting the light from many various candles: “It has been tested – and the reason you shouldn’t cover normal salt lines is that doing so has a very great likelihood of scattering the salt, breaking the line. With this, you have to put in a lot of effort to shatter and scatter the salt”

Silken Laughter’s smugglers were quickly assigned each their crate of painted salt blocks. Cash’s plan was to have the city’s road workers install the salt blocks along the edge of the road that ran along the outside of the city wall. The Smugglers were to bring the crates out to locations near the work crew’s material storage yards and warehouses, or as close as possible without risking themselves. Shimmer would sneak the crates into their final position, while Sully and Silverclaws would run around between the work crew foremen, bringing forged orders to them about the installation of the new ‘special planks’.

It was a few hours before dawn when everyone reconvened, Speaker, Fire Orchid and Sunrise having spent their time tending to the ponies within and around the sanctum, raising their spirits and tending to the many injuries and infections one got from living in a sewer.

This saw everyone sleep in late, first waking from the sound of rushing water around the sanctum: The sewers were awash with rain, the usual fun of rot and sewage being slightly lessened outside the sanctum.

It made for a solemn and otherwise quiet day of waiting, checking equipment, and preparing one self for going into battle. Meditation, tea, and more than a few distractions by Silken Laughter faffing about saw the quiet before the storm pass easily enough.

The next morning, Sunrise awoke with a start, announcing her epiphany in having finally understood the spell she had been taught. The circle thus prepared itself, loading up on extra salt, and all the other weapons and gadgets they had brought to Thorns. Traversing the sewers during heavy rains was difficult, many of the passages being completely flooded, but with a bit of grit, essence, good cooperation, Shimmer’s elsewhere den and her turning into a freshwater fish, the circle made it to a sewer exit in the Shroudwant district… and good heavens it was chaos. The previous days rains had turned into a thunderstorm, as had been requested…

There were Thornguard running all over the place, as all the alarm towers were blaring – but with each gale-force gust of wind, one of the shrieking ghosts in the alarm towers winked out, followed by the distant sound of a building collapsing under the darkened stormy sky. Oh, it was beautiful.

“Good work Speaker, looks like the whole city is up in arms but has no idea where to focus their efforts – Sully, that means you’re up” Fire Orchid ordered.

Nodding, Sully used his illusory disguise charms and his magical helmet to grant him the ethereal appearance of a translucent ghost – though unlike the ghost disguise he had used last time, he was this time in the guise of a ghostly Thornese government official, complete with the mark of the Mask embroidered into his very official-looking illusory robes. Thusly disguised, Sully quickly headed west down the street to carry out his part of the plan.

“Alright, the square we’re looking for is three blocks down the other way. We’ll need to wait for Sully’s trick to work, but once we’re in the clear we’ll have to move fast” Fire Orchid said, forcing on her disguise of rags a bit too hard, but Speaker was there to mend it, so her suit of armor underneath wouldn’t show.

Making their way to the square in question, the large plaza in front of an impressively large amphitheatre, which featured the ghoulish decoration of a large barbed soulsteel spike with the god of Thorns slowly sliding down it, the whole circle got chills from the gruesome view. The circle had deliberated on whether to simply kill the god, or try to save it. Speaker had of course voted for saving it, but he understood that his attention would then be split between protecting Sunrise and tending to the god, so if he couldn’t stabilize the god quickly, then…

“They’re moving out!” Silverclaws said, sounding quite giddy, despite being drenched from the heavy rainfall.

The Thornguard troops dotted around the square started marching towards the harbour. Other units of Thornguard from other parts of the city also marched through the square came through, as they headed towards the harbour, all of them acting on the orders given by Sully who was in the guise of a ghostly government official: He was to go around on the harbour, ordering all the troops in the city to go there under the guise of some kind of impending invasion sailing in on the stormwinds. The final part of his deception was to call for the city gates to be closed and sealed for the day, preventing the troops from flooding back into the city easily.

Shimmer was up in the sky in the form of a raven, monitoring the city gates. She came down to the circle, announcing Sully’s success in having the gates closed: “The Thornguard is locked out! Let’s go!”

Disguises were thrown aside, and the circle strode boldly into the mostly vacant square. There weren’t many witnesses, at least not many outside at that moment, except for a few government officials – some mortal, some ghosts – huddled in alcoves to avoid being while caught in the rain, though there were many more peering out from windows that oozed incense smoke.

Silverclaws was quite happy to toss aside her rags, using her shapeshifting charms to adorn herself in a beautiful garb of bright peacock-feathers: “Oh Thorns, are you ready to shine again?!”

Rushing up to the impaled city god, the circle quickly went to work trying to free the suffering spirit – and trying not to slip in the divine ichors leaking out from the poor thing.

Shimmer quickly shifted into her warform, flying up and using her essence webbing to pull the god upwards – while Speaker leapt up on the spike and carefully applied his deconstruction charm to shear off the spike just above the god, as well as removing as many of the barbs on it as possible.

The instant the spike was weakened Fire Orchid leapt up and kicked the upper spike bit aside, after which Shimmer heaved and got the god off the spike with a truly sickening wet ripping sound as the last few barbs added insult to injury.

Gently putting the god down on a soft bed of non-sticky webbing, Speaker quickly went to work, all the while Fire Orchid pounded the remains of the spike into a somewhat flattened platform for Shimmer to hide elsewhere.

Silverclaws quickly began patrolling the square, looking for trouble while Speaker worked each and every of his medical charms in a desperate fight against time. In the years of being in charge of a hospital, he had seen so many strange and exotic diseases and medical cases, but this… this was new – and yet it was also simply all the same injuries, but in new and cruel ways. Bleeding wounds could be closed, lacerations could be sealed up with sutures of essence, torn off flesh could be magically regrown, infections could be purged, poisoned blood could be cleansed – there was nothing new, and yet the way in which all of these cruel things had been mixed and compounded was most definitely new, even more so because of the god’s divine anatomy.

Speaker briefly wondered if a new god would have to be appointed in Yu-Shan, to oversee this type of cruel injury.

“Can you stabilize him?” Fire Orchid called out, barely audible through the heavy rain.

Speaker looked up, his blazing golden anima lighting up the gruesome chest wound of the god for all to see. He didn’t say anything, but he did nod. Of course, the real question was how long the god would be stable… for the god was still far too weak to even speak. Speaker had to find some way of putting the god out of harms way too…

Some very confused and frightened ghosts ran from the square as Sunrise ascended to the broken pillar turned platform and began shaping sorcery. Her anima flared brightly as willed magical intent into the strange and arcane patterns of essence around her. While she did that Speaker called out to Shimmer: “I need you down here!”

Circling around the square one last time to scan it with her third eye’s essence sight, Shimmer came rushing back to the circle as she landed next to Speaker: “I saw two units of Thornguard coming in from the palace, from the south Lord Bright!”

“Great. Open your elsewhere den – I want to stash City Father inside, to keep him safe” Speaker said, straining to float the god up to move him.

Shimmer frowned – which looked funny due to the three eyes of her warform: “Right Lord Bright, that’ll be fun to clean up later…”

Opening the elsewhere den, Shimmer carefully grabbed the god and moved him inside – but before she closed the den Speaker jumped up and did… something… to the god before skipping : “There, now you can close up”

Shimmer did as requested, though she did at first look at the god with her three eyes: “There we go… now tell me what you did Lord Bright, because that looks weird in essence sight”

While Speaker would have loved to have gone into detail on how he had used his dream-based martial arts to not just make the god sleep, but sleep with a wonderful dream about Thorns being remade and experiencing a great new cultural renaissance, as opposed to having been trapped in a living nightmare of perpetual impalement. Instead of doing all that, he simply said: “I made him sleep with happy dreams – now where are the Thornguard units coming from?”

Pointing towards the southern exit from the plaza, Speaker galloped out to meet Fire Orchid who appeared to always be in position: “What’s the plan general?”

“General? Cute – but what’s the plan… don’t die? We could use some walls to funnel the units into chokepoints – do that for all the entry points” Fire Orchid mused, looking around at the rain slick cobble covering the square.

Speaker found the plan quite reasonable, so he quickly withdrew his singing staff from elsewhere and played up several earth-walls through the coble. It didn’t take many seconds before much of the plaza was replete in simple walls, much to the great sorrow of any nearby stone-layer or roadworker. It was at that point that the first unit of Thornguard arrived, the commanding officer quite loudly demanding to know what was going on, her voice barely carrying in the stormy weather.

Fire Orchid didn’t answer the question in any way that the officer expected – she instead punched the officer so hard she flew back into her unit, splattering her across her unit and probably killing or maiming several of her troops – followed by Fire Orchid jumping into the fray, serving up bucks and headbutts freely, Thornguard flying left and right.

Speaker watched the fighting with a smile on his face, even more so as the first rays of bright golden light pierced the heavy storm clouds to illuminate Sunrise, shining warmth and color upon her and the cobblestone around the flattened soulsteel spike. It was wonderous to see what appeared to be golden thunder accumulate in the clouds above her, and with some quick math he figured that in the first ten minutes of the spells effect the entire city should be cleared of the shadowland… at a rate of one mile every two and a half minutes, as an expanding circle. That would be roughly fifty yards every one and a half seconds? Oh, this was going to happen so quickly once Sunrise let it rip…

Not wanting to miss anything, Speaker ignited his ruby pinions and flew up above the buildings surrounding the plaza – he wanted to see this!

From up above, soon joined by Shimmer, the melee that Fire Orchid was in looked positively comical, with mortal Thornguard troops being flung around like ragdolls: Some went high, some went far, but very few of them got up again.

That was when the first proper counter-attack came in: A dirty great gout of black lightning streaming out from the palace in the middle of the city down into the square, hitting a building near Sunrise, who kept working on her magic undaunted.

Shimmer quickly flew into position to shield Sunrise, growing her bone-armor out to cover her wings – her body straining to stay aloft from the added weight, though that too was quickly alleviated via another bit of shapeshifting that grew her strength and endurance, leaving her glowing brightly with silvery flames around her, like a bright moon knight defending her sacred charge.

Speaker in turn flew out from the square over the city to seek the source of the attack, finding a deathknight atop a clocktower in the direction of the palace. Throwing Gift, he was able to force the dread archer from aiming correctly, making the next arrow of black lightning go wide, striking somewhere in the harbour, if not outright simply hitting the water.

“What the… who dares?!” shouted the deathknight, glaring angrily at Speaker from a face that quite frankly… wasn’t really there anymore, looking more like the kind of burnt skeletal remains one would see from someone caught in a housefire, one oddly decked out in decorative belts and straps tied around his bony limbs. How was this pony even talking without a tongue, cheeks or lungs?

Speaker pitied the deathknight, and brought Homage to bear, diving in for a full on attack as the archer frantically tugged at the massive soulsteel bow – but Speaker was faster than the abyssal’s draw, and his entire dive was a feint anyway, throwing both of his gyroscopic chakrams just before tackling the archer and trying to grab it… him… her… it was really hard to tell since the abyssal appeared to naught but a loosely clothed charred skeleton, though the dusk caste caste-mark was quite clear on its brow.

Unfortunately for Speaker, then the abyssal artfully dodged Speaker’s bullrush, as well as the two chakrams: “Fool – you will die a screaming death, and I will mould our ghost into a spittoon!”

“Can you even spit!?” Speaker retorted, not really sure how a skeletal abyssal like that work.

The abyssal didn’t bother explaining himself, instead it held its magical bow high drew it repeatedly at great speed, unleashing three arrows of black essence at great speed, each of which flew up and then homed in on Speaker unerringly, like a fly homing in on a piece of rotten flesh.

Now, mere arrows weren’t any issue for Speaker – his shield charms more than capable of deflecting such pathetic threats… except each arrow hit with the force of a void boulder, not in any way piercing the shields, but smacking Speaker wildly off course with one hit, down on a rooftop with another, and with the third he was struck down through the roof, landing him in a pile of rubble, his vision clouded in dust, though luckily he was unscathed thanks to his shield charms.

Ok, that was not how Speaker had envisioned that – but, same procedure as with the abyssal that Silverclaws had called ‘Happy’: Using his ephemeral presence technique to make him next to impossible to detect, his elemental immunity charm to make the brick dust be a non-issue for him to breathe, and his deconstruction charm to create even more dust. Hmm… Speaker did reason that it would be a good idea to have Sully teach him a charm or two to enhance his senses and general awareness, for while his dream-charm made his senses keener, he still found it quite difficult to detect anything in the collapsed house.

From the hole up going up through the… third floor? Oh, he was on the second floor of a three story building, no wonder he still felt the place creaking and straining from the broken structural beams – anywho, Speaker was hearing what sounded like annoyed shouting from up above, as well as the buzz of Gift flying around. Ah, the sounds of a foe who had discovered that Gift and Homage wouldn’t stop until it hit you, good times.

“Oh, screw this!” Speaker heard the abyssal cry out, followed by the deathknight jumping down the hole to not very far from where he was. Gift and Homage both followed along, much to the annoyance of the skeletal abyssal, at which point Speaker reviewed his options – because he was also hearing noises in adjacent rooms that indicated that there were probably terrified ponies living in the place.

The abyssal probably had a slightly different take on the situation, but he didn’t get much time to ponder that, as the two golden disks kept whirling about him and only narrowly missing thanks to his dodging charms that had left him awash in black soul-fire, his anima staining the rubble around him bright red with blood: “You little shit, where are you?!”

Seeing the abyssal waving his bladed bow around, Speaker carefully considered his options. He didn’t want to be bogged down fighting this one foe to a standstill – he just needed to get rid of the abyssal’s bow…

Recalling Homage, all the while Gift kept making a lovely amount of noise and bladed danger for the deathknight, Speaker took careful aim and after a few seconds hurled Homage so that it passed the deathknight, came around and then tried to bash the bow out of his bony grip.

Coming in silently, and cloaked by the dust, Homage struck the bow and flung it towards Speaker. The abyssal cried out in anger, lunging for the bow but having to divert to dodge Gift once more, all the while Speaker beat a hasty retreat out a window, igniting his ruby pinions once outside so that the wings of flame wouldn’t set the building alight.

Quickly gaining distance from the abyssal, though the undead horror’s shouts of fury were still carried clearly in the wind, Speaker struggled to force the bow away into elsewhere using the same charm he’d normally use to quickly stash and recall his own weapons. This left him almost distracted enough to miss the glorious sight that unfolded before him as he flew back over the rooftops of Thorns to the plaza in front of the twilight amphitheatre: With a piercing cry that pulsed out from Sunrise, followed an instant later by the greatly engorged thundercloud high above unloading its full fury of golden lightning down into her, and through her into the ground, the shadowland erupted, peeling away like dead skin.

It was the most beautiful thing Speaker had ever seen. It was the kind of sight, seeing color and warmth return to this patch of Creation as it blossomed outwards, that poets and artists could spend a lifetime painting or composing poetry to honor and exalt.

As the pulse moved outwards, and Speaker flew in towards it, the instant the two met he drew a deep breath, savouring the renewed feeling of respiring the cleansed essence of Creation. Oh, how glorious it felt!

Chapter 35 Setting Sunrise

The art of victorious concession stylist ensures that nobody else burns their tongue on hot soup, accepting no ifs and buts.

…

Despite the very brief introduction, and there not being much of a meeting, then it seemed that everyone had at least agreed that their goal was the liberation of Thorns. To this end the meeting was adjourned and everyone moved to see the emissary from the Mask.

Enroute Cash spoke to the unicorns, ironing out the smaller details – things like how Sunhill had no intention of conquering Thorns, only liberating it from the Mask to free up Sunhill resources.

Speaker found Wind Dancer’s conversation with Silverclaws far more interesting to listen in on, as Wind Dancer had apparently made his name as a realm general by leading legions to crush and kill silver-anathema led barbarian tribes and peasant rebellions: “Tell me, Silverclaws, do you know of a… moon-touched one… one like you, who went by the name of Jochim?”

“Nah, I know other lunars – and now some solars – but nobody who goes by that name. When did you last meet him?” Silverclaws said, either oblivious or politely ignoring the unicorn’s strained politeness and clear disdain for her presence and spiritual implications.

Wind Dancer stroked his lush white beard. It was much bigger than Speaker’s but quite well groomed and straight, looking quite regal – as befitting for a famous and prestigious retired realm general: “I think it was back in… oh… bit under two hundred years ago. Fought his armies for almost a decade, it made my name within the realm legions”

Silverclaws gave Wind Dancer a very respectful nod: “The silver pact is not a coherent organization. We might know each other, but we are not bound to aid each other – so what he did back then was his businesses. My business is saving my people, saving Thorns”

For Speaker it was interesting to hear Silverclaws tell her story – and clearly Wind Dancer found it rather impressive too, hearing how a younger Silverclaws had survived as a homeless beggar in Thorns, her family – a lesser noble house of the city – wiped out completely on the black night when the Mask attacked. She had lied, cheated and stolen just to survive, and ultimately escaped the city with a dozen foals in tow, leading them to freedom and salvation: “…and that night the moon shined bright, showing us our path to safety… and at the end of it stood Luna, congratulating me for being a good survivor”

“Impressive. Had you told me that you had met the immaculate dragon Mela and been granted a horn after that, I would likely have believed you” Wind Dancer noted, sounding very much as if peacefully meeting and actually talking to a lunar was turning a lot of old preconceptions he had on their head.

Silverclaws in turn was ecstatic at meeting someone as famous as THE Wind Dancer, saying that she had known that there was a pocket of unicorns that had shown up in one of the abandoned residential districts, and that she had figured that once she and the lords of Sunhill freed Thorns she could turn it over to whoever that would be: “…and I can’t imagine anyone else better suited to take over running Thorns than you and your granddaughter”

“Me and Roseblack as Satraps? Now there’s a fun thought. Honestly, I’d put Denoted Flame up for that first, with me as an advisor – Roseblack has her legion to manage, she has to return for that once we leave here, assuming we get out alive” Wind Dancer said, sounding quite amused by the suggestions – though Cash seemed to pick up on certain unsaid things via the statements.

Looking at the lunar and old air-aspected stallion, Cash nodded: “Right, because after your house legions were destroyed house Tepet hasn’t been able to control its satrapies and collect taxes ther, right?”

Wind Dancer’s expression instantly switched from jovial reminiscence to a soured look: “Exactly… and tell me Lord Cash, do you find joy in ruining the mood of others?”

Silverclaws quickly popped her head in between the two, glaring angrily at Cash: “Ah no, Cash knows far better than to taunt someone of your esteem…” then turning to Wind Dancer: “…though I think he’s simply trying to establish a power dynamic here. It was after all him and his circle that undid the shadowland and pushed the Mask out of the city for the time being”

The look on Cash’s face was not one of surprise, but Speaker did note that his circlemate seemed oddly pleased that Silverclaws had seen through his thinly veiled scheme – though it had highlighted that Wind Dancer didn’t have much military might to threaten the circle with, other than Roseblack’s one lone legion. Speaker certainly wasn’t sure it was necessary to be that mean, but at the same time he trusted Cash to have at least some idea of what he was doing.

The old unicorn frowned: “Indeed. I haven’t seen sorcery that potent on display since the battle of Futile Blood. Simply shining light from on high to whisk away a shadowland? Powers like that would be useful everywhere in Creation, assuming that we get out of here alive”

“You keep saying that – that you’re not sure that we’ll get out of here alive… I mean we’ve been doing exceptionally well quite well” Speaker pointed out, feeling much optimistic considering their success so far.

Cash let out a chuckle, but in doing so Fire Orchid was able to jump into the conversation: “Speaker, we’ve been doing too well. We don’t have an army to hold the city, the Mask still has Juggernaut and his armies outside the city – we’re effectively under siege already”

Oh… right.

The emissary from the Mask, a ghost wrapped in bloody chains, had roughly the same message that it howled to those up on the city wall. It sarcastically ‘congratulated’ everyone on pushing the Mask a few miles away from the city: “…but come nightfall we will be returning to our old haunts, and Thorns will be awash in blood. My master the Mask hopes that your screams and cries for mercy will amuse his pitiless and cold heart! Thorns will not become a shadowland, for it will be plunged into a darkness through which no sun can ever shine, nor any dragon soar. Even the very moon will shy away from this patch of sky, so cursed will it be for all eternity!”

Now, with a message like that most would have fled while they still had time. The circle… had different plans.

Shimmer, having taken careful aim and used her charms to augment her eyes to gain the keen sight of a hawk, fired her web down and lasso’d the ghost, yanking it up for Cash to quickly blast its mind with potent mind control charms: “…and now that you like us, you’ll want to tell us everything you know about the Mask’s plans and troop movements”

Indeed, the ghost spoke like an opened faucet, gleefully telling of how large Thornguard units were already encircling the city under the cover of the nearest ridges that put them out of sight towards the eastern approaches to the city, while the Mask was equally sending messengers to the chirurgeons and necrotech artificiers in the encampment north of the city, ordering them to ready all the bonestriders and other siege constructs they had in storage there to assault the northern walls – including the Physician’s Magnus Necropus, whatever that was. Finally, the Mask would be moving in from the south with his undead army, making for a siege on every side other than the ocean.

“Great… we brought in a single wing of commandos. They can hold their own line, but not against numbers like that. Lieutenant, round everyone up, we’re… what?” Roseblack began, sounding quite defeated already, until she saw how the anathema around her were motioning for her to wait a minute.

The lords of Sunhill did not give up that easily – and indeed, while the ghostly emissary had spoken, they had all started planning.

Sunrise, looking to Silverclaws, boldly inquired: “How well do you dance?”

“Uhm… I can dance pretty well, why?” the confused lunar said, not really seeing where Sunrise was going with the question.

With a kind smile that radiated bottomless confidence, Sunrise nodded at her: “Then you can come with me and help me round up as many still living citizens left in Thorns – I need a lot of backup dancers”

Silverclaws looked at everyone else with great confusion as Sunrise dragged her away, Roseblack shook her head and look at the rest of the circle, appearing quite unsure of this interruption of her giving an order to her lieutenant was planned or not…

“Shimmer, you fly out and check the thornguard moving into position, see who and what leads them. If it looks doable, go fetch Cash to either flip them or at least have them stand down” Fire Orchid ordered, both Cash and Shimmer nodding and walking off.

Wind Dancer frowned: “You’re sending one pony to make an army of brainwashed killers turn on its master? Ambitious”

“You saw what he did to the emissary ghost – he can do that to large groups just the same – he’s scary good at it” Fire Orchid quickly replied, her eyes gliding towards Sully.

The unicorns were nodding amongst themsleves as Fire Orchid continued with her orders for Sullen Hoof: “It’s clear that the Mask has access to a lot more abyssals than we thought. I need you to ghost up and infiltrate, figure out what’s going on – go!”

Sullen Hoof was already gone.

Turning to Speaker, Fire Orchid nodded: “The northern gate is busted open – if you go fix that, and shore up the northern defences against the bonestriders and other horrors bound to come that, that would be nice…”

Speaker found the request sensible, though seeing as he was the last Lord of Sunhill other than Fire Orchid herself, he had to ask: “Sure – but what will you do now?”

“I haven’t guide decided yet. If Cash and Shimmer signals that they succeeded, I’ll gallop out and lead the thornguard south. If they fail… I’ll probably go help beat up whatever is preventing them from flipping the thornguard” Fire Orchid said, bobbing her head up and down, appearing to still be thinking about exactly where she would be the most useful as she spoke, her mind racing a million miles an hour.

Roseblack made a somewhat neutral smirk that Cash would probably have been able to read a lot from: “So you’ll issue orders to the rest of your circle, but not him?”

“He used to have my job in Sunhill as general of their armed forces. He’s been a general longer than I have, so I don’t quite feel I outrank him just yet” Fire Orchid mused, speaking like a grandmother explaining why she didn’t bark harshly at her favourite grandson.

Speaker found Fire Orchid’s tone rather amusing, and Wind Dancer nodded in understanding while Roseblack didn’t quite look at is she had fully understood the group dynamic of the lords of Sunhill.

“Right, but before you go – if the Mask shows up on the battlefield you need to wrap up whatever you’re doing quickly and get there. I’ll have Shimmer be lookout and messenger once she’s done with Cash” Fire Orchid added, Speaker nodding in agreement.

The unicorns found this last exchange somewhat confusing. Roseblack in particular seemed to have questions: “You would need to your best doctor and artificer if the Mask shows up to fight? You expect that anyone going up against the Mask to get that injured?”

“No, Speaker would be the one to fight him – he’s our best warrior when it comes to duels right now” Fire Orchid said quickly before turning to leave, heading towards the eastern city walls.

This left Speaker and the unicorns, who did not really look as if they bought the idea of a doctor being the most powerful warrior among the lords of Sunhill. They also looked just a tad offended at the fact that Fire Orchid hadn’t asked them to do anything, Roseblack asking Speaker to that effect: “Why didn’t she ask us to help out? Does she have something against unicorns?”

“Heavens no – but you were about to order your troops to leave the city. If you want to stick around and help out, I’d suggest you order your troops to fan out in the city. There are no city guards left to keep the peace now, and after five years of undead oppression I can easily imagine all manner of riots, lynch mobs and then some. Have your troops keep the peace, and once that’s in place I would suggest you join Sunrise and hold the southern wall” Speaker said, coming off as quite concerned for the ponies of Thorns.

Wind Dancer had to chuckle: “See now that sounds like the kind of orders I’d expect to hear from a doctor turned general – and it’s not a bad idea either. Our troops aren’t geared for frontline fighting, but they should be able to police the city if they swap uniforms”

“No, they’re not enough to police all of Thorns” Roseblack quickly replied, pointing out that a city like Thorns would need at least ten times the ponies at arms she had with her to police all of it.

Speaker found Roseblack’s argument sound, to which end Wind Dancer suggested: “It’s only the central district that needs policing, to keep any lynch mobs or looters from burning the place to the ground – plus we don’t want the traitors who colluded with the Mask sneaking out of the city. The rest of the city has managed for five years with a minimum of oversight, they’ll handle for another day”

“I can head up the policing – you two prepare for battle” Denoted Flame volunteered, not looking eager, but instead giving off the humble and sage appearance of someone who knew where his skills would be best put to use.

Roseblack thanked Denny, him quickly galloping off and barking orders for the troops to follow him along.

With a respectful nod, Speaker wished the two remaining unicorns luck in battle, before heading north through the city to fix the city gate.

It took a bit to traverse the city, and it was clear to see that it was very much so in a state of chaos: scattered zombie work crews were dotted all over the place, just standing in place and smoking in the sunlight as they were wasting away, their ghost taskmasters having either fled out of the city, or already been scorched into oblivion by the sun.

To get to the northern city gate, of the four grand gates into Thorns, Speaker had to go through what Fire Orchid had originally called Shenjin district – but that district was no more. Silken Laughter’s smugglers had explained the new layout of the city to the circle earlier, detailing how most of the now Aspir Haven district was a crammed district inside the city walls replete with workshops and warehouses – all of it ground to a halt of course, as zombie labourers stood inactive, awaiting new orders from taskmasters that weren’t there anymore, as they slowly turned to ash in the sunlight.

It also didn’t help that the Physician, who Speaker wasn’t quite sure where he was being kept prisoner, had ploughed straight through Aspir Haven to get to the circle as quickly as possible, reducing dozens of city blocks and many a factory to ruins. Workers in the district were desperately trying to put out the fires that this path of ruin had brought with it, though it seemed that the heavy rains from the storm were doing most of the work.

Seeing all the ruined forges and steel mills gave Speaker… ideas – and thus while passing through the district, he called over several taskmasters and factory managers, of the few that were mortal. It took surprisingly little to make them agree to his orders, though Speaker couldn’t tell if that because they were mind-controlled to just agree with anything asked, or because they were thankful for having cleansed the city and wanted to help keep it like that.

At the city gate itself Speaker observed the disgusting mess: Several dozen zombies had been trampled by the great monstrous beast the Physician had ridden, and just as many had been smeared up against the city gate by the giant undead beast as they had been in the way. This meant that Speaker first had to go around cleaning the thick timbers with essence, before using his repair charms to knit the massive bits of timber back together.

A sizable crowd gathered near Speaker to watch, as his golden essence repaired the damages wrought by the undead monstrosity that had battered its way in. It was clear that quite a few of them had mixed feelings about a golden anathema operating out in the open – but at the same time Speaker didn’t hear anyone shouting any ill will at him.

Indeed, while struggling to float some of the larger bits of the gate into place – the pieces appearing to have been cut from impossibly massive north-western redwood logs – many citizens came up to Speaker and helped him push and pull at the large pieces of shattered gate. Even a few local unicorns appeared, lending their essence to help as they saw that Speaker was, if nothing else, labouring to keep the dead out of the city.

It was as if the citizens of Thorns had realized that Speaker probably had some kind of connections to the golden light that had come down from the sky earlier, which had pushed the city back out of the shadowland. All around them color was returning to the faded paints and withered flowerbeds on people’s windowsills – the very spirit of the people of Thorns rising – and so instead of angry words against the golden anathema in their midst, Speaker heard discussion among the ponies watching him slot the last bit of gate together, talking curiously about what gods could have given him such power, for it was obvious that he was not dragonblooded, but not a murderous agent of the Mask either.

Sure, it wasn’t everyone who was expressing that kind of curiosity – and quite a few ponies were shushing such conversations – but the thought was out in the open, inescapably so. This left Speaker with a smile on his face as he ascended the northern walls of the city, to make a siege defence plan…

Oh, that did not look good.

Recalling the tour that the circle had gotten when they had arrived in Thorns, where they had been shown around the grand military encampment north of the city by the Physician, Speaker had a pretty good idea of what he would be facing: A lot of bonestriders, the large thirty to fourty feet tall pony-form constructs of flesh, bone and brass rivets – walking necrotechnical siege machines that could stomp enough entire units of infantry, along with all the other horrors that the Physician had sewn together for the Mask.

Of course, Speaker also knew that the encampment was chiefly just a large storage and staging facility for that kind of large units – not much in the form of real infantry. Oh, they no doubt had loads of zombies for their work crews, but since the shadowland had been pushed away then the encampment’s zombies would be withering away. This would leave the bonestriders without infantry support, and quite likely without ghost pilots.

The question now was how to exploit that – and Speaker was thinking so hard you could hear the sparks flying inside his head.

Looking down from the wall, Speaker observed the road that circled the city – the outer wall street – and he could see the freshly dug dirt around the city-side edge of the road. That was where all the road crews earlier the morning had placed the painted salt bars. The salt barrier appeared undisturbed.

This made Speaker think about who and what would pilot the bonestriders. Ghosts probably – because you need someone who can wield essence – and those ghosts would not be able to cross the salt barrier… so would they be forced out the bonestriders? Was it even necessary for him to do anything? Well, he could prioritize anything that wasn’t controlled by ghosts.

It was while thinking such thoughts, trying to plan out and imagine what kind of traps he could make, that Fire Orchid showed upon the north wall near him: “Speaker, a word!”

“What – hey Fire Orchid, shouldn’t you be on the eastern waiting for Shimmer and Cash?” Speaker wondered, looking at the old mare.

Fire Orchid at first didn’t say anything as she approached, then she shook her head slightly: “Yes. I need a weapon. I can toss zombies and ghosts around just fine bare-hoofed, but against foes that can think… My hooves can only chip away so much before it starts to hurt”

“I can make you a steel blade in an instant – but… you’re not here for that, are you?” Speaker said, receiving a knowing nod from Fire Orchid.

It turned out that Fire Orchid had asked around the night before. Silken Laughter had told her of the immaculate temple in the Shroudvant district, of how it supposedly had a vault full of things taken from anathema as part of wyld hunts.

“Oh… nab a dailklaive from the forbidden arsenal. Great idea!!” Speaker said, finding the idea quite clever.

Happy that Speaker saw the potential of her idea, Fire Orchid explained that she would need help to breach the vault: “When the Mask came and overran the city, the last few immaculate unicorns in the temple sealed the vault with ancient magic. Apparently not even the Mask has been able, or bothered, to breach it – I figure you could just use your singing staff to make us a new door in the wall or something”

Quickly descending from the wall, the two began to head towards the Shroudwant district. They hadn’t made it far when a pony came up to Speaker: “Sir, we’re almost halfway with the project, but the forges can’t be salvaged”

“That’s ok – just gather enough materials, I’ll handle the rest – and come nightfall tell everyone to seek shelter well away from the walls, remember what I said” Speaker noted, looking as if he was doing some quick mental calculations, before motioning Fire Orchid for the two of them to continue, who in turn wasn’t questioning what project Speaker had initiated.

In Shroudvant the previously heady smog of incense was… not really there anymore. Why exactly that was, wasn’t quite obvious, but the duo saw a lot of worried looks coming out the windows where they walked. Maybe it was the realm troops patrolling the streets, maybe it was that the Mask was gone and they feared the inevitable purges and punishment they stood to get for colluding with their dark lord.

At the immaculate temple the duo was met by a grizzle sight. The temple to the immaculate dragons looked about as one would expect for a place that had been under the rule of the dead for five years: The murals were smeared with blood, the altars were profaned with all manners of filth, and the floors were painted with what could best be called blood sigils that likely evoked whatever dark things one worshiped in the underworld.

There were also dozens of ponies, a few of which wearing very worn and patched immaculate robes, working hard with mops and buckets, cleaning the unholy mess up.

One of the ponies in tattered immaculate garb spotted Speaker and Fire Orchid enter, looking at them with mild confusion. Fire Orchid, in her battle-worn armor, and Speaker in his faded lookshyan uniform most certainly did not look like ponies who had much business in an immaculate temple: “Are you here to help clean up? Or offer yourselves as temple guards?”

“Neither – we’re here for the vault, we need weapons to defend the city” Fire Orchid said, stepping forward.

The monk, appearing young but by her features but aged from her struggles, took a few steps back: “No, please! The vault is sealed for a reason! There is evil in there”

“And you don’t think the Mask is a bigger evil? We shined our light on him, and he fled – but he will be back. Now either step aside, or show us the way” Fire Orchid stated, speaking like a wizened soldier who did not want to fight, but knew that she had to.

It was a bit amusing to see the wavering expression on the monk. It was absolutely clear that she did not want the Mask back in charge – but to let golden anathema to the vault would be a grave violation of immaculate dogma just the same…

“If anyone asks, you raided the vault before we returned here, ok?” the monk said, her voice uneasy and her eyes going all over the place as she kept looking for anyone who might spot her committing this act of heresy.

Fire Orchid cared not for her wish to cover herself, while Speaker saw no reason to antagonize her further: “Sure, if anyone asks”

The vault itself was deep into the temple, past many a blood-smeared murals, at a very large jadesteel-banded stone door. At first Speaker thought that the door and vault was a tiny manse hidden in the temple, but with essence sight he saw no dragon lines feeding into the place: “Fascinating… the door and its locking mechanism are powered by the temple, drawing power from the sanctity and prayers of the place...”

“Neat. Can we open it or not? Is it sealed beyond what you can work out?” Fire Orchid said, not terribly impressed.

Not wanting to destroy something that clever, Speaker examined the magical lock and chuckled: “It’s not really sealed… the lock had just been changed – very clever”

From what Speaker could tell, then the lock had been switched from the normal “turn key, open door” mode, into one where no key was needed, but where the vault itself would take several days to open by feeding it essence, as he began to fiddle with the crystal display where you normally had to touch the key: “Anyone who doesn’t check the mechanism thoroughly will think its sealed – it’s quite a sneaky way of locking it when you have to run away and can’t protect it”

“You’re still not telling me if you can o… ah there we go” Fire Orchid said, startled mid-sentence as the vault door began to creak open.

The monk looked at Speaker incredulously while Fire Orchid rushed in: “But… how? The abbot sealed the vault before rushing out to fight the undead!?”

“I switched the vault back from its seal-mode to normal lock mode, and then picked that – it was really to pick” Speaker said, floating a piece of key-shaped twisted metal around he had brought along from the ruined bits of the Aspir Haven district.

From within the vault, Fire Orchid shouted: “Speaker, get in here – I need you to make this work”

The monk shook her head and returned to her cleaning project as Speaker entered the vault, his and Fire Orchid’s voices easy to hear from the outside: “Make what work? Oh… oh yes… oh we can make that work”

“Can you repair it? Look, its broken here and here – and this plate looks missing”

“Oh, I can fix it. Look, this is the part you said is missing – here, put this on…”

The monk who had led the two into the vault sighed deeply as she listened in on the duo, swearing to herself that she would beg the dragons for forgiveness later on… or so she would have, if someone behind her hadn’t planted a large jagged blade through her chest.

“That… that didn’t sound good. We’ve got trouble outside” Fire Orchid noted, her ears swivveling about.

Speaker sighed, working as quickly as possible: “I know – but its working, you should be good – go out and have a look”

The assassin who had spent quite a few hours sneaking around Thorns, hiding in shadows and staying well out of sight, trailing Speaker at first and subsequently him and Fire orchid, had planned for a nice little ambush, after the Mask had sent to kill the organizers of the rebellion. The assassin in question just hadn’t bet on Fire Orchid’s keen senses and charms that them even keener.

The ghost-possessed corpse known Bearer of Grim Tidings and Darks Omens had not expected to be tossed out of the temple a few seconds later – but such was the lot of the foe of a solar. No time was granted for afterthoughts, only a long vertical smear as the black-robed pony impacted a wall opposite from the temple, and the dead heap of skin, bones and misery lying hodgepodge underneath – an unconscious ghost tumbling out of it all, and quickly evaporating in the burning sunlight.

Speaker came racing out to track Fire Orchid in her pursuit of the killer: “That… wow, that was fast”

“I know – this’ll be great!” Fire Orchid said, flexing in her new equipment, even as it creaked and groaned, showing clear signs of not being fully attuned yet.

“Perfect. Then I can get back to Aspir Haven. I’ve got some weapons to build and traps to lay – see you later, stay safe”

Chapter 36 Twilight Diplomacy

The brash bowman stylist uses a bow, not a spoon, to consume soup - this somehow works, despite how much it annoys the waiters.

…

It was an uneasy Thorns that saw the hours tick towards its first proper sunset in five years, one that didn’t involve the rising of a blood moon. Many a citizen was worried sick, fearing the worst – for they were not fools: They knew that while the Mask had been driven from their midst, then nothing had been done to prevent the dread lord of death from returning and exacting his vengeance.

It was late afternoon by the time Sullen Hoof arrived back in Thorns, him quickly summoning the rest of the circle to a meeting in an abandoned tea house deep in the slums of the parts of Thorns that wasn’t Aspir Haven or Shroudvant – the parts of Thorns that the Mask had basically left to rot, where everyone in the city who wasn’t useful to Mask had been herded and kept like slowly starving livestock for the zombie factories, the part of the city now known as Legacy.

Shimmer, Sunrise and Speaker showed up – along with a couple of messengers who humbly excused that Fire Orchid and Cash had left the city to tangle with the thornguard massing east of the city wall. Nobody questioned this – though everyone were curious for what Sully had to tell. Having followed Sunrise along to the meeting, Roseblack, Wind Dancer and what looked like a couple of other unicorn officers from Roseblack’s vermillion legion had also showed up, curious for information on the plan to keep Thorns from falling again.

Still breathing heavily, and shaking off the last wisps of the illusions that his disguise charms that had made him look like a semi-transparent ghost, Sullen Hoof wasted no time informing everyone of the most relevant information: “We picked a shit time to do this… the Mask was in the middle of hosting three other deathlords in his palace on Juggernaut. The Walker in Darkness, The Bishop of the Chalcedony Thurible and The Dowager of the Irreverent Vulgate in Unrent Veils – and they brought a number of their own deathknights with them!”

“Bloody hell… going up against four deathlords at once? That’s beyond nuts…” Cash said, reeling from the revelation.

Roseblack just stood, shaking her head: “There’s four of them?”

“There used to be thirteen – but they’re down to at least twelve at this point, we destroyed one at Deep Rot two years ago” Shimmer quickly pointed out quite proudly.

Wind Dancer picked up on the implications of that boastful statement instantly: “So a deathlord can be destroyed? How?”

“They’re ghosts. Empowered by the Neverborn and drawing essence from the void, sure, but they’re still ghosts – you can fight them like any other ghost: Drain their essence, lock them in with salt, destroy their corpus with spirit-slaying charms – it’ll destroy them eventually” Speaker noted.

Sullen Hoof took a deep breath: “And they’re very afraid of that now that we’ve proven their mortality. They know we’re a threat, and I believe that the other deathlords have fled to their sanctums already – or will, come nightfall when they can move out in the open. None of them are interested in staying to fight the Mask’s losing battle!”

“Interesting. Will they take their retinues with them, or leave them here to fight?” Wind Dancer inquired, asking the very topical and salient question.

Sully couldn’t quite answer that, but that’s when another voice spoke up: “The acolytes of the walker will likely stay – and you’ve already tangled with some of them. The Bishop’s minions are talkers, not warriors, so if they haven’t already left they will soon. The Dowager only has one deathknight, and none of you have met her yet, so I’m not even sure she’s here”

It was the Doctor, with his cross-eyed and blond-mane’d companion in tow. Wearing his spiffy red fez and bright blue bowtie, he looked thoroughly messed up – covered in bruises and cuts, and even his bright smile had several missing teeth.

Speaker quickly stepped up to render aid, but the Doctor gestured for him to stand down. Instead, the doctor’s blond companion used some kind of strange sidereal charm that had her pointing at a corner in the abandoned tea house. Pulling up a few floorboards revealed a couple of zombies stuck underneath that looked as if they had simply been left there and forgotten. It was a testament to the ambient stink of Legacy that nobody had noticed the zombies earlier.

Using a very strange sidereal charm, the doctor somehow ‘took off’ his wounds and injures and passed them on to the zombies – both of which quickly perished from the damage heaped upon them. The unicorns and other mere mortal ponies present looked on as if their eyes were about to roll out of their heads. Roseblack in particular just looked absolutely dumbstruck: “How in the seven shaven dragon testicles…”

The doctor gave the unicorn mare a smile – but it was the kind of smile a teacher would give a student who was too inept to understand the lesson being given, one veiling a layer of pain and sadness – and Speaker noted a cold air around the Doctor’s hoof as he touched Roseblack: “Never mind that, we have much more important things to focus on here – don’t we?”

Roseblack blinked for a few moments, then adopted a very serious expression: “Right. If we don’t have to fight all of these deathlords, we can focus our attention on the Mask. Do you have any other information we can use?”

“Ditzy, if you would?” The Doctor said, stepping back.

What followed was a brief and rough outline of the Mask’s disposition of forces from the blond sidereal mare. It fit quite well with what they had learned from interrogating the ghostly messenger earlier, but with added details on where the mask was spreading out his remaining deathknights, which was the most interesting bits of information.

During this briefing, the Doctor pulled Speaker aside: “I would have words with you – there are things you have to know”

Raising an eyebrow at the idea of needing information separate from the others, Speaker followed along, but wasn’t really sure that he liked the idea of it: “What is it?”

“Your trickery with Rakshi, it left you stranded within her dream – I know you’re planning on doing something similar with the Mask, but that is untenable. His dreams are not something ever want to go near – though he might not even give you a choice” The Doctor said, sounding very much as if he knew something… something very bad… and that he was trying to parse it to Speaker in a way that wouldn’t terrify him.

It struck Speaker that the circle hadn’t actually officially planned anything on how to deal with the Mask, but it made sense that the implied strategy was just a rinse and repeat of Rakshi. To be told outright that doing so would be a very bad idea…

The Doctor suddenly booped Speaker’s nose, snapping Speaker out of his thoughts: “Exactly like that – because the Mask is a lot of things, but there’s one thing he’s never short on: Information. You knew from Deep Rot that the Mask unloaded the sorting of his thousands of knowledge reports to that horrid place, to generate useful intelligence reports. He can’t do that anymore, but that doesn’t mean he can’t learn anything new; it just takes him longer to sort through it. He knows of your martial arts, and he aims to exploit it, so you have to learn how to wake up and fall asleep”

“I’m sorry, I have to learn what?”

With a trick of the hoof and a whiff of essence, the Doctor looked Speaker in the eyes: “You’ll want essence sight on for this”

“Wait, wha-“ Speaker said, but he found himself already asleep, aware that he was now in a dreamscape, though his essence sight was still up, and there was… yes… he could see the fading pattern of essence marked onto his dream, the essence pattern of how he had fallen asleep.

The next instant Speaker found himself awoken forcefully, though the really strange part of that experience came from the awakening coming from within the dream somehow – yet Speaker maintained his essence sight, seeing the essence of awakening as his visioned went from dreaming to awakening.

Fascinating.

“Perfect, now you should be able to do it yourself” the Doctor said, smiling cheerfully.

It was a strange revelation. He had put plenty of ponies to sleep already using his dream-based martial arts, the art of waking up himself? This was new… though the strangest part of it was that to form the correct essence pattern required a mudra, like a martial kata: “Oh this is neat…”

“Exactly – the dreamwalker kata – now remember to annoy the Mask about who he was when he was alive – that will distract him quite well” the Doctor said, before vanishing like a dream that hadn’t really been there, leaving Speaker standing there blinking for a moment.

That was when the others called him out: “Hey, what would you like for the feast?”

Turning, Speaker found himself actually still standing with everyone else, as if he had never left – the others looking as if the Doctor had never been there: “I… what feast?”

“Lord Bright, come on… Sully is going to cook a big feast to raise the spirits of everyone before the battle. Do you have any requests? With what’s stocked in the autocrat’s palace larders, there’s little he can’t make” Shimmer said, giving Speaker a somewhat disapproving look.

Shrugging, Speaker said that he trusted Sully’s judgement to surprise him, which seemed to cheese off Wind Dancer to no end: “Now hold on a Canterlot-minute! First you make my granddaughter ignore this stranger who comes out nowhere, and now you want to stop preparing for a siege to host a banquet? What is this madness!?”

“Wind Dancer, do remember what Cash told you about Sully’s cooking-based martial arts. This isn’t a banquet – it’s a recruitment drive. Every soul who eats there will be able to march out to face the mask without fear and with the will and endurance to fight all night” Sunrise pointed out, adding that a meal from Sully could convey infinitely more than any word she could ever say.

The old unicorn stallion looked quite incredulous: “Surely, you must be joking”

“I’m not – and don’t call me Shirley” Sunrise stated firmly, with the greatest of conviction and a sly smirk.

Roseblack motioned for Wind Dancer to ease off: “We have better things to do than quibble about food” after which she turned to Speaker and Sunrise: “What can we do to help?”

Sunrise exchanged some quick looks with Speaker, Sully and Shimmer: “How you can help depends entirely on what part you wish to take here after we win. I would like to introduce the two of you at the feast as guests of honor, to assuage the city’s remaining immaculate hardliners. We would offer you Thorns. Whether you make it a satrapy for the realm, or leave it a free city to join the confederation of rivers, that's your choice. We never came here for conquest, but we need to show the ponies of the city that we won’t be in charge after the Mask has been turned away”

It wasn’t the first time the two got that offer. The two realm unicorns might have found it silly first time around, but after having witnessed the miracle that had happened earlier… that offer suddenly carried a LOT more weight.

Wind Dancer whispered something to Roseblack, a flurry of magical wind around the two making it impossible to eavesdrop on them – a classic little unicorn trick. They seemed to speak for a while, nodding back and forth before the wall of rushing air around the two ceased.

Roseblack took a deep breath and a step forward: “We accept. Wind Dancer will assume the role as Satrap, and rule pending the reestablishment of a proper local government and the ascension of a new autocrat – provided that we can fend off the mask of course”

An air of calm settled around the gathering in the musty tea house. Everyone returned to what they had been working on, with the two unicorns joining Sully to conquer the autocrat’s palace – or at least its kitchens. Before leaving, Shimmer poked Speaker: “So those were the two sidereals who spoke to you in Lookshy? I’m certain I saw that ‘Ditzy’ mare back at the Lookshy games… before Deep Rot, I don’t remember what she was doing though”

With the meeting adjourned, Speaker flew back to Aspir Haven, to oversee the projects he had set up earlier. Looking back at the autocrat’s palace, he saw lighting and huge plumes of green smoke or vapor puff out here and there – it seemed as if Roseblack and Wind Dancer had plenty of things to dig into.

Hours passed, and Speaker worked his magic in Aspir haven and beyond the northern walls, preparing traps and tricks for the evening’s battles.

When the bells atop the autocrat’s palace rang, their central location in the city meaning that everyone could hear it, Speaker knew quite well what it meant: Dinner time!

In the past, the bells atop the palace had only tolled to announce grand public addresses – so everyone knew to come to the square in front of the palace. And oh, what a parade of misery it was, as the ragged and hungry marched through the streets – but at the same time, to Speaker’s delight as he followed a throng of metal workers from Aspir Haven, he saw hope and color in their eyes.

Silverclaws would later note that the crowd that had gathered in the palace square was but a fragment of how many ponies had once lived in the city – a testament to how few souls that were really left, though she also noted that many still hid in their homes, fearful of the Mask.

Tables and seating arrangements had been brought forth from the banquet halls and offices of the palace, which up close was quite impressive: At every level of the palace massive wooden columns supported large balconies, with each level being slightly smaller than the one under it, which was how the palace got its pyramid-like appearance from a distance.

There were a lot of empty seats, eerie reminders of how few ponies were left in the city – or how many were still too frightened to partake in such an anti-Mask event – though perhaps more would join, as word spread.

On a raised platform, almost like a stage, the circle, the unicorns, and what other few WIPs they had been able to find were seated. To Speaker’s somewhat mixed feelings, then there were also three ponies bound, gagged and chained up at the front of the stage, but he was quickly informed that they had been the three primary advisors to the new quite late undead puppet king that the Mask had installed after raising the slain autocrat from the dead.

“We’re not doing public executions as part of this!” Speaker protested, the indignation on his face quite clear.

Shimmer quickly explained the situation to Speaker: “We’re not – Sunrise will do a public condemnation, and then they’ll get to rot”

“Acceptable… but advisors? So, they colluded with the Mask?” Speaker inquired, trying to understand the scope of the crimes of these ponies.

A somewhat gaunt, but quite beautiful unicorn mare, clad in rich purple silks and nice jewellery – all of which contrasted rather harshly with the obvious bruises and marks around her throat and horn from what had clearly been a slave collar and a horn suppressor, and the dozens upon dozens of half-faded bruises and scars all over her body and face, along with the severe bags of exhaustion under her eyes – came up to Speaker: “Oh they did so much more. These traitors, Whispered Wisdom there chief among them, sold us out to the Mask… sabotaged our defences – he is the foulest of scum”

“I don’t believe we’ve met?” Speaker said, wondering if the unicorn mare was someone rescued from Shackle Maw earlier. She certainly looked the part – he didn’t know yet that she had been rescued from the palace.

Silverclaws bounded up next to Speaker and the unicorn mare in her peacock feather dress: “Oh this is so cool – No you haven’t Speaker! May I introduce you to Lily of Thorns, the erstwhile Queen of Thorns!”

The barely contained glee in Silverclaws’ voice was easy enough to spot, and it made sense: If she was from a lesser noble house, finally meeting the queen of Thorns was probably a big deal to her. As far as Speaker was concerned, the appearance of the queen wasn’t all that interesting, but it solved a different problem for him: “Right, so will she work out as new autocrat?”

Lily looked a bit surprised: “I… me, autocrat? My husband isn’t even buried yet!?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Speaker had to ask, not seeing the connection.

With hurried but polite words, Silverclaws explained that Lily’s husband was the late autocrat – and that the Mask had animated his corpse, puppeteering him on the throne as his proxy.

“Your people need leadership – and not from the lords of Sunhill. It doesn’t have to be you, but you’ve already got the support of at least one citizen here. I don’t think it would be a hard sell to have the rest follow you” Speaker said, shrugging as he turned to inspect the prisoners.

Within earshot, over by the dinner table, Shimmer whispered to Sunrise: “See, Lord Bright’s getting better at talking to nobles!”

Sunrise shot Speaker and the queen a scrutinizing gaze: “Perhaps – but he’s talking to her like a recovering patient who needs convincing to resume her old life, not talking like a statespony engaging in politics”

“True – but give it time. It might not be something he’s keen on, but he can’t avoid it and he knows that” Shimmer mused.

The two other prisoners were the mask’s chief military and religious advisors – one, a thoroughly beaten up mare who wouldn’t sit still for Speaker’s medical diagnosis charm, not that she needed it, and the other a young stallion who sat slumped over sulking. Speaker could barely pity them: Lily described how both of them had sold their souls to the undead for limitless power, the mare as a cruel military advisor who had overseen the brutal policing of thorns – including torturous public executions where the victims were eaten alive by zombies and their subsequent ghosts enslaved for eternity, and the stallion a lunatic believer in the Mask’s lies that the living and dead both could and should live together…

Speaker saw no little reason why they hadn’t already been executed – but Silverclaws was quick to explain that: “We don’t need any more ghosts right now, and considering how deep in bed they all were with the Mask, then they’re probably bound to rise after execution. Sunrise and Sully have a much more fun idea”

“Launch them from a catapult out of the city?” Speaker half-joked, already doing the math in his head on how hard a catapult would have to be wound up before it could launch a pony.

Silverclaws chuckled: “I suggested that, but no what they have in mind is much better, trust me”

Not that long after servants from the palace began to file out into the square, carrying a near endless tide of trays with them, as well as rolling out barrels of wine.

For the circle it was but another of Sully’s fine creations, him having appeared sitting at the table just as the food was served.

The reactions to the food from everyone else were as one might expect: A lot of crying, with tears of joy. The realm unicorns were mostly perplexed, confused at how a meal so fine to such a large number of ponies could have been made in such a short amount of time… well, Roseblack wondered that, with Wind Dancer mainly just stuffing his face and Denoted Flame crying out “Delicious!” after each bite.

“Oh, my dear Roseblack, I’ve trained Sullen Hoof well – he could have cooked this even faster. He is a peerless paragon of cooking, a true heavenly master of the culinary arts” Speaker regaled, feeling quite proud knowing that many of the crafting charms that Sully knew had been taught to him by himself.

The unicorn mare’s reaction to the food was quite physical, each morsel sending a ripple through her that saw small black flowers blossom in her mane with each bite: “I see… I also get what your friend meant by this feast being a recruitment drive now. This food is so good, it could give hope to even the most crushed soul! Just look at the queen!”

Indeed, the former queen of Thorns appeared quite revitalized – both in body and soul – from the magically made feast. The bags under her eyes were gone, and her smile returned in force between each bite.

“It also works the other way around – look at the prisoners in front of the stage” Speaker noted, gesturing towards the three ponies in chains up in front.

The three prisoners, especially the short and fat one that Lily had said had kept her as a personal slave and concubine for five long years, did not seem happy to see the luxuries of the palace kitchen being distributed to the ponies of Thorns whom they had actively taken part in oppressing under the Mask’s cruel rule.

Lily was not slow to rub this in, flinging morsels in the direction of her former slave master, him struggling impotently against his chains and salivating through his gag: “How does it feel now that the shoe is on the other hoof you fat pig? How do you think I will have Thorns remember you once I become the autocrat? You will not be revered as a royal advisor, your memory will be scorned as a degenerate traitor. Your very name will become a new word of curse!”

Sitting next to Roseblack, Speaker had to wonder if whatever charm the Doctor had used on her was still in effect, because while she did compliment the food to no end, then it was very ‘mission focused’ compliments: “This food is amazing. If I could host a feast with this before the realm deliberative, I could end the civil war with a single meal! You must ask Sullen Hoof I he would be willing to come with me for that”

“You’ll have to ask him that yourself once this over – but I wouldn’t put it past him to take you up on the offer” Speaker noted in between enjoying his food and wine.

Roseblack found that reply rather odd as she still seemed to think that Sully took orders from the rest of the circle, so while Sunrise got up and walked to the front of the stage, calling for everyone’s attention, Speaker quickly explained: “The pony sitting here with us… I’m pretty sure that’s not him. Sully spent a long time in the underworld, assassinating several deathknights. The abyssal host knows him as a golden bogeyman – and the instant they catch on that there’s a feast like this going on, they’ll know that he’s somewhere here… so he’s probably lying in wait somewhere, trying to catch any vengeful abyssal who’ll try to attack us during the feast – with this one a decoy”

“Interesting strategy – I like how he operates. But please, pass on my offer to him when you see the real one again” Roseblack replied, appearing oddly unphased by the idea that some unseen foe might attack them during the feast.

Sunrise cleared her voice, calling out to the crowd at the front of the stage – and Speaker felt his mind drawn to her as she used a particularly potent charm to make in earshot pay attention to her, other charms ensuring that everyone in the grand square could hear her: “Ponies of Thorns! This is a day of celebration!”

Loud cheers from the tens of thousands of ponies spread out on the vast square, around the myriad of tables – thousands having flocked to the event once the food came out. Almost every single table from the palace had been brought out, from office desks to dinner tables, to make enough room for everyone to sit at – especially now as other curious souls were being lured out of hiding, word evidently spreading of the event being quite legit.

“I am Sunrise Glow, and it was I who cast the spell that undid the shadowland this city has been mired in. I hail from the city of Sunhill of which I am a lord, and me and my peers came here to see an end to the Mask of Winter’s cruel reign, for it is an abomination! The food before you was cooked by my dear friend and fellow Lord of Sunhill Sullen Hoof, please give him a grand salute” Sunrise said, gesturing towards Sully at her table on the stage.

The crowd cheered once more, many a mug of ale and wine raised to Sully’s honor.

“Next to Sullen Hoof sits Bright Machine Speaker, chief artificer and master doctor of Sunhill. After this feast he will offer his healing powers to anyone that needs healing, of which I am sure there will be many. His magical healing abilities are only eclipsed by the very gods. It was he, a fellow lord of Sunhill, who brought low the twin dread deathknights known as Fives and Rip” Sunrise announced loudly and proudly, her words triumphant.

Hearing of the demise of their tormentors saw the crowd erupt into even more energetic cheers.

“Not present is Cash Charmer, our master of coin and Fire Orchid, our general and lord militant. These fellow lords of Sunhill are far afield, securing forces to aid us in the defence of Thorns. Additionally, we are graced by the recently freed Queen of Thorns – widow to the late Autocrat, Lily of Thorns” Sunrise continued, the crowd sending many knowing nods towards their queen.

“Lily of Thorns has agreed to assume the role of husband, to become the new autocrat of Thorns. Likewise, we have the illustrious company of Tepet Roseblack, General of the Vermillion legion, and her grandfather the famous Tepet Wind Dancer, who has agreed to assume the position of Satrap of Thorns” Sunrise announced, gesturing towards the two realm unicorns.

The crowd took a moment to react to this news. They didn’t quite seem sure how to react to the presence of the realm unicorns, so the cheers were far more scattered – but there wasn’t really any negative response – and Sunrise was careful to observe this reaction.

Finally, Sunrise turned her attention to the three prisoners up on the stage: “Finally, we have three ponies here of ill repute. You should all know them well as traitors of Thorns. First up is Stern Ash, the would-be general too weak to even join the Thornguard”

Quite a lot of boos and hissing came from the crowd, and the ponies who sat nearest the stage threw quite a few bit of food and mugs were tossed up at the three prisoners – but they quickly stopped as Sunrise gestured for calm: “Save your munitions. We also have Senoske Sandal, the fool who bought the lies of the Mask so wholeheartedly that it is a wonder he hasn’t killed himself to become a ghost”

More bits of half-eaten food and mugs were tossed.

“And finally, we have the most odious Whispered Wisdom, the traitor of Thorns who sold out your defences and opened the gates for the Mask” Sunrise declared, with the vilest of caustic of venom in her voice.

The crowd roared again and threw more stuff – now including knives and forks, someone even tried to chuck a table.

“Their punishment will not be death – for they desire to join their dark master as ghosts without a doubt. Instead, I will summon upon them a far harsher punishment” Sunrise declared, turning to the three chained ponies.

With a roaring voice that no words could deny or interrupt, Sunrise shouted: “By all the gods of heaven, by the all the scales of the dragons, you three traitors of Thorns: I cast you down! Let the very sky darken before you, let all berries sour, let all food spoil before your lips. Let no animal befriend you, and let no kind smile land upon you. You are unwanted in this world of the living, but we will not grant you the boon of death. You will be marked on both body and soul as the foul and unforgivable creatures you are, forever exiled from Thorns and its lands”

The very sky briefly darkened with all the stars winking out, the ground shaking with tremors that zeroed in on the three. Each of them seemed to freeze as part of their very soul broke from the dread spiritual marking now forced upon them. Where Sunrise had been hiding the actual branding iron she next whipped out was anyone’s guess, but it was cherry-red and spelled out traitor.

The sizzle as the brow of each of the three were marked made everyone’s hooves curl – except for Lily of Thorns. When Whispered Wisdom got his mark, she seemed positively elated.

Guards from Roseblack’s legion hauled the three prisoners away for later booting out of a city gate.

“Now, ponies of Thorns. Eat, be merry and rejoice in your freedom. Bright Machine Speaker will be setting up at the far end of the square soon. Come nightfall the Mask will no doubt try to return, but we will fight for you, to which end I ask that those of you with the strength come fight with me. I am not asking for you to raise blades to our foe, but to raise your voice. I command arcane first age sorcery and martial arts that relies on song, and so together we shall sing the Mask a requiem that will break his undead armies!” Sunrise proclaimed, fortifying her words with essence that gave all listeners feelings of hope, courage and a desire for a brighter future.

Roseblack looked on in utter disbelief as almost two thirds of the ponies in the enormous square – more than a legion’s worth of ponies – nearly thousands of them – stood up in unison to declare their intent to help. The unicorn despaired: “How in the twinkly dragon shits did she just talk most of the city to march out unarmed against the Mask!?”

Speaker chuckled: “Didn’t you hear her? She’ll have them sing. With her, that means they’re plenty armed”

“I have seen a lot of difference magical martial arts… but one based on song? You have got to be kidding me” Roseblack wondered, her incredulity written as clearly on her face as the orgiastic joy on her grandfather’s face next to her as he just kept eating.

Speaker had wanted to answer her, but a monstrous roar interrupted everything, a hail of razor bone-shards raining down on the big table up on the stage – but Sullen Hoof was up among the dishes in a flash, the very food itself whirling around him, intercepting up all the bone shuriken.

“No… not the food!” Wind Dancer cried out, like a foal after one took its candy away.

Speaker quickly got up, noticing that the fake Sully sitting next to Sunrise’s seat was still eating: “Sully, friend of yours?”

“Likely – I made a lot of enemies in the underworld, and if the combined abyssal host of four deathlords is visiting, then it’s bound to include one of them. Let’s see who we have here” Sullen Hoof declared, gesturing in the direction of where the shuriken had come from.

Along Sully’s hoof swirled carrots, his essence separating and shaping them into carrot spikes that launched themselves at great speed in the gestured direction. The barrage of sharpened vegetables blasted a stately residential building at the edge of the plaza, Sully calling out: “Speaker, would you pick up our guest”

Speaker leapt high into the air, his ruby pinions erupting with golden fire that carried him across the plaza. In the rubble, he found several well-armed and armored ponies struggling to dig themselves out, but his medical charms told him that they were already dead… meaning that he was looking at corpses possessed by powerful ghosts, nemissaries.

Taking a step back, Speaker drew Homage from elsewhere and powered up its essence edge: “Tell me where your master is!”

The possessed corpses free enough to gesture with a hoof made rude gestures at Speaker, all of them screaming abuse at him – but he quickly silenced all of them. After cutting down the last of them with his spirit-cutting charm, making Homage slice both corpse flesh and ghost essence, Speaker heard a slow clap behind him. A creepy and gravelly voice spoke: “Ah, the healer of Sunhill – You will make a fine addition to my collection”

Activating a host of charms, including his shield charms and the one that rendered him fearless in case the abyssal tried to use a spooking charm, Speaker turned to face his foe with a renewed sense of calm: “I have slain three abyssals slain this week. Are you volunteering to be the fourth one I personally do in this week, or will you surrender and accept our help to cleanse your black exaltation and redeem your soul?”

The deahtknight that stood before Speaker look freshly bathed – in blood, appearing completely soaked, with a mane hanging slick and wetly down around his neck, a grin featuring sharpened white teeth that stood a sharp contrast to the red blood dripping from the abyssal. With hooves wrapped in heavy soulsteel fighting shoes, and a morbid collection of shrunken heads adorning his saddlebags, he looked quite ghoulish: “You must take me for a fool… I like what I am”

“In that case I can only take pity on you, and hope that your next incarnation is more sensible” Speaker said, launching himself at the abyssal in a lightning move, informed by the celestial snake style martial arts he knew a little of.

Chapter 37 A Battle of Gold and Darkness

The gallant shadow stylist, being a gentleman thief, looks amazing as he consumes soup, but runs from the bill!

…

Thousands of citizens of Thorns looking on with wonder as the gold-fire wreathed warrior that was Speaker fought the killer blazing with darkness. Sunrise seized the moment and narrated artistically as Speaker fought the deathknight at the far end of the plaza: “Behold! The lords of Sunhill have battled the undead many times, and we have yet to meet a foe among their dread host who can truly best us. They fear us, for we can take away their shadowlands, and they hate us, for we have even taken in refugees among their dark champions, and redeemed their blackened souls, returning them to the light by the grace of the gods!”

With hooves blazing with essence, blows were traded in rapid succession, the explosions and shockwaves from the mighty blows looking quite spectacular – even from a distance, at least right up until Speaker finally managed to connect a blow that sent the abyssal flying towards the stage.

Landing quite gracefully, flipping around like a blood-soaked ninja, the deathknight quickly found himself under fire from nearby citizens as they vented their anger at him, throwing mugs, plates and anything else they could pick up – but he dodged it all effortlessly, all the while glaring at them with murderous eyes as he pulled from the bleeding soles of his hooves more bone shurikens to kill them all.

He was about to start flinging his razorshap bone shuriken at the crowd when Sullen Hoof swooped in from seemingly out of nowhere, causing the deathknight to toss his weapons at him instead, spraying the dinner table on the table as the bone munitions went wide and missed Sully by a mile, but hurt no-one.

“There you are! My master will reward me endlessly if I can finally show him your torn off head” the abyssal proudly declared, all manner of killing intent in his eyes.

Sullen Hoof offered no banter in return, his golden orichalcum mask around his head making him appear both silent and stoic. The only move he made was ready his twin orichalcum cleavers, and gesture mockingly for the deathknight to come hither.

With a bloodthirsty howl, the deathknight launched himself at Sully – his seemingly everflowing coating of blood spraying everywhere, except Sullen Hoof revealed a large set of dinner plates which he flung around the abyssal, catching every drop of blood before it could splash on anyone.

That Sullen Hoof didn’t appear to have put any real effort into defending himself, instead only trying to prevent that the food he had served was sullied seemed to endlessly infuriate the abyssal – even more so as the deathknight’s hooves, wreathed in void essence, struck at the air with every swing, failing completely to hit Sully even once: “What? How is this possible!?”

Instead of answering, Sullen Hoof stepped into the deathknight’s reach, and then brought the swarm of food flying around him to bear, making it impossible for the deathknight to dodge the cloud of plate shards, forks, cooking knives and other pointy or sharp things that flew around him.

Crying out in pain as he was cut time and time again by razor soup and steely carrots, all of the food flying around Sully hardened by his essence, the abyssal tried to leap away, but Sullen Hoof pushed his advantage and grappled with the deathknight, forcing his foe to remain within the maelstrom of meat mallets and cleavers.

In a final act of desperation, as it was clear that the deathknight was being torn to shreds before a cheering audience, the abyssal finally managed to free himself and tumble away, only to land before Sunrise. Struggling to get up, Sunrise looked down at the pitiful deathknight: “Surrender and we will help you”

Half-choking on his own blood, the deathknight tried to spit at her – but he did not have the strength, resulting in a rather pathetic display that just stained the stage. Seeing this and frowning, Sunrise floated the torn up deathknight up before her and pressed a hoof his chest: “This is the only mercy I will grant you”

Pursing her lips and flaring her golden caste mark on her brow, it briefly looked as if Sunrise was going to kiss her foe, but instead she whistled a single tone. For a second it appeared to be anyone’s guess what she was going to do, then for a split second she whistled harder… much harder… as if launching an arrow of air through the abyssal’s head at point blank from the sonic pulse, killing him instantly with what sounded like a brief thundercrack, while her anima blazed with gold soul-fire.

To the stupefied amazement of the crowd, the deathknight instantly crumbled into dust, as Sunrise used her powers as a solar of the priest caste to instantly cremate the abyssal’s body and perhaps even save his soul from the eternal torment of the neverborn.

“Impressive – so that is your musical martial art?” Wind Dancer commended Sunrise from the table, his plates thoroughly licked clean.

Sunrise nodded, turning to the unicorns at the table: “It is a part of it – now if you’ll excuse me, I need to teach a crowd of ponies some songs”

The citizens of thorns were at first quite stunned to see a deathknight slain by shining golden pony, but as Sunrise stepped off the stage and called out “Who would like to learn to sing my song of victory?” tens of thousands cheered, as thousands rose from their seats to join her.

Wind Dancer leaned over to Roseblack: “You’re going to have to learn some better speeches if you expect to win over the realm deliberative like that”

It didn’t take long before ponies started leaving the feast, full to the point of bursting for the first time in years, happily lining up before Speaker who used his hospital-honed medical charm to diagnose, and if need be, heal the masses. While his original suite of medical charms had been geared towards treatment of individuals with great power and certainty of recovery, then the medical charms he had developed over the last year at Sunhill permitted treatment and medical services for vast numbers of patients, letting him spend the last few hours before the arrival of twilight healing the masses quite efficiently, when the first alarm bells started ringing from the walls.

It was time to do battle for the fate of Thorns.

A lot of the ponies that Speaker had treated had joined Sunrise for her impromptu song class. This resulted in her marching to the southern city gate with thousands of followers, each with fire in their belly and a prayer on their lip. Her charms had given them courage to stand against the Mask, and now her martial arts would have to keep them safe as they were to hold the line.

Speaker in turn wrapped up the last few stragglers who sought his aid for medical services – quite a few who seemed shy, or worried what others might say if they were seen receiving healing from the golden anathema. When done, Speaker lit up his wings of fire and flew to the northern city wall, to the grim sight of three dozen bone striders standing a mile from the wall, being readied for battle.

“Is it ready?” Speaker called out to nearest group of laborers in earshot.

The workers were busy extinguishing the fires in their forges, so that if anything broke during the battle then a fire wouldn’t spread. The nearest foreman replied: “It’s not pretty, but it’s there – not really sure what you want to do with things like that though”

“Don’t you worry about that – but tell everyone to get away from the walls unless you’re joining the fight!”

Along the northern wall were scattered groups of ponies, armed only with the tools of their trades stood ready: Hammers, knives, a few rolling pins here and there. Without direct leadership they would likely break and flee at the first encounter with the undead. Of course, from what Speaker could tell then there weren’t many zombies being fielded north of the wall: It seemed clear that most of those had been funnelled into the city during the day’s earlier battle, where they had been trapped in bottlenecks and slowly destroyed, both by blade and by the scorching rays of the cleansing sun.

Indeed, Speaker could tell that the bonestriders were smouldering. What looked like zombie work crews (which were also falling apart) were hauling water around to douse the flames of the undead war-machines, as their ashen and crackling flesh caught fire in the sunlight.

This fit perfectly with Speaker’s strategy for the northern wall: Stall them, and let the enemy burn to a crisp on their own without him having to do much of anything.

Suddenly black lighting split the sky, coming from the south. The thunderous rumble of Juggernaut moving sounded, and from atop the corpse mountain radiated a grim projection of the Mask of Winters, in all his illustrious darkness and might with a beautiful and entrancing mask of ice, as he announced with a grand and magnanimous voice: “Ponies of Thorns. You disappoint me. I have given you order and peace, yet this is how you reward me? For this afront, a punishment is needed: From every pony in Thorns, I would have one pint of blood, one tooth, one eye and one hoof. Whether this is given me, or taken by my forces, this I care not for. Now go forth my host, and collect my sanguine tribute!”

The visage of the mask was not pleasant – and yet… the shimmering crystalline ice mask of the deathlord wasn’t ugly either. Calling it beautiful was probably a stretch, but his voice… it was like a stern and disappointed parent speaking slowly and calmly to an unruly child just before a thorough caning, assuming that the parent in question had the deep and gravelly voice of an ancient ghost.

With the Mask’s signal, the warstriders north of the city began moving towards Thorns. Starting from about a mile out, well out of range of any archer – not that there really were any on the walls – the first half of the warstriders made it a bit under halfways to the walls before the ground gave way under their, Speaker having riddled the grounds between the encampment and the walls with hidden underground pits. Now, the pits were between ten or fifteen feet deep – not all that much for a twenty-foot tall bonestrider, but it was plenty to leave them stuck for the moment as they tried to get out, a couple of them straight up faceplanting and damaging themselves substantially as their own massive weight crushed them.

With many of his targets sitting ducks, Speaker flew up on his wings of fire and headed out, landing on the wiggling warstriders where they couldn’t reach him and simply using his deconstruction charm, primarily on their legs. They broke apart just fine, breaking just enough to be rendered immobile. Going from one to the other, Speaker had half of the warstriders fully neutralized in minutes.

Of course, this left the final six bonestriders that hadn’t fallen into any traps – and whatever piloted them seemed aware enough to check the ground before them at that point, all of them but one dodging the pit traps before them as they carefully advanced. Disabling the one that hadn’t quite managed to detect the ground giving way under it, Speaker turned to the last five: “Right… let’s do this”

Flying high up into the air near the city gate, Speaker recalled the spell he had learned through his latest and most powerful educational charm and having read the book of three rings. Loudly announcing several of the arcane Five Hundred Words of War and using his hooves to trace an essence lattice around himself, the very sunlight around him began to flow into that lattice in the form of sunfire that saw the lattice erupt into bright flame.

Through this powerful sorcery, hundreds of least gods from all kinds of nearby things, be it the least gods of blades of grass, rocks, dirt, a few from the city wall, all rose from their stations as they sang an ancient war chant. This included the least gods from all the crude blades and shields Speaker had gotten the metalworkers to hammer out and line near the walls.

The ponies on the wall looked on with wonder, as the many lesser gods floated towards Speaker and his glowing lattice, the sunfire forging them into orichalcum plates as the rays of the setting sun kissed the lesser gods.

All in all it took about ten seconds – and as Speaker floated back down to the ground, it was not his hooves that touched the ground: He was mounted inside a giant pony-form orichalcum warstrider, wielding a pair of orichalcum warstrider-sized chakrams, designed to look like giant gears.

On the northern city wall the ponies in view cheered as much as they could, not necessarily understanding what Speaker had done, but having enough wherewithal to recognize that he had summoned a mighty weapon to their defence.

As a mighty god-forged champion of war, Speaker strode across the battlefield, standing eighteen feet tall and shining like a giant golden statue. Of course, like a statue, pushing and pulling at the controls to make the thing move quickly turned out to be fairly difficult – but with a charm Speaker knew to make suits of armor fit him more gently and easily, that became a lot easier – allowing him to move a lot faster and more smoothly.

The other bonestriders quickly changed course, seeing that a new foe had appeared on the battlefield – one as tall as them, one that challenged them by its mere presence.

Now, a war or bonestrider did not make one faster – but it was a giant suit of magical armor that made one a lot stronger, and by virtue of it being armor, it also protected you quite well. Speaker knew this well, and even if a bone-strider wasn’t as heavily armored as a warstrider wrought of pure orichalcum, then they still required quite the pummelling before they broke.

Indeed, Speaker quickly realized that instead of wasting essence to rip and tear into the alchemically toughened sinews and bone plates that protected the pilot and softer innards of the bonestriders, then it was far more effective to simply wrestle them to the ground, use his rearing crane release technique to throw them into the air and then combine that with a swift buck to send them even further – for when they came down their bulk saw them crushed, or at least saw enough of their giant limbs crippled that they could no longer move.

This quickly saw a number of the remaining bonestriders attempt to flee – but as noted previously: Being in a strider did not make one faster, so they were caught as they were tripped up by tossed warstrider-sized chakrams.

To Speaker’s great elation, this saw the northern front quickly calm down. Of course, the battle wasn’t over yet – so he quickly surveyed the landscape around him, confirming that no other foes were coming out of the enemy encampment. With that peace of mind, Speaker made his way towards the harbour of Thorns, thundering down past the piers in his conjured warstrider.

Approaching the southern city wall, Speaker found himself hearing… a song. A beautiful and sad song, yet its lyrics spoke of boundless optimism and hope, pride in one’s achievements – such as staying alive in the face of tremendous hardship – and thousands of ponies were singing it, following the deep thrumming beat coming from Sunrise as she danced up front, along with all the other ponies up in front.

…and while many a philosopher have over and over compared martial arts and dance, then what Sunrise was doing truly blurred the difference between the two, as her musical martial arts was allowing completely untrained troops to hold their own against what appeared to be a seemingly endless tide of undead. From beyond the frontline, it was nothing but an endless sea of death and undeath spilling out of Juggernaut… good heavens.

One thing Speaker did notice was the distinct lack of any concentrations of necrotic essence as he gazed across the battlefield with essence sight, the magical eye-lenses of his warstrider giving him a magical sight. Was the Mask holding his deathknights back? Had the abyssals of the other deathlords fled along with their masters, abandoning the Mask?

With what he had seen so far, Speaker came up with a battle plan: Sunrise was holding the line – but only holding the line – she appeared to have designed her song and dance to be of a magically defensive nature. An offensive element was needed. Thus, in all its simplicity, Speaker galloped into the enemy ranks and leapt high into the air – the magical strength from the limbs of the warstrider letting him jump quite high into the air – and then bellyflopping down into the enemy forces, crushing as many zombies and skeletons as he could. He then began stomping on anything that got close.

Using his ghost-eating technique, Speaker quickly replenished all of his essence, as he smote the ruin of hundreds – if not thousands – of densely packed war-ghosts that seemed to mindless march towards the city, crying out for blood.

To this end, Speaker remained vigilant – especially in the direction of the slowly approaching Juggernaut. It would definitely require getting rid of, ideally moved to somewhere relatively uninhabited further away from the city. His attentiveness quickly paid off, for about twenty minutes into his stomping spree a great gout of dark lighting shot out from the grim palace atop Juggernaut, vaporizing hundreds of undead as Speaker parried the lighting with his chakrams and sent it arching wildly around him into the remains of stomped zombies.

Maintaining his guard in case more lightning was to follow, Speaker saw a faint purple light approaching fast – but it was too slow to be a projectile… it was someone or something flying in.

Stomping out a few ghosts and skeleton-constructs milling about confused on the ground, Speaker counted the seconds and tried to estimate the speed of whatever was coming at him. It was going several hundred miles per hour… and there we go, it dove to the ground, landing about half a mile from Speaker.

Approaching the new potential foe, Speaker quickly spotted the sudden vortex of necrotic essence sucking in ghosts and the few sparks of unlife that kept nearby skeletons and zombies animated. Someone was shaping a spell, a big one.

Breaking into a gallop, his warstrider’s giant orichalcum hooves ploughing through the mindless undead, Speaker just barely got to his foe as he saw a vague silhouette of a pony in the last few rays of light from the setting sun, the pony being encased in blood-stained metal forming out of the void-essence vortex around the pony, with an ablative cocoon of zombies and skeletons forming around the pony to prevent Speaker from interrupting the spell.

Speaker pounded, slashed and bucked at the swarming pile of undead that had formed around the sorcerer, but it was to no avail, for upon trying to strike again he found himself parried by a blood-red metal hoof that shot out of the pile, one equal to his warstrider’s metal hooves.

The pile fell away revealing a warstrider that rose from a crouching stance. Like Speaker’s warstrider it was in the form of a pony, but not wrought of orichalcum. It gleamed with blood red metal of an indeterminate make, standing a bit taller than Speaker’s ‘strider. It wielded a quite simply enormous ‘strider sized grand soulsteel dailklaive that hummed quite audibly as it seemed to annihilate the very air around it.

The red ‘strider’s mouth was set with the usual kind of communication gem, not unlike what was in Speaker’s. From it, the haughty voice of a mare rang out: “Foolish Solar – you think you’re the only one who can summon great magical suits of armor? Let me show you just how wrong you a-argh!”

Having taken his sweet time carefully aiming his oversized chakrams at his new foe, Speaker hurled them just before his foe finished talking, the enormous orichalcum disks crashing into the blood-red warstrider with thunderous explosions, sparks flying everywhere, even more so as Speaker’s solar anima flared up around his magical warstrider, and from that golden anima two copies of the oversized chakrams formed and struck the blood-red void construct, two for each chakram. The six impacts, happening in very rapid succession, rang out like thunderclaps – each booming pulse of ear-rending sound pulping the nearest zombies and pulverizing the nearest skeletons.

As the dust settled, Speaker saw through the vision crystals that his foe still stood – and stood seemingly unharmed… which didn’t quite surprise him: It hadn’t been his plan… well… it would have been nice if the thing had exploded, but it had more been to frazzle the pony inside.

Indeed, for as loud as the impacts had been outside, Speaker hoped that it had left the enemy ‘strider pilot completely stunned, if only for a short while.

Approaching the stunned ‘strider, Speaker heaved and repeated the same trick he’d done with the bonestriders: Tossing it high into the air and letting its own weight crush it when it came down… except it didn’t come down.

At the peak of its trajectory up in the air, vents all over the blood-red strider opened up, blasting out black fire. This stabilized the strider, letting it float in the air – and moments later it shook its head: “Ow… oh that does it!”

With a mighty stomp Speaker had his two giant chakrams bounce up into the air, catching one each on either forehoof of his ‘strider, and quickly adopting a defensive posture with both: “Give me your best shot!”

The blood-red ‘strider hovered up in the air for a brief moment, completely still. Speaker figured that the pilot was thinking, planning… and indeed, a few moments later the abyssal strider jerked into action, raising its enormous grand daiklaive to strike…

Girding himself, Speaker worried that unless he could successfully parry such a massive blade, his ‘strider might well get cleaved in twain. Of course, when the enemy strider came down with its giant daiklaive, it missed by a hilariously wide margin… stumbling to avoid falling over, as the weight and momentum of the giant blade only made things worse.

Laughing, Speaker found it difficult to take his foe seriously: “Really? It’s plain to see that you’re a mighty sorcerer, summoning a warstrider like that – but do you even know how to wield a blade?”

While taunting was all good fun, Speaker also knew the import of keeping one’s foe distracted – and he also knew that he was still mostly topped off on essence, while his foe had to have spent quite a lot of essence to conjure such a strider… he just had to disarm her and goad her into blowing the rest of her essence in some act of desperation - then he could peel the thing open like a banana and do away with the abyssal inside.

Roaring in quite obvious frustration, the blood-red ‘strider swung its enormous blade – the length of the grand daiklaive being longer than the ‘strider was tall – in a wild arc, Speaker barely even having to try to dodge out of the way, laughing all the way.

What made the situation even more funny was that with every step either of the two were taking more undead were being stomped – and with every swing of the comically oversized daiklaive several dozen more undead were simply erased as it touched them.

The blood-red ‘strider and its pilot did not appear to find it all that funny, a long and frustrated snarl coming from the giant thing as it made a series of frantic gestures that seemed to reroute where a lot of nearby undead where going – making them pile into a wall around her again.

Recognizing that his foes was clearly trying to buy time for something that could be dangerous, Speaker chose not to indulge her, using his jumping charm on his ‘strider to leap over the corpse wall around her, going for a grapple to prevent the dread ‘strider from doing whatever it was trying to achieve.

This actually worked – for the most part – for as Speaker’s ‘strider leapt over the circular wall of the dead around his foe, he saw that it appeared to be attempting some kind of strange… was it trying to rip open its own metallic chest? What?

Coming down on his foe in a bit of a tumble, Speaker managed to wrestle the blood-red ‘strider into a firm multi-leg lock: “No you don’t”

The quite angry – if not down right agitated – female voice of the blood-red ‘strider pilot howled against Speaker: “You dare?! I will… I will crush you like a bug!”

Taking a quick moment to orient himself, Speaker noticed that the wall of undead around them was… holding? The undead making up the wall weren’t turning to aid their mistress, nor were they attacking him or letting any other undead from the outside in… wait, this meant he actually had time to think!

OK… how to dismantle a strange magic blood-soaked necromantic warframe that he just couldn’t rip apart?

That was when he heard the shriek – not from his pinned foe, but from this sky – and it was a shriek he had heard before. It was Shimmer’s warform!

Looking up, Speaker saw Shimmer’s half-pony half-bird warform, her talons that of foot-long moonsilver daggers, and even her beak looking extra curvy and sharp and with that distinct metal-blue glow: “Move Lord Bright!”

More than willing to tag-team his foe, Speaker released the blood-red ‘strider at the last second and rolled his ‘strider away. Before the abyssal warstrider and its pilot could react, Shimmer completely covered the thing’s limbs in her essence webbing, landing on its chest, as the webbing seemed to creep and crawl across the dark warstrider, seeping into every joint and under various armor plates to gum everything inside up.

“I thought you were in trouble Lord Bright … couldn’t see you behind this crazy zombie wall!” Shimmer said, all the while very carefully inspecting the magically summoned necromantic warstrider.

It struck Speaker just how tiny Shimmer, even in her warform, was compared to the warstrider she was stomping around on… so what was she going to do?

Why, she started barfing on the blood-red ‘strider, which just struggled against the webbing that was not just locking its limbs down, but gumming up the thing’s joints.

“You… ok there?” Speaker wondered, his speech transmitting through the magical sound-crystal set in his ‘strider’s mouth.

Shimmer finally looked up as she finished barfing around the helmet of the blood-red strider, bright green slime-like barf dripping from her beak: “Oh I’m fine Lord Bright – this is corrosive poison… going to melt the helmet on this thing off!”

The blood-red warstrider struggled frantically as the green goop covering much of its helmet began to bubble, eating away at the metal quite clearly at an essence-accelerated rate, while new seemingly motile webbing appeared to be working as intended, completely immobilizing the thing.

It occurred to Speaker that this meant that the blood-red necro-strider wasn’t made out of soulsteel… oh how he wanted to just dispel his own ‘strider and whip out Homage to cut into the thing himself!

It took a bit more corrosive barf, but soon the ‘head’ of the blood-red strider was damaged enough to reveal the head of the thing’s pilot: A near skeletal mare’s head, looking burned to a crisp, but with long fang-like teeth and very unburnt eyes. She was also snarling and glaring angrily at the two of them, swearing up a storm – oh, and she was firing necrotic fireballs from her eyes, forcing Shimmer to move back to the ‘strider’s chest to get out of the line of fire.

“Quit it! Surrender or I’ll smush your head – you only get one choice here!” Speaker said firmly, with a giant orichalcum hoof poised to strike.

The scorched-looking abyssal, who quite frankly did not look like a mare – more like a skeleton – writhed in her pilot seat, but in doing so Speaker saw why she couldn’t get out…

Black tendrils from her blood-red ‘strider connected to the back of her head and what little of her spine he could see. She was truly connected to the warstrider, though much more physically than Speaker’s purely magical controls. Soon her rage seemed to be replaced by tears, as she cried out for… a lover?

“I did this for you! I will never forget your touch! Never forget your kiss! My dearest lover, may your reign end the world!” the abyssal howled, bloody tears rolling down her crispy cheeks as her eyes began to glow rather intensely and menacingly.

Speaker had long since lowered his hoof, finding the abyssal’s display far more pathetic than anything else. Whoever this was, she hadn’t been trained by anyone with proper strategic skills. Where was her backup? Where were the other deathknights? Yes, where were there other deathknights?

Shimmer suddenly slammed into Speaker, well, into the head of the head of his ‘strider and howled: “Lord Bright - She’s gonna blow!!!!”

The briefest of glance at the abyssal with essence sight showed everything Speaker had to see: The essence within the abyssal was inverting, conflagrating into umbral fire.

She was committing suicide, explosively – and doing that from the inside of a warstrider? Oh, that was not going to be good. Heaving at his controls, Speaker leapt with all the might of the magical muscles he were connected to. The ground quickly left the duo behind, but the abyssal became pure fire of black essence, like a piece of howling firework stuck into a metal tin… or a fuse burning down – and the fuse burnt quickly.

Too quickly.

The explosions from the necromantic warstrider was… not really an explosion. It didn’t sound loud, nor was it one of rapidly expanding fire and flame. It was a darkness that made the post-sunset twilight come off as positively bright, a void that expanded outward to eat everything it touched.

It swallowed the zombie and skeleton wall, the black sphere expanding further out – and closing rapidly on the duo… it caught them as the arc of Speaker’s jump reached its peak, sending them plummeting into the expanding umbral sphere beneath them. Shimmer shrieked in horror as they went in.

Being magically connected to his ‘strider, Speaker could feel the strange and quite uncomfortable attempted un-making that the ‘strider was subjected to – and it was over as quickly as it started, leaving him in a deep crater of dust and ash, with no visible remains of the undead... except the mindless zombie shuffling into the crater as they moved towards the city.

It was while looking around to get his bearings that a bright coating of blood started to run down over one of Speaker’s vision crystals… followed shortly by Shimmer falling down. With a quick motion, Speaker caught her, and made a running jump up the wall of the crater to get out, beelining towards the city walls. All he could see was that Shimmer was bleeding profusely, and he couldn’t use his medical charms on her while in his armor.

Stomping through the undead, Speaker galloped towards the battle line where Sunrise and her grand choir were keeping the undead from swarming and scaling the city wall. Leaping over them, Speaker landed in the southside slums of Legacy, crushing several houses. Turning around, he put Shimmer down on the city wall, for it was the only elevated platform high enough to put her near his vision crystals. Carefully using his medical diagnostic charms, he instantly got a read on just how grievously wounded she was.

The term ‘near death’ was a good descriptor: Under her blood-soaked feathers and cracked armor shell segments, Speaker detected not lacerations or shrapnel wounds… no, he simply found that there were bits of her… missing, as if strips of skin, flesh and bone had been erased, leaving bloody gaps across her rag-dol body.

At this point Speaker found himself in a rather ironic position… Indeed, he too now felt trapped within his ‘strider, much like the now late abyssal he had fought previously, for he had no means of getting out of his magical strider until the spell had run its course, which wouldn’t be for another couple of hours – and yet there was Shimmer, before him, bleeding to death!

“There he is – told you!” Speaker faintly heard a voice from up on the ramparts of the wall.

It was the Doctor and his companion, the blond-mane’d cross-eyed mare leading the way.

“You two – I need your help! Shimmer needs to be stabilized, quickly!” Speaker implored, torn between wanting to help Shimmer and help defeat the undead horde at the walls.

With calming gestures, the Doctor nodded at the frantic warstrider: “Calm yourself. Sunrise is holding the line just fine – and Shimmer here will be fine too, once you heal her”

“Doctor, a battlefield is not the time or place for vague sidereal bullshit. I’m stuck in this thing and Shimmer is dying – do something!” Speaker almost shouted, finding the sidereal’s statement rather infuriating.

The two sidereals quickly nodded at each other, the cross-eyed one quickly walking up to the edge of the battlements and swiping at Speaker’s warstrider. Speaker heard the tap of her hoof on the armor, thinking noting of it, but that was when the magical strider began to disintegrate at a very rapid pace, the orichalcum armor plates and internal supports reverting into the form of lesser gods that zipped back to their domains the instant they were free.

This left Speaker to drop to the ground, among the crushed slum hovels – but he quickly leapt up to Shimmer, using his charms to stop her bleeding – and while she was still unconscious, he saw that she instantly began to slowly heal the moment her body sensed that new equilibrium. Right, the lunar warform had powerful healing aspects to it! Great!

Turning to the two sidereals, Speaker wanted to thank them – and ask them exactly what they had done to unmake his warstrider – but he found that they had left, spotting them a fair distance away on the wall, appearing to be setting up for something.

Chapter 38 Mountains of Undeath

The red-handed courtesan stylist pays for his soup via sexual services, but deceives the waiter. This stylist leaves with a full stomach and bloody knuckles.

…

Certain that Shimmer would recover on her own, Speaker galloped after the two sidereals, finding that they were flipping through a tome of some kind drawn from one of their saddlebags: “Doctor, here it is” the mare said.

“Ah yes, the complete sutra of sacrifice – do begin” the doctor said, as he assumed a strange and arcane martial stance atop the city wall, standing so that he could see all of the undead horde.

The dirty-blond mare nodded, sitting down and putting the tome away: “Once, there was a maiden…”

The doctor raised a hoof, then slammed it on the wall, causing a very loud and quite unnatural sound of hoof on stone to ring out – one that Sunrise seemed to pick up, as she readied herself and her closest dancers formed ranks around her. Speaker watched with great curiosity.

“…who was very vain” the mare continued.

Reaching into his saddlebags, the Doctor retrieved a silk-paper prayer strip, staring at it briefly and intensely, which somehow caused it to light up with old realm glyphs in his purple essence. It floated up above him, and seemed to stick in the air above his head.

“She loved her mirror, and her mirror loved her back”

What happened next was a miracle. Or madness. Or both: The Doctor began to gesture at the undead horde, reshaping the very essence of the throng of zombies, skeletons and ghosts. In the blink of an eye, the mixed mass of undead split into three, sorting each of the three types of undead into the own enormous unit. The skeletons were in the middle, the zombies on their eastern flank, and the ghosts on their western flank. With a second gesture the zombies no longer marched towards the city – but instead walked in a big circle… because zombies were dumb enough to just follow the one before them… especially when there was no one to lead them.

Speaker had no clue how this was being achieved, but he wasn’t complaining.

Next up the ghosts were rearranged into a much tighter formation, which they seemed to hold – for as ghosts they actually had some semblance of an intellect, allowing them to maintain a functional formation.

“Looking only at her mirror, she missed the revolution, and she lost her head”

Sunrise and the singers and dancers closest to her winked out of existence, leaving the rest of the grand choir high and dry – but due to the rearrangements of the undead horde, roughly half a miles worth of distance had been placed between them, buying them time until the skeletons and ghosts reached them.

Looking around frantically, Speaker tried to see where Sunrise and her crew had been moved to.

“When the rookery falls, and the birds fly away, you cannot shoot them all down unless you shoot only one” the mare said, slumping down as if the verse was somehow difficult to say for her.

The sudden bright light marked Sunrise’s new position quite clearly. Speaker recognized the blaze of white fire that erupted at the front of the ghost column, their tight ranks putting over half of them in earshot as she smote their ruin with her holy charms.

Looking to the Doctor, Speaker wondered what was up next… he was about to ask, when two massive units of thornguard appeared on roughly either side of the zombies, and charged at them!?!

Confused at first, Speaker quickly realized what was going on when the front of each thornguard unit lit up with golden fire: They were each being led by a solar!

Letting out a loud and enthusiastic cheer, Speaker couldn’t believe himself. The zombies were being ground up as Fire Orchid and Cash led the superiorly armed and armored troops at them, the ghosts being annihilated as they charged into the reach Sunrise’s smiting charm… this just left the skeletons – and with them Speaker saw a problem he himself could solve, but he found himself stopped by the cross-eyed mare: “Don’t”

“What? We still need to stop the skeletons from attacking the ponies down there!” Speaker said, not really understanding what he was being told, nor why.

The cross-eyed mare smiled, the stars in her yellow eyes sparkling: “Because someone else’s journey is just about to begin – look”

The mare was gesturing down the city wall they were standing on, to which Speaker peeked down… oh…

Roseblack, Wind Dancer and and Denoted Flame were marching out of the gate, leading their one hundred troops. The choir parted ways and cheered, the three unicorns leading their troops to fan out and screen the choir. The doctor made more arcane martial gestures, rearranging the skeletons so that its bone-white column matched the width of the unicorns and their troops, also pushing the skeletons back a bit. This eliminated the numerical advantage of the skeleton horde.

With enough distance to the skeleton line that they didn’t have to immediately raise a shield wall and brace for a charge, the three unicorns pooled their essence for the one thing that unicorns could do that nobody else could: With their essence bound to their blood, they could both bleed together, but it also let them perform special cooperative charms together. Mixing fire essence, corrosive poison essence and air essence that crackled with lightning, the three unleashed a powerful battle-charm that every bandit king and wannabe warlord knew quite well to fear: The dragon vortex attack.

Projecting their combined essence outward, a lightning storm replete with fire and acid rain formed over the skeletons, melting and blasting the skeletons apart left and right. This was the power of the ten thousand scales of the dragonblooded host, if given time to prepare and not having to be only on the defensive. In the first age, such charms brought the demon armies of the primordials to a halt, while sun and moon-touched generals duelled with primordial sub-souls on battlefields that stretched from horizon to horizon.

The elemental vortex absolutely devastated the skeleton horde. The mindless bone automatons, animated by necromancy, had no mind or wherewithal to march around the vortex. The fields south of Thorns were soon painted white, replete with shattered bones and pale dust.

After what seemed like an eternity, Speaker breathed a heavy sigh of relief, feeling the week’s stress and enervation catch up to him. Looking east, he saw the two thornguard units link up, crushing the last of the zombies. To the west Sunrise was singing a hymn that smote the last of the ghosts. Directly to his south, the skeleton column was down to half strength…

“Ah beautiful” the Doctor commented, sipping on a cup of tea, his fez tipped to the side in a quite casual manner.

Speaker looked at the sidereal and shook his head: “Ok, what exactly did you do earlier? How did you make all the enemy troops shuffle around like that?”

“Sidereal martial arts – Scarlet Pattern of Battlefield Style. It focuses on movement, and once mastered you can move others. Now, if I could tempt you to punch me, that would be nice” the Doctor said quite calmly, as if just making small talk.

Confused by the request, Speaker just looked like a giant question mark. The Doctor sighed: “Be kind, just do it - quickly”

With a single hoof, Speaker swiped at the Doctor, seeing the sidereal’s form shatter like glass into a thousand pieces… great, more sidereal martial arts and trickery.

A few seconds later a mare clad in a blue jade armor slammed down on the battlements where the doctor had stood, as if having leapt from a point up in the sky. Had it not been for the fearlessness charm he’d used earlier; Speaker would likely have been frightened senseless. Instead, he looked at the mare and found himself nodding: “Hey, I know you… Iron Siaka right?”

Standing up and pulling her massive maul out, which was quite heavily embedded into the battlements structure, Iron Siaka looked around and groaned: “Damnit, I missed him, didn’t I?”

“Missed who?” Speaker wondered, knowing full well that the sidereal beside him had struck where the Doctor had stood mere seconds earlier.

Giving Speaker an angry look, then looking out what was left of the Mask’s forces: “A pair of rogue sidereals. They stole a special mobile manse a long time ago, run around Creation ‘fixing’ problems. Sounds innocent enough, but Creation needs pain in order for its joy to make sense… nice work on thinning out the mask’s army by the way”

The compliment at the end of her tirade against the Doctor made Speaker smirk: “Thank you – but we’re not quite done yet. Juggernaut is still approaching, and we need to get it away from the city before we can safely do away with it”

“Well… if it was immobile, I might know a way” Iron Siaka mused, looking south to the mountain of rot and flesh that was still approaching slowly.

Speaker looked at the Sidereal: “I might just be able to arrange tha-“ but then a booming voice rolled out over the battlefield like thunder.

The great and terrible visage of the Mask of Winters revealed itself again above and in front of Juggernaut. The difference was that this time the Mask was wearing a mask that was horrible to look at, like a writhing mess of magots and rot, yet clearly displaying a face with metallic fangs and ice-cold uncaring eyes: “You dare!? This defiance is unacceptable! All of Thorns will end for this transgression!”

The furious ranting of the mask continued for some time – but it was clear that it was unhinged, the Mask repeating himself quite a few times, before finally wrapping up his raging tirade: “…and so let this blood monsoon herald the coming of the Rubble Maker, for on this night Thorns will be flattened and shall be no more!”

“Ok that does not bring joy” Iron Siaka commented, as great crimson clouds began to billow out of the palace on top of Juggernaut, quickly spreading across the battlefield and raining blood quite heavily. The smell alone was bad enough, but it also turned the battlefield – already muddy from the earlier thunderstorm and mass of undead stomping over it – into a true quagmire that frankly just made it all the more difficult for the few remaining zombies and skeletons to move around, while Sunrise was using strange Solar path-finding charms to safely and quickly guide her little flock of now blood-soaked singers and dancers away from the remains of the ghosts, back to the city.

Speaker was very inclined to agree with the sidereal: “That’s one way to put it. I’ll be right back”

Igniting his ruby pinions once more, Speaker flew down over the battlefield from the city walls. First he swooped in over the huddled mass of thousands of dancers and singers and announced: “We have won the battle for now, and we are greatly thankful for your service. Please go back inside the city and seek shelter from this blood-rain while we sort out Juggernaut!”

He didn’t have to say it twice, the ponies quickly running back through the southern city gate. Flying over to Sunrise, Speaker checked in with her to make sure that she was ok – she was, even if heavily scarred, and she was quite ready to take the fight to Juggernaut.

“Perfect. I’ll round up the rest of the circle, then we’ll come and pick you up” Speaker said before flying off.

Fire Orchid and Cash were having loads of fun, though Cash readily admitted that actually leading troops had challenged him in a very new way – but he was quite pleased at how it had worked out. Now, Sullen Hoof was nowhere to be found, which was par for the course, and Silverclaws was also gone – though she had last been seen with Sully, so they had probably snuck off together to do something sneaky.

This prompted Speaker to summon a small magical flying cloud. It was a simple little thing that could carry four passengers, picking up Sunrise, Fire Orchid and Cash and then heading towards Juggernaut at speed after Fire Orchid ordered the Thornguard to return to the city and man the city walls to keep everything safe until her return.

“Ok, how did you two flip the Thornguard? The way Silverclaws had described then the Mask and his abyssals had completely stripped them of all goodness and love of their own people…” Speaker wondered as they flew towards Juggernaut, flying around the blood monsoon.

Fire Orchid chuckled: “Oh they were all cold-hearted killers at first – but after I killed the abyssal leading them plus most of their officers, Cash turned their heads inside out”

“Don’t forget the two-hour crying session they had after that. Getting the ability to feel pity and remorse back wasn’t pleasant for them” Cash remarked, sounding as if he had quite the story to tell.

Speaker got the impression that some fun stories would come out of all this, once it was over: “Sounds fun – I had to tussle with a necromancer who summoned a huge warstrider, but she didn’t know how to use its weapon… good sorcerer, lousy swordsmareship”

“Strange. We only had to deal with a single abyssal as well. There should have been more, right?” Fire Orchid noted, appearing to voice the same concern and confusion that Speaker had felt earlier.

Sunrise spoke up: “Sully told me a lot about how the different Deathlords are often loathe to risk their own assets to aid each other. They are rejecting the Barbate Arbiter’s dogma out of a selfish and covetous greed for the favour of their masters. They all want to be the one who brings down Creation – they can’t rationalize working together… even with the Mask trying to arrange that here”

“Lookshyan battle doctrine is quite clear here – never stop your enemy if it’s making a mistake” Fire Orchid noted. Speaker found himself nodding, but at the same time he was worried that the Mask might be doing something they simply hadn’t expected yet.

Cash picked up on Speaker’s worries: “The Barbate arbiter had several layers of safety and failsafe systems at Deep Rot – while we basically just walked into Thorns… you’re right Speaker, I find that all of this has gone far too smoothly so far”

“Let me check in on Sunhill for a moment… hmm… no, nothing to see here” Speaker said, closing his eyes so that his vision could be sent to Sunhill via his hearthstone.

Fire Orchid shrugged, stretching her neck and back: “If the Mask still has any abyssals left, my money is on them being holed up in the palace on top of Juggernaut. He’s already lost too many by having them split up and picked off one by one – if he has any brains, he’ll want to keep them together . if they have any brains, they won’t obey orders to sally out alone. That’s what Sully said he figured after the feast, before he left with Silverclaws to mess with them some more”

“Well, that answers where Sully is” Speaker noted, happy to have gotten that cleared up.

With a deep breath that spoke of her both preparing herself to fight again, but also of a conscious effort to relax herself in this brief bit of downtime, Fire Orchid noted: “He knew he’d had to go to Juggernaut to deal with the thing sooner or later – and his martial arts aren’t really that well suited for large battles… even unicorns have charms to make sure that the soldiers around them aren’t hurt by their anima flux – Sully can’t do that when he has knives, pots and carrots flying around himself”

A few miles or so out from Juggernaut, Speaker looked at the rotting flesh mountain. Even at that distance the thing was just… enormous. Rivers of blood and putrid pus flowed from it, and its many limbs – even if reduced to just bone nubs – still left deep and massive gouges – no, gorges - in the ground as it shambled along.

“So… exactly what is the plan here? Storm the palace on top of it?” Fire Orchid wondered, sounding somewhat non-plussed at the idea fighting a foe too gigantic to be fun to kill.

Cash chuckled: “What, afraid of fighting a foe bigger than yourself?”

“No, I’m more worried it’s so big that it’ll take too long to kill it – it’ll stomp Thorns in what… an hour or two?” Fire Orchid noted, pointing out that their original plan for dealing with juggernaut hadn’t factored in the possibility that the Mask might turn it on the city before they could do away with it.

Nodding, Speaker really wished that Shimmer or Sully was there for their charms of vision enhancement: “We don’t have to kill it – just stop it from moving. I met another sidereal back in Thorns before I went to pick you all up – remember Iron Siaka? She can move Juggernaut, if we render it immobile”

“If we… make so that it can’t move, then she can move it? That… that sounds like something a sidereal would say alright” Cash commented, sounding amused by the proposition.

Speaker explained how immobilizing Juggernaut would only require messing with its many legs – and not even all of them – just enough that it couldn’t move. Fire Orchid seemed to like this much more focused plan, but she did ask a good question: “Can we trust this Iron Siaka to actually do this? If we leave Juggernaut stranded just outside the city it’ll give the Mask a really good position to blast the city to bits”

“All the more reason to do this quickly before it gets too close – Speaker, mark us some targets” Sunrise pointed out, looking towards the massive sagging cliff-face that was the one of the few dozen remaining feet of Juggernaut.

At one of juggernaut’s toes, a gigantic object in its own right the size of a large multi-storied house, Speaker guided the flying cloud in closer to an open wound near the toenail so big you could probably fit a big gate into the bleeding gap.

The toenail was well over four or five yards thick, and looked like the toughest of organic armor plating – it also looked sick, infected, with much of its surface fouled by thick fungal growths that seemed to be eating into the flesh of the gigantic creature. The open wound was a spot where it looked like Juggernaut’s toe had grazed up against something hard with the fungus-weakened parts of its skin, causing a ‘tiny’ scrape.

“Speaker… I love you and all, but why aren’t we just swinging around to the thing’s heel and slicing at it to cut its hamstrings?” Cash said, not at all liking the bloody yawning cavern they were approaching.

Fire Orchid playfully swatted Cash over the shoulder with a firm but gentle hoof: “Isn’t it obvious? We’re going to attack the thing from the inside – if we stay out here, we’ll just end up getting spotted and attacked – inside we can hide while doing this”

“I hate how much sense that makes… and that’s with my collar of dawns cleansing. Oh gods… it’ll smell so bad in there, wont it?” Cash whined, his feelings of disgust overpowering his ability to maintain decorum.

Venturing inside Juggernaut, into the toe-cavern, quickly revealed an expansive and uneven little flesh-cave. It also revealed why the cave was bigger on the inside than the little hole to the outside: An enormous maggot, twice the height of even the tallest pony in the Thorns, and thrice the length of one, with a large jawless mouth ringed by flesh-ripping teeth, apparently considered the cave home, feasting on the ever-regenerating and ever-rotting flesh of Juggernaut as it kept trying to grow back around it.

Beneath its pale and translucent flesh, red and purple pulsing veins could be seen, and the maggot seemed quite mindless and content to just continue eating the flesh of the cave wall.

“That… that’s not natural, right?” Fire Orchid said, taking a few steps back as the sight of the hideous creature clearly repulsed her.

Sunrise approached the huge maggot, as it pulsed and writhed to rip another chunk of flesh off the wall: “Obviously not – no doubt something brought into Creation from the underworld. The real question is more why the Mask permits such things to feast on Juggernaut. It must be weakening it…”

That was actually a really good question – and as the circle snuck around the maggot, which quickly seemed either oblivious or simply didn’t care that ponies were sneaking around it, they pondered the conundrum. Fire Orchid posited that it might be a disgusting method by which the Mask kept the Juggernaut under control: “Maybe if Juggernaut becomes too healthy it’ll break whatever strange chains the Mask holds on it”

“That could very well be. Juggernaut normally heals its wounds very quickly, but if constantly being eaten alive all over by untold thousands of these… maybe it just keeps its body too busy with healing minor injuries, for it to heal whatever hooks the Mask has in it for controlling it” Speaker theorized, as they passed several maggots – some smaller, a few larger – in the blood chunnel leading along the inside the Juggernaut’s foot.

Reaching what Speaker identified as a heel bone, the circle quickly identified the massive tendon that reached from the heel up to the lower leg of the many-jointed limb. As they scouted the thing to find a good place to sever the thing, the ‘ground’ around them began to rumble, and the walls of the flesh cave yawned, heaved and moved about.

The foot was moving.

Seeing the tendon they were targeting flex and pull, Speaker spotted where it looked the weakest. It felt weird using his medical charms to target an attack – but he knew it was to save Thorns and stop the Mask for good: “There!”

Sunrise unleashed an ear-rending howl that blew large chunks of the tendon to bits, while Speaker hurled Gift and Homage, both carving deep grooves into the tendon. Cash leapt at the tendon, his shoe-claws out, delivering thunderous blows to the thing. Finally, Fire Orchid in her newly acquired suit of shiny red and golden magical armor leapt at the tendon, and mid-leap she drew from elsewhere a strange yet beautiful blade.

It was a whole foot wide, and four feet long, of gleaming Orichalcum with a large angular tip. It featured a large square hole in the middle of it, the inner rim of the blade containing letters etched into it that spelled out the true name of five ancient gods of war, invoking their power.

The blade blazed with white-hot solar essence as Fire Orchid swung the blade, striking through the weakened sinew with a series of lightning-fast blows that hewed deep at the tough sinew with every slice.

The ‘ground’ instantly shifted as the foot was no longer controllable, the flesh-cave walls expanding and contracting with the new and unpredictable movement of the foot.

“Ok, we need to get out of here – Speaker, what are you doing!?” Sunrise called out, looking around for anything that hinted of a passage of out the ancle.

Working quickly with Homage to burn and cauterize as much as he could, Speaker replied: “I’m making sure they can’t just stitch this back together – this has to remain broken for long enough to work!”

Everyone else looked for a way out, Sunrise spotting a promising maggot tunnel that seemed to lead straight towards the skin. Speaker quickly caught up with everyone else as they walked down the dark tunnel, their glowing caste marks the only light they had.

“Uhm… we have a problem here” Sunrise announced from up in front.

It turned out that the maggot tunnel they were trotting along in still had its maggot in it – and the maggot wasn’t done burrowing out to the surface either.

“Speaker, can you see how far we are from the surface here?” Fire Orchid wondered.

Judging from the type of muscle tissue they were walking in, and how he could just barely make out some other membranes the tunnel was passing through, Speaker guessed that they weren’t far from the outer surface.

“Perfect – everyone get behind me!” Fire Orchid called out, drawing her reaver daiklaive and pointing it at the maggot.

Oh, the stench. Golden solar fire erupted from Fire Orchid’s blade, cooking the maggot and burning it out from the inside as she cut it to pieces. Of course, the foul vapours that came from that had to go somewhere… so the circle got steamed in maggot funk.

Speaker and Sunrise both had elemental immunity charms that inured them to the deluge – and Fire Orchid seemed to tough it out, but Cash puked over and over until he could only dry-heave: “Oh gods it won’t stop… make it stop!”

Using a medical charm to calm Cash’s gag reflex, Speaker watched as Fire Orchid shoved through the steaming husk of the maggot. He could only hear the disgusting squishing noises as she hewed at Juggernaut’s flesh, slicing slabs and ribbons off with every swing and pushing it back. After about ten minutes of that Fire Orchid reported that she had reached the outer layers of thick hide: “It’s not bleeding anymore, but it’s also so tough it barely even cuts”

“Let me have a go – Homage was designed for this” Speaker said, swapping place with the dawn caste solar.

Five minutes and a lot of pushing later, a one yard in diameter ‘plug’ of dry leathery flesh popped out of the side of that particular giant foot’s ancle, letting the four ponies slip out onto a new cloud that Sunrise conjured.

“Right, that worked pretty well – but it’s taking too long. Juggernaut has too many feet, and at this rate we’ll be disabling feet as he’s stomping through Thorns” Fire Orchid pointed out.

Speaker found himself inclined to agree. Juggernaut was not moving fast, especially not for a being its size – and recalled how fast it could run back in first age – but how to do this faster? Thinking for a moment, the solar doctor got a look on his face that told the others that he had an idea, but that he also didn’t quite like it: “We need to attack his spine… but that will put us very close to the palace up on his back”

The rest of the circle understood the risk. Fire Orchid said that she would really have liked if she had gotten the chance to properly familiarize herself with her armor first before getting into that kind of fight, and Cash noted that he really wouldn’t mind a good breather first after having endured the unholy stench of the boiled giant maggot. Sunrise sympathized with her circlemates: “It cannot be helped – but we know what we’re after, so if we move quickly we can be out quickly. For the ponies of Thorns, and for Sunhill!”

Speaker knew that she had used a charm to instil courage and determination in them all – but he didn’t mind.

Flying the cloud upwards quickly began presenting all kinds of challenges: Above the lowest levels of Juggernaut, basically above the feet, fortifications had been built – fortifications that bristled with siege weapons. This meant dodging a lot of ballista bolts, or in Fire Orchid’s case parrying a number of them with her wide blade in order to shield the others.

“Ok are they even trying to hit us, or are they going for a really shitty barrage?” Fire Orchid wondered after swatting aside another ballista bolt.

Cash peered intently at the fortifications built into Juggernaut’s flesh: “They’re crewed by ghosts – and they’re all looking a bit toasty from moving out of the shadowland… that’s probably at least part of why their aim sucks”

Further up, among chimneys and more fortifications, the circle saw what looked like a whole industrial apparatus built into the side of Juggernaut’s enormous thighs. It made sense, in a twisted sort of way: A mobile base with all of the production capacity to arm and armor his undead forces meant never having to split his forces between offensive armies and defensive garrisons. Of course, this also made it a single point of failure for the Mask’s war machine.

“This is great – if we can banish this thing then it’ll wrap up the Mask’s operation in one fell swoop” Cash remarked, sounding reinvigorated by this possible way of completely neutralizing another Deathlord.

This was far easier said than done. As the cloud rose above the bent and crippled legs the circle saw Juggernaut’s torso, and saw how it was very densely fortified. Bristling with mounted ballistae, Sunrise had to fly the cloud close to the surface in order to dodge the sheer volume of carved bone bolts otherwise shot at them. They were simply too high up – if anyone was knocked off, the fall would be quite deadly.

Because of this, Sunrise couldn’t just fly up to Juggernaut’s spine – another route had to be found, and quickly – various signal fires had already been seen being lit, so it wouldn’t be long until the palace would know that someone or something was getting close…

“I… oh I think I have an idea on how to get closer to the spine – but it won’t be a fun route” Speaker said, frantically looking over the landscape and trying to map the flesh-fold canyons onto how he recalled Juggernaut’s anatomy.

Cash groaned, sensing that Speaker’s apprehension was chiefly aimed at him: “Just say it you git”

“Alright then – I’m thinking flying us up Juggernaut’s butt and approaching the spine from the inside” Speaker explained, smiling apologetically.

Cash’s swearing and Fire Orchid’s laughter lasted long enough for both to disappear as the cloud flew into Juggernaut’s dark cavernous poop-chute.

Chapter 39 The Body Hammer

The celestial dragon stylist intimidates the soup, then savages it the elemental fury of all dragons. No soup survives such encounters.

…

Following their battles in Thorns, and in defeating Juggernaut, Cash would pen several books in a vain attempt at trying to put into words just how bad the inside of Juggernaut’s bowels smelled. The funk was beyond death, beyond stink, nose-meltingly fetid to the point that one could only laugh and weep, seeking refuge in madness, drug-use, or leaping into oblivion.

Many a god of melancholic poetry and sad songs, as well as the ghosts of ancient poets, would be consulted in the writing of these books, as Cash would seek council from both high and low in order to put into words the horrors he huffed.

Melodrama aside, flying up Juggernaut’s ass was neither pleasant nor an experience any of the involved would describe as smelling of roses. Speaker couldn’t quite remember if Juggernaut actually ate anything, but he also saw that much of the gargantuan creature’s large intestine seemed quite atrophied and withered – and like everything in Juggernaut, giant maggots were feasting on the soft tissue, racing with Juggernaut’s regenerative powers to maintain the flesh caverns.

Flying around mounds of shit the size of hills, the circle occasionally had to struggle through bits of intestines filled with gas. Well, filled with farts. It made breathing impossible, Cash in particular struggling to not pass out from the lack of breathable air. Getting through to flesh caverns with ‘fresh’ air felt like deliverance from on high – but any gasping for air had to be done quietly, to avoid being spotted or heard by undead patrols.

Fire Orchid had to leap into action quite a few times to carve up zombie patrols quickly, with Cash using his shoes of distance claws to nail ghosts and pull them up to the cloud for interrogation. The information granted from these unwilling informants guided the circle closer to the base Juggernaut’s spine.

“That… is one hell of a bone” Cash remarked, as the circle flew along an exposed section of Juggernaut’s enormous hip bone.

With its dozens of legs, Juggernaut had a very strange bone structure – if any real structure all. It was all supported by primordial magic and tissues unique to Juggernaut’s strange design. It also meant that attacking the base of the spine wouldn’t do – to disable all the legs at once the circle had to find the right spinal vertebrae to assault… on the right spine no less.

“Oh, I don’t like the look of that…” Fire Orchid said, pointing towards what looked like a large dark stone structure poking down through Juggernaut’s hide from the inside of its back.

His attention mostly focused on piloting the magical cloud, Speaker was only able to briefly glance at the strange brickwork: “Looks like the foundation of the Mask’s palace. Those large stone blocks there, the ones locked into that vertebra, they look like they’re supporting the rest of the structure. We’re probably seeing the lowest levels”

“So much for avoiding getting anywhere near the Mask’s palace” Cash said, sounding all kinds of not interested in getting into a fight with the Mask.

So close to the Mask’s palace, it quickly became impossible to avoid detection. Sunrise mitigated part of this via subtle mind control charms that had the ghost patrols arguing among each other, breaking out in fights – but it was clear that the spine was heavily guarded, to the point that it wouldn’t be possible to not have alarms raised.

With that in mind, a much less subtle final approach method was chosen, Speaker blasting their way into the flesh cavern that exposed the connection between the fifth and sixth vertebrae of the fourth spine. Fire Orchid instantly leapt from the cloud and charged the nearest ghost patrol, felling ghosts with every swing.

Speaker continued on the cloud a bit further, seeking out a spot where they could get into the spinal column.

“There, that cave is leaking a river of goop!” Cash pointed out, spotting the gaping mouth of another flesh cavern from which a strange slow-flowing cloudy fluid poured, with several dozen zombies working on scooping the stuff into buckets and pails, hauling it off to who knows where.

Getting close to the flesh-cave, Speaker struggled to put words to exactly what the strange goo-river could be called. It turned out that it wasn’t Juggernaut’s spinal fluid, though why the Mask was tapping and ‘mining’ the stuff… he simply couldn’t fathom why – but it probably wasn’t good.

Cash quickly saw the exposed bit of spine cleared of ghosts, telling the ghosts present an essence enhanced lie that they were all ordered to report to the lower fortifications on the fifth knee of Juggernaut, which would take them hours to reach.

This left the circle to figure out how to best sever Juggernaut’s spine at that junction. Speaker quickly had to admonish Cash: “No! Don’t touch that – we have no idea what kind of spasms or movement you might cause if you touch the exposed spinal nerves – it would reveal that we’re messing with the spine in an instant”

“Well, we have to break it – that’ll reveal us anyway” Cash replied, not really seeing the problem.

Fire Orchid popped her head into the flesh cave, adding: “Cash you twit – he wants to destroy it in one go, not fiddle with it first”

“Right, ok then – what about you, are things clear out there?” Cash said, switching the subject to avoid having to talk any more about what he had done wrong.

The old mare’s wrinkles twisted into a not all that happy expression: “Well… it is clear, but not in a good way”

It turned out that many of the ghosts had run off, and Fire Orchid was certain that reinforcements would show up sooner rather than later, so she had come to the flesh cave to fetch help holding them off. Cash joined her, leaving Speaker and Sunrise to mess with the spine.

Speaker had been carefully examining the exposed spinal nerves, trying to keep the yard-thick cable of braided nerves clear of the ever-oozing spinal fluid that kept trying to cover it – but it had turned out that touching the stuff had some strange magical effects on you: The spinal fluid seemed to powerfully transmit Juggernaut’s wish to move as much as the spinal nerves, meaning that touching the fluid meant that one temporarily lost control of that limb.

Sunrise found that with her much stronger mental defence charms she could resist this effect, allowing the two to work together to expose the spinal nerves. As part of this, Sunrise cautiously gauged the sonic resonance of the large braid of nerves, ultimately letting her use her musical martial arts to obliterate the thing with a mighty shout.

All of Juggernaut instantly slumped as connection to the lower half of the gargantuan monster was lost, a dozen or so limbs crashing limply to the ground.

Speaker worked quickly to follow up the sabotage: Using medical charms, he purged the vertebrae of necrotic essence, restoring them to a semblance of their living glory. The effect was quite pronounced and rapid: They instantly began to regenerate!

Of course, Speaker had anticipated this, and had lodged quite a lot of debris – namely the remains of zombies and their metal tools – into the spinal column, so that when they regenerated the regrowth was snarled and polluted by the rotting zombie flesh and jagged edges of their tools.

“Do you think that’ll be enough to immobilize Juggernaut?” Sunrise wondered, looking on as healthy muscle tissue and membranes sprouted around the healed vertebrae like a flower blossoming.

Nodding his head side to side, Speaker used his medical charms to judge how badly the signals going down the now healed spine were – they weren’t corrupted enough: “Not quite – but I left a few more things inside the spine, watch”

Gift and Homage sprung to life as Speaker willed it, Gift extending its many razor-sharp blades around itself and Homage projecting its cutting edge of heat and force. Both had been left with the zombies and the tools inside the spine… and once activated, they began to zip around cutting everything up into a nice boiling soup of shredded nerves and spinal fluid, before Speaker had them return to him through elsewhere: “That’ll heal again – but now it won’t heal right… they’ll have to remove the entire vertebrae and replace the spinal nerves… and I don’t think they’ll never be able to do that properly, at least not any time soon”

“Impressive my good friend. Now, how about we get out of here?” Sunrise said, nodding respectfully to Speaker’s work.

Agreeing, the two climbed out of the flesh cavern, emerging into another gallery where they found Fire Orchid and Cash resting among mounds of zombies and skeletons on a soft patch of bio-luminescent mushrooms. Calling them over, Speaker had to supress a chuckle at the start contrast of Cash – who looked immaculately clean thanks to his self-cleaning artifact – and Fire Orchid in her armor who looked drenched in gore, her orange coat now more a dark shade of drying blood.

None of them found the idea of busting out via the topside palace good, but both Cash and Fire Orchid seemed well aware that more enemy forces were gathering around them, both from the sides and even from below, so going up honestly seemed to be the only viable option since it at least opened up the option of flying away.

The worst thing about their situation was that conjuring a new cloud… couldn’t be done, which came as quite a nasty surprise to Speaker, as the spell fizzled and sputtered out in his hooves: “Uhm… what?!”

“That did not look… or sound… proper – I trust you shaped the spell correctly?” Sunrise said, the not at all distant sound of scores zombies and skeletons being smacked around by Fire Orchid and Cash getting closer and closer to the flesh-cavern they were in.

Speaker carefully observed Sunrise’s attempt at shaping a magical cloud into being, using essence sight, and he quickly saw how the ambient essence flows in the area seemed to prevent the complex essence patterns from forming: “Oh crap…”

“What is it? Can we counter this?” Sunrise asked, perplexed as she saw the essence patterns she had woven unravel right before her eyes.

Shaking his head, Speaker slumped down: “I haven’t seen effects like this since the first age. The palace up top… it’s like a manse, but it’s really subtle – It’s not drawing power off a demesne like a normal manse, its powered by juggernaut – that’s why we can’t simply feel it like a normal manse. It’s somehow suppressing sorcery! We only made war manses that did that during the primordial war, to defend against yozi reality-warping attacks!”

“Sounds like a great way to secure your fortress against sorcerous attacks” Sunrise noted, looking up at the dark brickwork of the palace foundations.

This meant that an alternate way out had to be found. Going up was still the fastest option – but how? The basement foundation of the palace was at least fifteen or yards up – a bit out of reach of… everyone, and while Speaker’s jumping charm could get him up there, then the smooth stone had nothing to hold on to… and being a manse fortified the stone so that he couldn’t even carve Gift or Homage into the stone to make something to hang on to.

“Cash, what’s the range of our claws when you shoot them?” Fire Orchid wondered, just as an unnatural howl sounded from down a tunnel that connected to the flesh-cave they were in.

Cash looked at his shoes of distant claws, then looked up: “Not that long – about eight or so yards – we’d need just under double that to get up there. Speaker, can’t you use your singing staff to have the stone bricks up there turn into a ladder or staircase for us?”

“No can’t do – a manse shields itself with its essence flows. We wo-“ Speaker said, when he was interrupted by Cash screaming as Fire Orchid tossed the diplomat and business-pony up into the air: “Shoot a claw now!”

It took three more tosses before a very sore Cash managed to get a claw stuck in the stone brickwork of the palace foundation, all the while Sunrise kept the latest wave of undead at bay. Extending his claw chain to its maximum length, and then shooting a claw down to the ground, Speaker quickly climbed up the claw chain, up over Cash, and up the second claw chain to the palace foundations. There he used his deconstruction charm to methodically drive a gap into the manse essence flows, to allow him to open up a hole for them.

With a hole and Cash acting as a living rope-ladder, the circle quickly got up, leaving the furious undead down in the flesh cavern, as their decaying claws and skeletal limbs were unable to grip the chain going up.

Inside the palace, at the very lowest level, the circle’s first priority was catching someone and extracting information to sketch out a map. Cash did them one better, snatching a ghost and mind-controlling it into guiding them up to the outside.

It was a long trek – and it quickly turned into a running battle, with Fire Orchid on point with her great blade to bash aside any undead in their way, and Sunrise and Cash using their charms to mess with the minds of any ghosts they came upon, Speaker pulling up the rear with his singing staff, using the essence fluctuations that his foundation hole had caused – along with the singing staff – to mess even more with the internal structure of the manse simply in order to destabilize it.

Anyone familiar with damaged manses know that essence build-up from disrupted essence could be extremely explosive. The circle certainly left a trail of destruction as they made their way up from the lower levels.

The ghost finally led them to actual honest daylight – oh the glory – except… it wasn’t what the circle had wanted.

Having stormed out, ready to leap off so that they could form a cloud mid-fall to fly away on, the circle hadn’t checked what was behind the gate first, only confirmed the sunlight that was shining in under the gate. It was a fully walled courtyard, and the ghost guide was laughing maniacally… right until Fire Orchid cut it in half, it giggling madly as it disintegrated into ectoplasmic splatter.

The gate slamming shut behind them didn’t help.

“Alright, shit – Speaker, can you see if we’re near the outer walls of the palace or not?” Fire Orchid said, as she circled around trying to spot all the enemies around them up on the walls, not at all liking what she saw: The walls around the courtyard were lined with skeleton archers, zombie soldiers and war ghosts. This was so very much a trap.

Opposite the circle, a steel banded gate of pale timber swung out as ghost slaves from within pushed them open. A pony clad in heavy soulsteel armor stepped out, with every plate featuring a tortured face trying to push its way out over great spikes that covered the armor, dragging a dirty great spiked chain. With a clear and stern voice, and a local Thornese accent, the mare called out “What pathetic god will you pray to, before I kill you?”

The circle took one look at the abyssal… and laughed.

The deathknight did not appear to have expected that kind of reaction, but remained stoic as he approached the circle, a host of war ghosts trailing after him: “Do you seek refuge in madness? I can understand that… allow me to prove your fears right”

Nope – the circle was still chuckling at her.

Perplexed and quite insulted, the abyssal reared up and flared her black anima: Her armor gushed with blood that sprayed out and formed a bloody mandala in the air around her, as the armor faded into some kind of transparent ghost metal. Spinning around and likely using essence to speed up the chain, the abyssal launched a whip-like attack with the spiked chain, a skull of some kind with glowing eyes fitted around the end-piece of the chain coming right at the circle.

The chain bounced harmlessly off Speaker’s shield charms. Looking at the abyssal, Speaker raised the abyssal mare a single eyebrow: “Do you mind? We were having a discussion?”

Sunrise briefly flared her anima as she shaped up a quick messenger spell, but frowned as it fizzled: “Damnit…”

“I told you – the palace is clearly suppressing sorcery” Speaker said to Sunrise.

The two nodding at each other in silent agreement that this place clearly had some strange arcane trickery going on, everyone finally turned to face the deathknight who suddenly found that she really did NOT like how her opponents were looking at her…

Seeing the abyssal stop in her track and even start to backpedal a bit, it just made it funnier. Sunrise stepped forth, standing glorious and resplendent in her white robes – bloodstained and soiled as they were from the sojourn inside Juggernaut: “I would know your title young one”

“Young one? You’re the young one! What are you talking about!?” The abyssal mare angrily shouted back, though her continued backpedalling spoke volumes of her fear in the face of the young mare before her.

Her eyes briefly flashing golden, and her caste mark lit up: “We can see your essence. Yours is very weak. It can’t be more than a few days since you exalted. Now, your title please”

“I… I am the Arbiter of Bloodstained Veils that Sees Endless Torment Tome to the Foes of Darkness! And you will surrender yourselves or die!” The abyssal mare stated, catching her breath, her now ghostly armor clattering and shifting as if it had a mind of its own as she dug in her hooves and forced herself not to step back any further.

Sunrise nodded, drawing back her hood and revealing her beautiful features and lush orange mane and putting on a kind and understanding smile: “Good. We can help you Arbiter. Your bravery and resolve in the face of us speaks well of you – we can help you redeem yourself and cleanse your black exaltation. We have helped many others like you, who have broken away from their deathlord masters. Chose life – the alternative is not pleasant”

“I… no… I’m not…” the abyssal said, clearly wavering in the face of the mind-altering charms Sunrise were blasting at her, drilling doubt into her mind.

Reaching out gently with a hoof, Sunrise smiled as she sensed that her social charms were quickly and efficiently breaking down the abyssal’s resolve but also building up her desire to live and be free. She could see it in the Arbiter’s eyes – there was a connection: “Show us a way out of here and you can come with us. Nobody has t-“

The absolutely massive blade suddenly thrust through the Arbiter, from her back, through her armored chest, digging into the grey cobble, came out of nowhere. The Arbiter only managed to give Sunrise a single pained look before her soul was sucked into the soulsteel edge of the weapon, her eyes instantly losing their color and life, her body going limp.

“I do hate it when my minions turn traitor” sounded the rumbling and monstrous voice of the Mask of Winters, as he stepped out of the gate behind the corpse of the arbiter.

Pulling his absolutely huge blade out of the dead abyssal, though the enormous size of the dark lord of Juggernaut made it look oddly well-proportioned as a single-hoofed blade.

The Mask of Winters stood at least four yards tall from hoof to head, with a physical bulk to match, clad in black robes replete in in crimson embroidery that spelled out strange and arcane secrets written in old realm. His icy mask was absolutely terrifying to look at, horrifying far beyond what its mere physical appearance should permit: “You four have set me back decades! I will have to spend at least that much time figuring out fitting ways to torture you all!”

Now, such dire threats, from such a towering foe, would have sent the common pony into a fit of absolute terror. The circle… this wasn’t their first dance.

“Fire Orchid, throw me” Sunrise quietly said, having shaped up another spell – a sphere of iridescent blue that she was wrapping around her hooves, whatever it was.

With a swift spinning move, Fire Orchid grabbed Sunrise and hurled her at the Mask.

Now, with the Mask – because of his mask – it was not possible to see where he was looking, but he appeared to track Sunrise as she sailed through the air to him. He also appeared to spot her hooves glowing with bright blue light, and upon seeing that he screeched and leapt high into the air, revealing limbs with a pale coat and bone-white hooves under his robes.

Sunrise could only follow the ballistic arc she was on, sending her right into the large group of warghosts that had followed the Arbiter into the courtyard. The seemed to spread out, letting her land among them – but in doing so, as her hooves landed on the cobble, the blue light on her hooves exploded outwards, enveloping all the warghosts and making them fade into nothing – for her ghost-banishing spell was quite potent.

Speaker briefly found himself a bit confused – wasn’t sorcery being suppressed by the palace manse? “Sunrise, how?”

“They’re only blocking emerald circle sorcery!” Sunrise called out, before having to leap and dodge as the Mask came down again.

So… only low level sorcery was blocked. Made sense if Juggernaut was built to primarily withstand attack from unicorns. Warstrider time? No… a place like this was like quite god-forsaken, and Speaker needed enough lesser gods within reach to do that.

“Fire, Cash, find us a way out of here – break some walls, make us a hole!” Speaker said, as he advanced towards the Mask to stall for time.

The towering dark lord, his mask of terror so horrible to look at that it would curdle the blood of lesser mortals, floated his grand soulsteel daiklaive as if it was a nimble sabre: “Foolish pony – do you think you can defeat me?”

“I defeated Rakshi… I defeated the Barbate Arbiter – you’re nothing new” Speaker said, the charm that rendered him fearless giving him great clarity of mind.

While the Mask of Winters were many things, then stupid was not one of them. He instantly recognized that intimidating Speaker wouldn’t work, so he drew his blade up into a posture that allowed for both offense and defence – of course, that didn’t mean that he gave up on the mind games, just that he changed his approach slightly, speaking with a booming and menacing voice that shook the very ground he stood on: “So you have defeated fools and wastrels – I actually produce results… I wield true power! Fear me, and submit or die”

Recalling Gift and Homage, Speaker shook his head: “You wield power granted to you by your masters, the neverborn. Without them, you would only be a bitter and resentful solar ghost. I will not fear you; I pity you – and I offer you peace”

“You dare talk back me? Die!” The Mask snarled, his unmoving face mask not in any way hiding the anger that his voice betrayed. Raising a bony hoof and making a single imperious gesture in Speaker’s direction, invisible essence radiated out from the hoof. Nothing seemed to happen, for a moment, but then a veritable forest of razor-sharp bone spines erupted from the coble in Speaker’s direction, fanning out and also catching Cash – who effortlessly dodged the spines – and Fire Orchid who let the spines bounce harmlessly off her armor. For Speaker, he stood his ground, letting the spines break on his essence shields: “Aww that’s cute”

The Mask did not respond with words at first, instead directing his massive blade to swing at Speaker with great force: “Frigid Razor, end this puke!”

Bringing up Gift and Homage in defence, Speaker weathered one soul-crushing blow after the other, until the ice-cold blade managed to pummel a gap in his defences and cut a gash through his essence shields, touching Speaker with the chill of the grave and leeching no small amount of essence from him: “Did you really think you sneak in here and attack me without me knowing?!”

Quickly using his anaesthetic charm on himself, Speaker struggled to bring his weapons up again to re-establish his defences. Thousand-wounds gear style was good for a lot of things, but it wasn’t all that good in melee defence, preferring to deal with foes at distance: “We didn’t come up here to attack you – we were leaving”

“You didn’t? Then… then you were doing things to Juggernaut! Turner, where are you!?” The Mask roared, taking a large step back as he had the war ghosts behind him surge forward to engage Speaker.

Speaker didn’t mind switching up who he was fighting again – and ghosts meant ghost-eating – no, what he was more worried about was this ‘Turner’, whoever that was.

Up on the battlements above the courtyard a bombastically dressed abyssal revealed himself, loudly announcing himself – even though his colorful outfit spoke volumes on its own: “The Turner Rending Acidic Incitement to Old Regimes reporting for duty my lord!” while a big old heavily scarred brown bear replete in moonsilver tattoos trundled up next to the deathnight, its fangs bared and its claws long and cruel, its fur matted in crusty blood.

Wait… that title. Speaker had to do a double take. That title… and a lunar? No, could it be? The Mask turned to look at the abyssal: “Track down where they came from – they probably sabotaged Juggernaut!”

Turner, clad in a torn but oddly flashy coat, while wearing a bandolier on which a dozen vials filled with ominous looking liquids – some glowing, some appearing to suck in light – nodded, but then craned his neck a bit at his master: “We can do that later – right now we need to find the rest of them. They are only four here, and we saw that they are six in total, remember?”

“What? Where is the rest of your circle you little shit!” The Mask bellowed, turning to Speaker and once more glaring at him through his dread mask.

Speaker could only shrug as he cut down a few more war ghosts and sucked in their essence: “They’re exactly where they’re supposed to be”

A distant explosion rocked the palace, the Mask instantly turning to look in its direction. Grabbing a nearby ghost and somehow turning it into a spectral eye connected to a long cord in an instant, then flinging it high into the air, the Mask howled: “No! The control tower! Turner, you and your pet deal with these fools – I have to see the damages!”

“That’s going to be a problem my lord…” Turner replied, his voice haughty and arrogant as he petted the large murder-bear next to him, staying quite put.

The Mask seemed unsure where to look – whether to angrily glare at Speaker, or to shoot Turner a vitriolic glare for his insubordination. Of course, the Mask of winters had two masks… so by drawing back the hood of his dark robes he revealed that his mask had two faces, letting him look in two directions at once, somehow: “Explain yourself!”

“You never questioned, when a powerful abyssal showed up out of nowhere, pledging you loyalty? You were so desperate for good minions… honestly, this was too easy” Turner proclaimed, his form shimmering as his illusory disguise started to fade: A black coat became brown and cream, his lush crimson tail faded into a short-cropped pink one, and his face only got uglier, right up until a golden helmet materialized around his head.

Turning both masks at the revealed solar, the Mask shrieked “You!” and launched Frigid Whisper at Sullen Hoof, but the enormous blade was expertly dodged as it instead cleaved a huge section of stone wall.

Galloping down the length of the Mask’s grand dailklaive, Sully threw aside most of his disguise, though the vials with various strange liquids seemed quite legit, even more so as Sully tossed many of the vials at the Mask. The Mask was just too big to dodge, so the vials exploded in colorful puffs of smoke that seemed to either hurt or at least distract the Mask greatly.

While Sully did all that, the bear lunar rippled and melted into moonsilver, turning into Silverclaws who quickly jumped down and started to run around the Mask at essence-fuelled speed. Speaker was too busy fighting off the last dozen war ghosts to see that she was trailing salt from her saddlebags.

The Mask roared and swung at Sully with Frigid Whisper, the icy blade trailing snow in the air as it froze the ambient moisture. Dissolving into shadows, Sullen Hoof proved to be a very difficult target to hit, and moments later the Mask found that he had very little room to swing his weapon about, let alone move… because Silverclaws had encircled him in salt: “That’s for Thorns!”

Striking down the last of the war ghosts, Speaker finally managed to look up and respond to Sully’s surprise return: “You been having fun here?”

“Managed to convince most of the rest of the Mask’s abyssals to jump ship – had him think I was the only true loyalist he had left” Sully proudly stated, his voice fully back to normal.

The Mask pounded on the mystic barrier that the ring of salt around him projected, howling with impotent fury: “Minions! At-“

At first Speaker thought that Sunrise had used her silence charm, but he found that he could talk himself – despite the Mask clearly having been silenced. Looking around, he saw Sunrise looking suspiciously as if she had just flung a spell at the Mask. Looking at her with inquisitive eyes, she quickly explained: “Can’t you feel it? After the distant explosion the spell-jamming effect is down. This manse is broken. I cast my cone of silence spell on the salt ring – nobody outside can hear the Mask, so he can’t call his minions over to break the salt ring!”

“Brilliant – but wait, that means we can conjure a cloud!” Speaker said, realizing mid-sentence that they now had a quick way out.

Speaker quickly began to shape up a flying cloud. Fire Orchid and Cash came up to him and Sunrise. Silverclaws was beaming with pride: “Oh this was so much fun! I got to maul so many abyssals and zombies! This will be such a great story to tell at the next silver pact meetup”

With the courtyard strewn with butchered zombies, the bubbling ectoplasmic remains of war ghosts, the circle mounted up on Speaker’s cloud – Silverclaws assuming the form of a large raiton, the smarter and larger cousins of ravens so she wouldn’t take up space, and Sully simply leaping high into the air towards Thorns, as the cloud could only seat four ponies, and Sunrise, Speaker, Fire Orchid and Cash did that already.

Speaker couldn’t express how relieved he was of getting away from that horrible place enough. His deep wound from the Mask’s grim blade helped sell this message quite well – but Cash had a far more curious observation: “Speaker, you said that Iron Siaka would move Juggernaut… look!”

It turned out that Juggernaut had already been moved quite a distance away from Thorns – yet the circle hadn’t felt a thing. Speaker had to struggle to actually see that it had moved… no… it was still moving – bloody hell! What kind of Sidereal dickery was this?

“What do you mean still moving?” Fire Orchid wondered, only taking short peeks down over the cloud because… great heights.

Shrugging, Speaker could only describe what he had observed: “It’s still moving, like a floating island in a stream… except it’s like its flowing through the landscape”

“Damn… last time I saw things switch around like that, was back in my youth when I had eaten some really fun mushrooms while out on a field op… my commanding officer was so pissed” Fire Orchid mused, idly picking bits of zombie gore of her armor.

Shaking his head at the casual mention of youthful drug-use, not because he disapproved but because he had done the exact same thing back during a few particularly memorable field trips while in medical school when he had to learn the properties of various medical herbs, mushrooms and frog poisons, Speaker shook off a chuckle: “Sounds about right – but Fire Orchid, when we get back to Sunhill, I want you to drop off your new armor at my workshop. It might have protected you well, but it’s still clearly broken and not working right. The field repairs I made on it before you put it on aren’t going to hold for much longer”

“Wait, we’re not going home just yet, right? We’ve got a yeddim parked outside of town to pick up, and it’s loaded with salt we need to distribute here first” Cash said.

Flying them to the farm where the yeddim was located, the circle found it devoid of pony life. The livestock was still locked in their pens, looking rather hungry and not fed for days – Sunrise and Sully tended to that – Cash fetching the yeddim, while Speaker found signs of ghosts and zombies having raided the farm and dragged off the poor folks who had lived there. There were no bodies to be found… likely new ‘recruits’ added to the Mask’s zombie forces, and not very long ago.

It was a sombre reminder for the circle that the lands of Thorns would take a long time heal, and that ponies were still getting hurt.

Returning to Thorns on the yeddim, which took no time at all, Cash guided the enormous flying beast of burden to circle around Juggernat – which was now located several miles from the city - to ring it with salt.

“Perfect, now we just need to find Shimmer, get the malfean ceramics, I’ll crank out the model and you can cast the spell overnight” Speaker said to Sunrise, her nodding in return.

Fire Orchid was quick to comment: “We need that fire-aspected hothead of a unicorn to help along too – the model has to be burned with magic fire all night”

“True… its either that or wrangling up a local fire elemental – and I don’t think there are that many of those around here” Speaker acknowledged, as he began casting a messenger spell aimed at Shimmer.

Chapter 40 Abandoned Elsewhere

The glorious dust stylist spins around at great speed, splashing all around him with soup - yet he eats comfortably.

…

Returning to Thorn, the circle drew quite a lot of amazed looks, as the flying yeddim trailing golden essence lit up the dead of night. Shimmer was waiting on the south-eastern city walls with her anima lit like a silver beacon, still woozy from her injuries – and Speaker dearly wanted to tend to her, but she understood the urgency of the situation, so she simply tossed the bag of malfean porcelain and shouted: “We can play doctor later!”

Finding Roseblack, her grandfather and Denoted Flame wasn’t difficult either – as they had ascended the southern city walls overseeing the southern gate into the city, hunkered down with their troops in anticipation of either victory or another undead siege.

It was not difficult talking Denny into coming along to help banish Juggernaut. Not surprisingly, Roseblack and Wind Dancer wanted in on that too, even if they couldn’t do much beyond standing guard: “We’re not missing out on this!”

“I’ll be honest – there’s not much to see… it’s just a really long bonfire, then Sunrise cast’s the spell and then Juggernaut will be gone” Speaker mused, not wanting Roseblack or Wind Dancer to get bored and potentially interrupt the ritual incineration.

That didn’t seem to matter. Neither Roseblack or her grandfather wanted to miss out on the bane of Thorns getting whisked away by sorcery – they knew this would be a grand occasion.

Thus, the porcelain miniature was presented, Speaker having effortlessly spun the shards of Malfean ceramics with essence into a model of juggernaut so perfect that it was quite eerie. Denny felt bad having to burn it, but he did it for Thorns, assuming a meditative stance next to it and wrapping it in fire essence that saw the ceramic model begin to heat up.

“You know… ceramics with that kind of emerald sheen…. I think I’ve seen some of that at your aunt What’s-her name… the one with the funny looking spear?” Wind Dancer commented to Roseblack.

The unicorn general groaned: “You’re kidding right? You realize what kind of scandal it would be if aunt Firin got caught with demonic contraband like that?”

Wind Dancer gestured for calm: “No, it’s on her trophy rack – makes sense now… she said she took it from a demon worshiping cult that had orchestrated an uprising she’d quashed eighty years ago”

The night progressed with a very controlled burn of the porcelain miniature, it collapsing bit by bit into white-hot cinders as Denoted Flame revealed that he was quite good at meditating on slow burns, a testament to his self-discipline.

“A fire-aspected unicorn who knows how to pace himself? Now I’ve seen that too” Fire Orchid chuckled, jostling the sausage on a stick she was holding over the toasty unicorn’s horn.

It had taken a bit of very careful experimentation to find out whether the burning demonic ceramics gave off anything dangerous to the food Sully had originally started roasting over the fire, but nothing detrimental had been detected by the martial culinarian. Of course, such peaceful experimentation and discussion wasn’t the only things that happened during the night, as three separate hit and run attacks from deathknights briefly demanded the attention from the circle.

Luckily only one of those attacked near Denny, and the unicorn managed to maintain his focus to keep the careful incineration going while the others fought a brief but bloody battle outside the walls.

Once the last of the zombie zappers that the last deathknight had brought along were dealt with, the circle returned to their quiet vigil.

“Say, Sully – where did you get this sausage from? It’s quite good” Sunrise wondered, enjoying her meal of not-quite-campfire-roasted veg and sausage.

Sullen Hoof tipped his jingasa straw hat up, his golden helmet somehow not preventing him from eating at all: “Same place I’ve gotten most of our food – the autocrat’s palace, only now I don’t have to sneak in and steal it”

“Wait, so that’s why Roseblack had to take a couple dozen soldiers to oversee food distribution from the palace larders? Poor girl needs to sleep at some point you know” Wind Dancer said, perking up a very bushy if not downright cloudy eyebrow.

Denoted Flame calmly chimed in, his fire never wavering on the half-incinerated ceramic miniature: “And here I thought I was the one meant to play sheriff”

“We can always poke fun at my granddaughter later, that she finally found her true calling as a mare managing a big kitchen” Wind Dancer joked, laughing heartily.

Fire Orchid chuckled along: “Good one – but has she always wanted to be a general?”

“Oh, heavens yes. We couldn’t keep her out of the House of Bells if we had wanted to – she’s wanted to be the finest officer that house Tepet has seen since… well… me. That’s why I tagged along with her to Cripple Creek and her detour here. Didn’t want to see any more of my grandchildren buried before I get my turn for a dirt nap” Wind Dancer remarked, sounding both protective but also proud of Roseblack.

It thus became Cash’s turn to raise an eyebrow: “But her coming here isn’t why you think she’d get killed, is it?”

Wind Dancer gave Cash a look that told the solar diplomancer far more than he could have with words, something that the old unicorn first picked up on a second or so later: “You aren’t easy keeping secrets from, are you?”

“Best way to do that is making sure its stuff he doesn’t want to know – then he’ll turn off the charms that let him detect unsaid things” Sullen Hoof commented in a way that clearly communicated to everyone that that’s what he’d been doing.

Giving Sully a look as if not quite sure if he was for real, then looking back at Cash who seemed to be pleased as punch, Wind Dancer haw’d and hmmm’d a bit, before saying: “So if I don’t mention what I got for my hundred- and fifty-year’s birthday he’ll stop looking into my memories?”

Cash suddenly made a retching sound, despite not having eaten another for a minute or so, as he choked on the unspoken nugget of information that Wind Dancer had circuitously remarked upon, relating to a certain set of the triplets who had graced Wind Dancer’s bed on said birthday and what Him and they had done together that long evening.

Everyone else – sans Denny who maintained his fiery focus – laughed.

“There we go – but Lord Cash was right: I never expected our sojourn here to Thorns to get truly dangerous. Of course, we had only planned on a recon mission, not seeing the whole place liberated in one go. This was meant to probe their forces to see if it would make sense to divert the Vermillion Legion from Cripple Creek to here. No, my fears for Roseblack’s life relates to her political ambitions” Wind Dancer elaborated, casually adding that she had ambitions for the imperial throne.

Fire Orchid found this rather interesting: “Really? Does she have the backing of all of house Tepet for a bid at the throne?”

Wind Dancer frowned: “House Tepet doesn’t have much influence or power ever since I lost all its legions at the battle of futile blood. Roseblack hasn’t made any public bid for the throne yet, but the instant she does she will have a massive target on her back – and while she has done an admirable job shaping up the vermillion legion… and she has never done anything in politics, so I fear that she is in for a shock there”

Cash, having finished retching and dry-heaving, joined the conversation again: “Well, Roseblack commands the vermillion legion, like you said – that has to count for something – and you never answered if she has the support of your house”

The old unicorn threw Cash a tired look and explained that with house Tepet’s small size and general lack of military might, then support from the house didn’t really count for much: “If I give my public support, she should be able to rally the the support of the five elder Tepet families – but it simply doesn’t count for much right now when Sesus and Cathak generals can throw around legions by the dozen, while we can’t anymore”

“So, her bid for throne is a pipe-dream?” Fire Orchid said, her voice cautious and clearly communicating that she understood that such a question was probably a bit uncomfortable to answer.

Denny chimed in, laughing: “Oh heavens no – I wouldn’t be here if she was that badly off. Roseblack represents a large minority of young unicorns who hate how corrupt, ossified and useless the empire has become. She wants reform, and there are a lot of us backing her… but secretly. Hell, what she’s doing with the vermillion legion is a perfect example of how she’s able to bring ponies together!”

Apparently, the vermillion legion, prior to Roseblack being assigned command to it by a political rival that had wanted to get rid of her, had been known as “the piss red legion” – reflecting the quality of its troops, their discipline, their equipment and the legion’s leadership. Denny told with wonderment in his eyes of how Roseblack had brought the legion up to code: “Stern but fair treatment got her the loyalty of her troops – as opposed to the unicorns who consider actually talking to commoners and conscripts to be an insult to their honor. Sure, we had to do a little house-cleaning with the officers, since a lot of them weren’t all that keen on actually treating the troops as ponies worthy of their time or really doing their jobs, but once that was over Roseblack did an amazing job of shaping up the legion, and ponies on the blessed isle who matter know this”

Denny kept on praising Roseblack’s seemingly revolutionary leadership style and firm anti-corruption stance, all the while keeping his magical flames slowly burning the ceramic figure. It seemed that the young unicorn had nothing but praise for his commander. Something he emphasized was the loyalty she had earned through hard work – not simply through nepotism or other underhanded means. This meant that the vermillion legion was led by unicorns from across the realm, from every major and minor house, all of them fed up with the idiocy and corruption that was otherwise rife in the realm. This gave the Roseblack a lot of reach and connections, for when the time was right to make her bid for the throne.

The circle, Denny and Wind Dancer spoke throughout the rest night of the intricacies of realm politics, only interrupted a few times by dark lightning in the sky from Juggernaut – or some other explosion on the now distant meat mountain. It seemed that Sully had left behind quite a few ‘gifts’ and other fun surprises for the deathlord to stumble upon during the night.

Come the first rays of morning, Sunrise finally cast her spell, pressing Juggernaut and the surrounding farmland it sat on beyond space and time. It was a strange and mystical sight, as flames of shadow consumed the entire area, leaving nothing behind – to the point that the surrounding lands simply shifted and rearranged as the shadow flames burned, as if the spot where Juggernaut has sat had never existed.

From across the city a roar sounded – cheers from every soul that had eyes to see, for while many in the city had not yet dared to hope or feel liberated, with Juggernaut still looming outside their gates, then this was undeniable.

“Wait… was that it?” Denny said, sounding quite incredulous as he looked at the others around him in confusion.

Fire Orchid nodded slowly, smiling as a great sense of elation washed over her: “I think it is – now we just have to handle turning the city over to you lot, then we’ll go home”

That was when fire and lightning lit up from juggernaut, illuminating great streams of blood flowing up into the air over the rotting flesh mountain to form some kind of eldritch symbol.

Sullen Hoof quickly appeared next to Speaker, shouting: “The shadow flames have stopped – Speaker, what am I looking at?”

Trying to look at Juggernaut with essence sight was tricky – there was so much necrotic essence already going around the place, so making out the distant essence patterns of this new strange icon of blood, was very difficult: “I have no clue – but if it’s stopping the shadow flames we have to end it! Let’s go!”

Leaping from the battlements, Speaker ignited his ruby pinions and flew at speed towards Juggernaut. Sully joined him moments later, using his mountain leap technique to cross the couple of miles to Juggernaut in a single massive leap, the two sailing through the air together – even if by different means.

It took a few minutes to get to Juggernaut, but this much closer and up in the air it was clear that the strange blood glyph above the black citadel was being continually fed quite a lot of blood and necrotic essence from within the decaying flesh mountain.

“Sully, where did you aim to land?” Speaker called out, as they approached.

The gold-masked pony singly gestured at the black citadel: “I aimed at the castle – once there we can find the source of the spell. You should turn off your wings and drop to the castle, otherwise they’ll see you on approach”

Speaker nodded. He didn’t have the same kind of vision-enhancing charms as Sully did, so his ability to see at night was quite limited, though with essence sight he could see in a different way, and thus he dove up and realigned his flight path, before turning off his ruby pinions.

Falling through the air towards the dread palace, Speaker detected a lot of faint essence reaching out in his direction – tracking spells and other attempts at targeting him and Sully, no doubt initiated by the undead defences of the palace having spotted Speaker’s flaming wings from far off. Luckily none of them were able to detect Speaker as his wings were off.

Near the palace, Speaker relit his wings, allowing him to avoid crashing into a castle wall, while Sully just landed on the wall and ran along it, essence making his hooves stick to the vertical surface.

Flying past countless ballistae and other defensive fortification, zombie archers lining every battlement, Speaker sought out the source of the spell hindering the shadow flame.

It wasn’t difficult: The tallest spire of the palace had all the lightning and blood coursing from it, up to the sanguine icon. Getting there was a bit trickier, as the zombies and ballistae were not slow to start shooting at Speaker – but luckily Cash snuck along, sabotaging ballistae and tricking zombies to look elsewhere, so not all of them were shooting at the solar healer.

Reaching the spire, Speaker first used his singing staff to thoroughly mess with the tower’s stone bricks, so that the stone pipes leading blood up were cut off at multiple points. The roar of undead rage from the top of the spire told the two solars everything they needed to know about what kind of effect that had had – but Speaker also quickly saw how the very bricks he had liquified and remade to block the pipes were being forced back into place and shape by dark sorcery…

“Shit, Sully – this won’t hold for long. We have to distract him long enough to make this hold!” Speaker cried out, as he felt his singing staff’s hold over the stonework slipping.

Sully sighed. He had clearly hoped that they could just sabotage a few things and then slip away in the night, like the elevator chains he had already severed so that no more zombie archers or siege weapons could get up to the top of the tower. A direct confrontation was so much riskier… but he followed Speaker up the spire, to the parapet where several dozen chanting ghosts each guided a stream of blood and necrotic essence skywards, led by The Mask of Winters.

“Mask – this ends h-“ Speaker began, but was interrupted quite forcefully as the Mask directed a massive tide of blood at him, all the while the few ballistae that had been moved up to the spire started to be turned to point in Speaker’s direction by their zombie crews and ghostly artillery officers.

Having effortlessly dodged the wave of blood, Sully leapt to the chanting ghosts, carving them up as quickly as he could. This instantly got the attention of the Mask, who managed to grab the streams of blood the slain ghosts had been guiding, merging them into the greater stream he was helming: “Damn you!”

Sully quickly found himself chased by the Mask’s seemingly sentient blade, as it zipped through the air to dog him at his every step – not that that stopped him from cutting down more ghosts, all of which seemed mindlessly focused on channelling whatever strange spell they were working on.

Speaker finally managed to get up and reorient himself from the tide of blood that had taken him. Even with his elemental immunity charm, he had still been knocked around and flushed down from the spire – but his wings of flame got him up again in no time, to aid Sully and distract the Mask more directly.

Throwing his twin orichalcum gyroscopic chakrams at the Mask, Speaker instantly got the deathlord’s attention away from Sully – he even made the Mask miss as the eldritch ghost reached for another couple of faltering blood streams no longer controlled by now destroyed chanting ghosts, which quickly made the blood icon up above shrink noticeably as the streams ceased.

“You insufferable pest!” the Mask roared, his very mask seeming to crack ever so slightly from the pressure of the fury welling up inside, as his soulsteel armor screamed with the voice of children after Gift and Homage had bounced off it.

As Speaker and the Mask did battle, Sully finished off the rest of the chanting ghosts and moved on to ghost and zombie crews manning the ballistae – Speaker making his gyroscopic chakrams bash and push the Mask around, so that more and more blood streams were dropped. Once the last chanting ghost’s sickly voice had fully faded, and the ballistae stood without crews, Sully looked to the river of blood streaming up to the tower… he knew that they couldn’t mess with the tower itself, but Sully had made ice-cream for the grand feast earlier that day… so he knew that his cooking charms could freeze liquids just fine.

Having learned the hard way during his last fight with the Mask, that the Mask’s dread blade could cut through even his essence shields, Speaker took great care to avoid getting hit. Wielding both Gift and Homage as shields, Speaker changed his fighting game into a defensive one – not that this meant that he wasn’t attacking either: The Mask only had one giant dread blade, while Speaker had two weapons, so if one was parrying, the other would be flung to batter the Mask around and disrupt his spellcasting.

Blows were traded back and forth like this for a few tense minutes – an eternity for one-on-one combat – but it seemed clear that the two opponents were eerily well matched, at least insofar that Speaker did not give the Mask time to cast any kind of advance sorcery or necromancer, while Speaker’s weapons couldn’t quite punch through the Mask’s thick soulsteel armor.

Of course, Speaker knew quite well that he didn’t need to defeat the Mask. He hadn’t needed to defeat the Barbate Arbiter either – he just had to stall for long enough… oh… there we go.

The Mask almost didn’t notice when the vertical bloodflow from the tower, about two thirds of it going up through the grasp of his armored hoof with the rest spilling on the tower floor, stopped. There was a slight gurgling from the drain, and then nothing. The Mask’s masks seemed to spin around his head, as he couldn’t quite settle on what kind of mood he was to present: “What is this!?”

A rather bloodsoaked Sullen Hoof jumped up from the circular opening in the stone floor that no longer flowed with blood: “We’re done here Speaker – exit!”

Feeling endlessly relieved, Speaker leapt back to distance himself from the Mask – not that the deathlord seemed all that keen on relenting, especially now that he was all the more enraged.

The arcane blood sigil high in the sky above them finally started to fail, blood raining and splashing down onto all of Juggernaut and the umbral palace, all of which Sully dodged expertly as he darted to the nearest ballista and heaved – moving it to aim at the mask. It wasn’t exactly a carefully aimed shot, but the mask was a very large target, and Sully wasn’t aiming to kill, but to pin.

As Speaker was leaping towards the of the tower, the loud thunk of a steel-tipped ballista bolt that struck the stone and buried itself almost went by un-noticed, at least until the Mask nearly tripped when his grand robes yanked him back. The ballista bolt had stuck the robes to the thick wooden floor, letting Speaker finally get some distance from the deathlord.

Throwing both Gift and Homage to distract the deathlord and hinder any efforts at freeing himself, Speaker leapt to the battlements at the edge of the tower, Sully joined him there: “Don’t dawdle – the shadow flames are burning again!”

Speaker barely had time to turn and see the shadowy fire licking up around the edges of the dark citadel, before Sully had performed his mountain-crossing leap technique and shot off into the sky.

The mask roared, struggling against his robe that was stuck to the ground – it seemed that the robes were more than just fabric, so simply cutting or ripping it wasn’t an option. This didn’t mean that the Mask was without options – or awareness of what was going on, now that the blood sigil was gone. With imperious and arcane motions, the Mask gestured at the stone making up the spire, the stone slabs and bricks shooting out of their places and flying up to him, to build a new tower around him, pushing him high into the sky.

Some very quick number-crunching, based on the speed at which the Mask was rising in elevation, compared to how fast the shadow flame was consuming the rest of juggernaut and the black citadel, Speaker realized to his greatest of dread that the Mask would clear the flames before they could get to him.

This could not happen. Thorns would without a doubt fall if the Mask got away to plot his revenge – and Sunhill would be next.

Leaping from the battlements of the spire, Speaker lit his wings of fire and raced towards the pillar of stone that the Mask was raising himself on – instead of flying away to safety. He slammed, hooves first, into the pillar and shattered it with his magical martial arts. The Mask instantly felt the ground give way under him, but with a new arcane gesture he had a new pillar rise up to catch him.

“No…” Speaker said despairingly, realizing that the only way to keep the Mask within the black citadel, to make sure that the Mask would be trapped outside of time and space, would be to stay there and keep him from fleeing.

Sullen Hoof landed back on the battlements near the rest of the circle, catching his breath and removing his golden mask. The others quickly approached him, Fire Orchid quickly asking: “Where is Speaker!?”

Looking back at where Juggernaut had been, the land around it having magically ‘flowed’ in to plug the gap left behind by the undead mountain disappearing, Sully simply shook his head: “He… I think he had to stay, or couldn’t get away fast enough”

Everyone was stunned. Messenger spells were sent to Speaker, but no reply came back – even after desperately waiting for hours for a response. Nobody wanted to imagine what kind of slow and painful death Speaker would get now that he was trapped with a vengeful deathlord.

There was no eye left dry, making for a very sombre goodbye party to Wind Dancer, Roseblack, Silverclaws and the rest of Thorns.

Chapter 41 Sleepless Horrors

The celestial horse practitioner kicks soup so hard it becomes good soup

…

Returning to Sunhill was done in silence. Only the occasional deep rumbling groans from Nah the yeddim came from the golden comet that zipped across the sky that day. With City Father of Thorns nursed somewhat back to health, at least well enough that the god was no longer in danger of dying and resting easily back in his sanctum, and the city state under new leadership that looked to rebuild and restore Thorns to its former glory without repeating the mistakes of the past, the presence of the circle was simply no longer needed – and with their immediate peace of mind restored, rumblings against the ‘new golden anathema’ had also begun, making an exit all the more salient.

This of course didn’t mean that everything was ok. Shimmer was inconsolable, alternating between crying and sulking – only having stayed quiet during the trip back to the Sunhill by spending most of that in the form of a seagull, because birds can’t weep.

Landing in Sunhill, in driving rain, in one of the covered landing zones that had been set up long ago, the circle quickly disembarked and handed Nah over to the landing crew. The crew was quick notice that someone was missing… and the implications of that. News of Speaker not returning would spread on its own through the city.

Still, Cash and Sunrise agreed that they would author a public statement about Speaker, while Sully disappeared of to somewhere unknown to sulk. Shimmer was similarly about to fly off, when Fire Orchid perked up: “Heads up – we’ve got incoming”

At one of the far doors to the barn/hangar, a young stallion came running. His uniform was that of Sunhill internal security, its plain white with black arm-bands being quite unmistakable at a distance – which was by design. He quickly ran up to the circle, gasping for air: “Your lordships… I… we have a situation in the hospital, office level!”

While Sully was already gone, then Cash, Sunrise, Fire Orchid and Shimmer all followed along, the security officer explaining that it was a code blue-five. Anything code blue meant it was relating to ghosts, while a code five meant it was an apparently non-hostile ghost.

“Where on the office level? Who reported this?” Shimmer asked, her tone as harsh as her willingness and eagerness to vent some righteous fury on whatever ghost was haunting them.

The young officer, in between ragged breaths, explained: “It came in from the personal secretary of Lord Bright a few hours ago – we have cordoned off the area and deployed salt to contain it”

Shimmer shifted into her warform mid-stride, her now avian eyes glowing with a mean streak of blue moonlight. Losing Speaker was one thing, but a ghost desecrating his office? Oh, this would not stand: “Up on me!”

Skidding to a halt, the young security officer watched as Sunrise, Fire Orchid and Cash all got up on Shimmer’s back and how she launched herself up into the air – the mighty flapping of her wings nearly pushing the young pony over.

Flying up to the office level of the manse was a little faster than taking the internal manse elevator, plus it meant not having to cross through the hospital – much less of a crowd to navigate. Entering in through a window, surprising Cash’s staff of secretaries quite a lot, the circle quickly moved to Speaker’s office, finding the cordon and the troops there.

“Report, what is going on?” Fire Orchid bellowed, her armor forming around her as it was retrieved from elsewhere, one piece at a time in rapid succession.

The officer in charge, Berry Petal, nodded to her old commander: “Good to see you Sangui- I mean, Fire Orchid, ma’am. It’s some kind of ghost-looking through, but the usual wards and things aren’t working on it – and it’s talking all kinds of gibberish”

“Very well – where is the secretary, the one who reported this?” Fire Orchid asked, quietly noting that despite the strange situation, then none of the other troops seemed all that agitated or worried.

Berry Petal, simply happy to see her old commander again, pointed Fire Orchid over to an old mare sitting on a bench further down the hall at the waiting area for visitors to the lord. Sunrise and Shimmer were already talking to her, to which Fire Orchid opted not to bother with her, instead opting to take the bull by the horns.

Walking over to the office door, the soldiers there quickly stepped aside to let her through: “Has anyone been in here since the secretary left?”

The soldiers shook their heads: “None ma’am – lockdown protocol from the moment Miss Aria called for alarm”

Nodding, Fire Orchid wondered exactly what kind of ghost it could be that had gotten into Speaker’s office. Blue-five meant it wasn’t directly hostile, so it hadn’t attacked anyone – but… could it be a messenger? Maybe a messenger from another deathlord, one seeking to negotiate a secret non-aggression pact? Not that the deathlords should expect any such peace – seeing as the circle was two for two at this point when it came to dealing with deathlords.

Taking a deep breath and activating a slew of charms, Fire Orchid stepped into the office…

The sight that met her was indeed a strange one: A semi-transparent image of a monochrome pony was floating in the area, but… only for an instant? It was flittering in and out of place, appearing and reappearing all over the officer seemingly at random – though the moment she set hoof in the office it honed in on her, appearing and flickering in front of her, only for the blink of an eye each time, as if performing all ten thousand mudras of inner peace and heavenly enlightenment from the immaculate scriptures, in such rapid succession that it all blurred together. It was impossible to make out a face, and the very brief sounds it was making were similarly strangely garbled and impossible to understand…

“What in the jellied dragon shits is this…” Fire Orchid said in bewilderment, as she stepped further into the office.

Nothing else in the office was disturbed – which was strange. If it was a ghostly intruder, or a haunt, then the ghosts should have tossed the office. A messenger would wait politely, not spout gibbering insanity at you… so what was this?

“Hey, Cash, Shimmer, Sunrise – come check this out!”

The rest of the gang joined up momentarily, all of them finding the strange flickering ghast quite strange. Shimmer, in her warform, with its automatic essence sight via its third eye, quickly pointed out the obvious: “That thing… whatever it is… it’s not here”

“I’m sorry what?” Cash said, finding that statement quite confusing.

Shimmer shrank back into her normal pony self, her eyes glowing with blue moonlight along with her caste mark, as she maintained her essence sight: “It’s not a ghost – no necrotic essence. In fact, there’s no essence at all. I mean, I can see it, but there’s no foreign essence there at all”

The strange apparition kept flittering around between all four of them, making for a wonderfully distractive sight – while the rest of the circle tried to examine the office to find the source of the thing.

Cash went straight to Speaker’s desk, being quite at home with paperwork – though he found that he had to employ some of his more heavy-duty translation charms in order to understand the medical jargon that Speaker used in his notes: “Ok, we have got to teach his next reincarnation how to do better notes so…“

It was quite rare to see Cash suddenly be at a loss for words – so everyone stopped what they were doing to focus on the eclipse caste pony, as he froze mid-sentence.

It turned out that the translation and perception-enhancement charms that Cash had activated let him understand the apparition: “It’s Speaker!”

Not at all seeing what Cash was seeing, Shimmer and the others didn’t find that funny at all: “Please don’t joke about that”

Shaking his head at Shimmer, Cash gestured at the flickering apparition: “No, it is him – but he’s like really slow … like… almost frozen in time. He’s talking so slowly I can barely make out a word of what he’s saying – and it doesn’t look like he can talk to us very long at a time, probably being chased”

It was difficult to absorb this strange and shocking news – but Shimmer quickly intuited a new problem: “Wait, that means that to him we’re basically moving around so fast he can’t make heads or tails of us!”

“Stands to reason - but why?” Cash wondered, his sorcerous knowledge being able to fit into a very small space.

Sunrise appeared to have an idea, quickly scrambling over to Speaker’s desk and looking around through the papers there: “Cash, quickly – help me with his copy of the book of three rings”

“He took that with him to Thorns” Shimmer noted, having kept tabs on what Speaker had where.

This resulted in a somewhat agonizing wait, as Sunrise quickly sat down and meditated for the twenty or so minutes needed to recall something she had stored elsewhere – namely her own copy of the book of three rings. Once it was back in creation, she quickly looked up the description of the spell they had cast on juggernaut: “Here it is – it reads that time passes very slowly in the pocket of elsewhere he’s been sent. This explains everything…”

“Neat – does it say how we can rescue Speaker, or must we wait a hundred years for Juggernaut to reappear?” Shimmer said, sounding unsure of whether she cry for joy of knowing that Speaker was still alive, or weep that he might be trapped for a century.

Quickly reading through the quite thorough descriptions of the spell, Sunrise nodded: “We can get him out – but we will need to get a pendant or hoof-ring of malfean porcelain for that fits him”

“He can make that himself if we get the raw materials to him – question is, Shimmer, you got the porcelain last time – can you get more?” Cash said.

Shimmer sighed, deeply, and sat down with a slump: “Not happening – I had to call in a few really big favors from my last incarnations notebook, plus burn a few bridges, to get that stuff”

“Maybe we don’t have to – I saw some of the Mask’s sorcerous workshops in the black citadel while I was pretending to be a deathknight. I’m pretty sure he has a little of everything stocked in those” Sullen Hoof noted, drawing on his experiences from having snuck around the twisty corridors of the Mask’s lairs earlier.

There was one issue with this idea for a rescue attempt: It had to be coordinated with Speaker – and how do you talk to someone who is perceiving Creation’s reality at a rate so slow, that it appears frozen? Cash already had an answer to this, having given this a great deal of thought while the others had talked about demonic ceramics and where to get it: “I need paper! Sunrise, meet me at the hangar barn – I’ll be right there. The rest of you, return to your usual duties and quell any rumors that Speaker is dead. Instead tell everyone that I and Sunrise will go to pick him up from Thorns shortly. Officially he just stayed behind to heal the sick and injured”

Nodding, Fire Orchid was the first out the door, ordering the security cordon around the office to stand down and giving Speaker’s secretary the day off, though in trying to explain that it was actually Speaker himself who had been appearing in the office via his hearthstone-granted remote viewing and illusory power, the solar general found herself stumped when the secretary appeared confused over who even what Speaker was.

“Hey gang, I think we have an issue here…” Fire Orchid said, poking her head back into the office, finding that Sunrise and Shimmer were already gone.

Cash was setting up large sheets of paper on hastily made easels and other stands, whirling an ink brush around to write instructions and information on the paper. It was clear what he was doing: Writing a message that stood quite still to Speaker, so that the slowed down solar wouldn’t just perceive a blur of motion and sound. The instructions read: “The pocket dimension Juggernaut is in has a slowed down time. Sunrise and I are coming to get you out once we are well rested and ready to fight again – find malfean porcelain, make a pendant or hoof ring for yourself, it’s your key out”

Looking up from his little writing project, Cash shot Fire Orchid a curious look: “What kind of issue?”

“It’s Speaker’s secretary, Ink Aria – she can’t remember Speaker at all. I even pointed at the painting of his portrait in the hall, and she didn’t recognize him as her boss” Fire Orchid said, sounding quite worried.

Satisfied with his message for Speaker, and now just waiting until the flittering images of Speaker would spot the message, Cash joined Fire Orchid out in the hall.

“Miss Ink Aria, how do you feel?” Cash inquired, his caste mark lighting up as a whole host of various charms of social and mental deduction were activated.

The old mare, looking not quite like anyone’s grandmother just yet, but old enough for her children to have move out, smiled at Cash and Fire Orchid: “Oh Lord Charmer and Lord Orchid, I’m so confused… you say it’s not a ghost in the office, but then what is it?”

A little back and forth ensued, Cash quickly piecing together exactly what was going on: “It’s quite alright Miss Aria, you haven’t done anything wrong – but do tell me, exactly what is your work here?”

“Oh Lord Charmer, you know that. I’m the personal secretary for the Sunhill Manse Chief of Medicine” the mare cheerfully replied.

Cash nodded: “True, and who is the chief of medicine here then?”

At first the old mare got a very stupefied and fearful look in her eyes, as it dawned on her that she didn’t know the name of who she worked for – even more so as that paradoxical fact clashed mightily with the simple question of how she could serve as the secretary for someone she didn’t know. Fire Orchid looked unsure of what to do as the mare broke down in tears, but Cash was quick to console her, and then explain the situation: “It’s Speaker’s magical martial arts – he told us about this. It makes ponies forget him, completely”

“Completely… good heavens… so that’s why she couldn’t even remember Speaker as one of the founders of Sunhill? Or recognize that its him in there” Fire Orchid said, pointing towards the painting of Speaker on the wall near them, which was titled as exactly that.

Cash could only nod with a sorrowful look in his eyes: “I’ll ask our sidereal friends if they can help her recover her memory – but beyond that, I don’t know if we can do much for her other than let her learn everything about Speaker again. Now, I have to help Sunrise get Speaker back, but we’ll talk about this later”

Fire Orchid shook her head at Cash’s quick exit, for she knew damn well that she wasn’t terribly well equipped to explain to Ink Aria what was going to happen now. The old secretary looked at the general with hope in her eyes, Cash’s reassurance about… the something something… still fresh in everyone’s memory, even though nobody other than Fire Orchid could remember that it was sidereals that had been mentioned as a possible solution.

“I.. Look, Aria – go home, take a few days of paid vacation. You’ll be summoned once your services are needed again. Rest easy” Fire Orchid said.

The old mare nodded slowly, getting up and leaving. Berry Petal came over to Fire Orchid, having heard everything: “How in Malfeas could she forget Lord Bright?”

“It’s that cursed martial art he uses – it makes ponies forget… could even affect us. Scary to think about”

Berry Petal could only nod.

Meanwhile, Cash Charmer had reached the hangar with a freshly prepared yeddim for him to race away on, Sunrise already up on the enclosed howdah. Few words if any were exchanged as they flew back to Thorns, though Cash did inquire about any kind of contingency options in case Sunrise found herself stuck in the Juggernaut-dimension.

“The book of three rings describes the spell working akin to how Malfeas was banished from Creation – and like that banishment and the treaty of limbs, then there is a backdoor to the pocket dimension – we just have to find that” Sunrise explained.

Cash nodded: “Sounds easy – but I assume this backdoor doesn’t open to anyone, otherwise the Mask would be out already”

“Malfean ceramics. Wear a pendant or a ring of that, and you’ll be able to pass through the backdoor portal leading to the banished place – anyone can do that. I don’t need one, since I cast the spell. Of course, with time moving slower there, I have no idea how long it’ll be here before we come out. I think you should return to Sunhill in the meantime, await a signal via Speaker’s hearthstone power before you come pick us up” Sunrise said, her voice showing Cash something he had never quite heard from the young mare before.

She sounded legitimately worried.

Of course, being worried made sense: Sunrise had no idea where the portal leading to that place beyond time and space would open up within that dimension. Perhaps under one of Juggernaut’s immobilized feet?

Finding the gateway turned out to be easy enough, Sunrise using essence sight to observe the terrain that had flowed in to fill the gap left behind by Juggernaut. The local essence flows were not subtle about their unnatural arrangement, and at the centre of all that stood a ruined stone wall with a single empty door opening. Approaching this doorway revealed a terrible stench, the smell of death wafting through the portal to the banished dimension.

As far as Cash was concerned, Sunrise just walked through the doorway and disappeared into thin air. He couldn’t follow, even though he tried.

It was with a deep breath that Cash sent a magical message back to Sunhill, reporting that Sunrise had made entry. Flying back, what was left of the circle held a quiet vigil that evening, praying to all the gods that might listen that their friends would return.

As if their prayers were answered, a report came in from Speaker’s office – a new thing had manifested: Glowing text. It was a response from Speaker, a static illusion that spelled out a simple message that he had read what Cash had written for him, and that he was looking for Sunrise – and most importantly, that he would update the text once him and Sunrise made contact. The text itself seemed oddly distorted, but not beyond what was possible to read – likely a result of the time dilation or sorcerous interference between the two realities.

Thus Cash, Sully, Shimmer and Fire Orchid waited, knowing now that time passed much slower in the magical realm that Juggernaut had been banished to.

It took three weeks before a new message appeared in Speaker’s office. It was not a happy message though: “We have searched the Mask’s laboratories. No viable pottery found. Will try something stupid”

This didn’t exactly instil hope in the rest of the circle, but they couldn’t know what the conditions were in Juggernaut.

The deep rumbling and trembling ground were nothing new. The tunnel through the large bone was moist with remains of marrows, and there was all manner of carrion eating insects everywhere, gnawing at the scraps. They were easy enough to ignore, due to the poor lighting of the tunnel – and they were quick enough to shy away from the ponies running through, to avoid getting stepped on.

“Quickly, she’s gaining on us!” Speaker shouted, his caste mark just barely lighting the way.

A quick throw of Homage melted a hole in the wall for the two to escape through, and Speaker’s repair charm quickly mended the hole so it looked pristine. It was the best they could do to buy themselves some time.

“That child is a menace. Who would be mad enough to exalt someone that deranged?” Sunrise wondered out loud, confused about the nature of their foe.

Speaker barely managed to hush Sunrise as the sound of maniacal laughter, in the voice of a young filly, rang out through the tunnel: “Come out and play”

Sullen Hoof had tried to warn Speaker of her. The Shoat of the Mire – the one single deathknight in the service of the Deathlord known as The Dowager of the Irreverent Vulgate in Unrent Veils.

Once the mad giggling had passed, Speaker allowed himself to breathe again, sighing deeply: “Honestly, she wasn’t that nuts when I first fought her in here”

“You told me already - you took away her ability to dream, turning her into an increasingly deranged insomniac. Why not just give her a nap so she’ll leave us alone?” Sunrise griped, finding their situation rather frustrating.

Speaker shook his head while carving a new hole for them to exit back into the tunnel via: “I took away her dreams for a reason. The first few times I fought her all nearly ended with my death. She is a true monster in combat, using some kind of magical martial art I’ve never seen before. Without sleep, her will drained away, leaving her unable to use her most potent of charms…”

“It also made her a driven and maniacal huntress out for blood – Speaker, if she’s asleep she cannot fight us” Sunrise retorted, not at all convinced.

As they crawled out into the tunnel again, Speaker reviewed his map of Juggernaut’s fifth left foot’s seventh’s toe: “I’m not arguing this with you – and we’re not killing her either. Doing that would just free her exaltation and send it back to Creation”

“You’re sacrificing our short-term goal of getting out of here, for a long term goal that will not be relevant, if we can’t leave here. Be realistic!” Sunrise said, her own castemark briefly lighting up as she put a charm or two into her words, making it impossible for Speaker to idly dismiss them.

With a defeated sigh, Speaker finally agreed – but said that he would need some time to come up with a new plan to incorporate this change in tactics: “Remember, the Mask caught on to my dream-based martial arts a while ago. He has ghosts everywhere sniffing out anyone dreaming, so granting her that would reveal our position – and we still haven’t found a way to get by the forces the Mask stationed around your entry point”

“Then use that brilliant head of yours – come on Speaker, this shouldn’t be impossible for you”

“Sunrise, one thing at a time. We can barely find a safe haven to sit and think – especially not with you here too, let alone make battle plans on how to handle the Shoat and then dealing with the lockdown on the entry point and then find a way for me to pass through it without a demonic medallion. I mean, come on, the only way I’ve been able to get any rest is by jumping into someone’s sleeping mind for some peace and quiet – but that’s why the Mask is hunting anyone asleep now!“

Of all the responses, Speaker had not expected Sunrise to slap him. Looking at the young priestess with a mix of confusion and fright, the old Lookshyan stallion grimaced as if about to say something, when Sunrise cut him off: “You are compartmentalizing your problems too much here. I can already see a way to resolve all of this at once”

Knowing damn well that his abilities as a wordsmith paled in comparison to Sunrise, Speaker simply sat down and shot Sunrise a grumpy look: “Well go ahead, tell me your brilliant plan that also factors in that you’re not respiring any essence here, and I’m only gaining a trickle thanks to my hearthstones and the time-difference to Creation”

He hadn’t quite expected Sunrise to keep her confident smile: “We’ve been running around here for hours since we found each other, trying to dodge the Shoat and the Mask’s patrols. You say you’ve eroded her will, correct? This would leave her vulnerable to my mind control charms. So let her catch up to us, I’ll wrangle her”

It took no small amount of swallowed pride to admit that his plans hadn’t really factored in Sunrise using mind control charms on the Shoat – but Speaker quickly saw a flaw in this idea: “You do realize that she won’t just stop and listen to you talk. She is like a ravenous beast – she will attack the instant she senses us”

“Not if she doesn’t have the willpower to commit to such an assault – my charms will keep her at bay” Sunrise stated with the greatest of certainty.

Furrowing his brows, Speaker quickly tried to listen if there were the sounds of nearby ghosts. Upon hearing none, he commented: “Since when have you been able to do that?”

“Since the very beginning. It’s not a charm I’ve had to use often, since I usually had the rest of you to defend me – but it has served me well against mortal assassins and beasts alike”

Consulting his map once more, Speaker guided the two towards an abscess near a toe join. The puss there was fresh and recently excavated, meaning that it didn’t smell nearly as bad there as everywhere else. This was probably why the Mask’s forces had set up a waystation and guard post there, to monitor traffic going up the foot towards the body of Juggernaut.

Assaulting the garrison there was swift and done without mercy, Sunrise using her musical martial arts to utterly demoralize the ghostly officers there, all the while also ensuring that no sound escaped the place – thus no messengers heard the cries of alarm or sounds of fighting until it was too late. The two solars ‘ate’ well on ghostly essence, filling their souls once more and leaving them prepared for conflict, as they finally released a couple of the ghost slave messengers – but only after Sunrise had thoroughly dominated their minds to ensure that the ‘correct’ message was sent forth.

“So… what are they going to tell the Shoat?” Sunrise wondered, as she looked on while the messenger ghosts sped off, carrying Speaker’s messages.

Speaker began pacing about the tunnel in front of the waystation: “They’re not for her – well not officially. None of the ghost officers here had clearance to send messages straight to an abyssal, so I’ve had them go to the criers at the nearest larger garrisons with hints that should ideally lead her here… real question is how many reinforcements she’ll bring with her”

“I guess alerting all the nearby garrisons of our locations could result in that… do you have a plan for dealing with a small army of the undead?” Sunrise wondered, only to see Speaker looking quite intently at her, to which end she realized that he meant for her to deal with any massed undead formations.

They didn’t have to wait long. Whatever forces that were coming for them sent in zombies first, though not many. They were cut down effortlessly – but that was their point just the same: To force a reaction, to reveal if Speaker and Sunrise were stilled holed up in the fortified waystation.

Next up came the war ghosts, but only two or three squads at a time – just enough that Sunrise and Speaker couldn’t kill all of them in one go, meaning that their numbers quickly started to mount.

It was during this brutal melee that the Shoat arrived, barrelling down a tunnel – slaying every ghost she came near like a savage animal, ripping each ghost apart with her bare hooves and consuming their essence as if her thirst was endless.

As she came out before the waystation, Speaker and Sunrise holding their ground just fine at the gate into the courtyard of the station, the old station nodded towards the Shoat: “Sunrise, meet The Shoat of the Mire. She doesn’t like me very much. Shoat, meet Sunrise”

The little filly that stood before the gates of the waystation was an absolute mess. Her cream mane was caked in blood and filth, appearing stiff and only worth shearing off. Her eyes were bloodshot, with a look of absolute hatred in them – both staring daggers at Speaker. That she wasn’t reacting also seemed quite off. The bloody and torn rags she was wearing only made her look worse, over her light green coat, though her slight twitching and what looked like drooling just… looked weird.

“What in all of the heavens did you do to her Speaker?” Sunrise wondered, never before having witnessed a deathknight that hadn’t been fully in control of her own body.

Maintaining a carefully guarded stance, Speaker gave the Shoat a quick once-over with his medical diagnostic charms: “Not much. Like I told you, I took away her ability to sleep – didn’t expect her to go quite that insane so quickly from it. Stands to reason that her mind was already broken long before she got her black exaltation, and without the ability to recover her willpower her mind just deteriorated. The partial catatonia is new though”

Sunrise had originally expected Speaker to set up some kind of trap to nail down the deathknight, before she could begin using her mind control charms to set up their escape. Oh well, the solar Zenith caste wasn’t going to look a gift deathknight pony in the mouth, which end Sunrise trotted out of the gates while whistling a simple tune.

The sound of her music smote the ruin of all the ghosts and few remaining zombies in earshot, incinerating all of them in bright blue holy flame. Even the Shoat got a lick of the holy fire, which finally seemed to snap her out of her catatonia.

Like a rabid weasel, the Shoat leapt at Speaker, horrible barbs and blades of bone growing out of all of her hooves as she tore into him. It was quite difficult for Speaker to even catch her, as her small frame let her dart in and around him, all the while pummelling him mercilessly.

“Speaker, brace yourself” Sunrise called out, Speaker using his crafting charms to not as much dig in each of his hooves into the coble, but to socket them in.

Sunrise drew in a heavy breath, and unleashed a war cry at the two which tore the Shoat away and slammed her up against a nearby wall.

The young foal snarled and ripped herself from the cracked stone wall, leaping at Speaker again in a fit of blind rage – but Sunrise stood to block her… and from her glowed a terrible apparition of glory, one that assailed the Shoat’s mind and demanded a great mental toll to be paid for passing… a toll that the Shoat could not pay.

With this briefest of lull in the fighting, Sunrise quickly began to speak to the Shoat. Her mind-control charms were used both overtly and subtly, utterly wringing out the Shoat’s mind, but not in a way that Speaker had expected: “Behold young one. The stallion before you is a shared enemy. In a moment I will fight him on your behalf, and defeat him utterly, at great cost. For this, you will deliver me through the portal leading back to creation”

Speaker had to actually put on his own mental defence charm, to avoid actually believing Sunrise’s words – so seductive were they… but he could also clearly see the frazzled Shoat as her mind was basically melting out her ears from Sunrise’s verbal onslaught.

In the end, Sunrise and Speaker performed their mock fight, trading pretend blows until Speaker got one in that let him do two things at once via his dream based martial arts: He put Sunrise to sleep, and then jumped into her dream – but he also made it look as if he was being somehow ‘banished’ as he faded away into dreamy wisps of silvery essence.

The Shoat, having been thoroughly entranced and hypnotized, happily scooped the now sleeping Sunrise up using hooked blood-chain tentacles springing from her back, carrying Sunrise to the fortifications set up around the portal back to Creation. The Mask knew that he couldn’t pass through it – but after Sunrise had appeared and left a trail of ashes and holy flame in wake, he had sent teams of necromancers to detect the entry point and then ordered a large force of troops and necro-surgical monsters stationed there to prevent her escape.

The ghostly commander of the portal garrison did not look pleased when the Shoat approached – she knew of the Shoat’s savage madness – and now the little filly was… smiling? Perhaps it was that captive she was bringing along which had improved her mood? Either way the commander ordered her troops to stand aside, mainly for their own safety, as the Shoat approached the portal.

It had been such a simple but brilliant trick Sunrise had come with up: Hide within Sunrise’s dream, then have her go through the portal. Exiting the dream again should make Speaker appear next to Sunrise… back in Creation. Of course, he was only dimly aware of what was happening around Sunrise while hiding inside her dreams, so for all he knew the Shoat could be tossing her into a dungeon.

The elation and relief Speaker felt, as he exited Sunrise and felt damp grass under his hooves… oh how his eyes teared up. Quickly releasing Sunrise from his dream-charm and thus waking her, the two both confirmed that they were back in Creation – which also quickly made them aware of the strange pounding sound they could hear.

It was from the portal. They couldn’t hear anything the Shoat was saying to begin with – but stepping near it, Speaker could hear her desperate screams: “You promised! I want to sleep again!”

Pounding desperately on the portal which simply would not permit her passage, the Shoat smacked both her hooves and her head against the invisible portal surface, tears rolling down her eyes.

Speaker couldn’t help but feel just a little bad, as he saw the unbridled desperation in her eyes – but he could only put a fellow hoof up on the portal surface, showing how he too couldn’t pass through it…

As the grim realization washed over the Shoat’s face, she briefly recoiled in absolute despair – then she resumed her pounding on the portal, beating her hooves bloody, and leaving her face bloody and half-caved in from repeatedly bashing it against the portal.

“It seems that she has chosen not to die a slow death of sleep-deprived madness – a pity we’ll have to deal with her reincarnation now” Sunrise said coldly, as the Shoat finally slumped lifelessly to the ground, appearing to have killed herself by bashing her own head in on the portal.

Speaker sighed and bowed his head: “No, no pity – she was an abomination. That girl had a mind so warped by her deathlord mistress that there wasn’t a single shred of mercy or goodness left in her… and to exalt a pony that young? A travesty. Let’s go home”

Sunrise conjured a magical cloud for the two to fly back to Sunhill on, Speaker sending a message that they were on their way.

Chapter 42 Stranger Foes

The celestial ox denies and rejects any bad soup, letting it splash harmlessly against his thick hide

…

Arriving back in Sunhill, Speaker was quickly brought up to speed with regards to the rumors about his death, and his secretary who had lost all memory of him. In the time he had been gone, through quiet inquiries, several other ponies in the city had been found who had forgotten all the knew about Speaker – though none of them had worked in a position as critical as Speaker’s secretary, making their memory loss much less important.

“What have you done with her? I can heal a lot of things, but I cannot heal memories that my martial arts erases…” Speaker said, feeling really bad about having put his secretary in such a position, all the while Shimmer hugged the ever-living crap out of him.

Heath Rose appeared in the meeting room – as she had done many other times, just in time to say something poignant – stating that the old mare had been treated weeks ago, her memories restored via the use of the same charm that had given Fire Orchid her memories back: “…what I’m a lot more worried about, is your continued use of these sidereal martial arts. You really shouldn’t do that”

“That’s his choice – and without them we would be facing a much more uphill battle against the deathlords” Fire Orchid pointed out firmly, sounding very disapproving of Heath Rose’s tone and implications.

Not really looking all that interested on a debate on the topic, Heath Rose huffed at Fire Orchid: “I’m not arguing this with you – I’m saying he shouldn’t because Speaker is too valuable for Creation to simply be forgotten. It is a warning; One he would do well to take heed of. Also, Lee of the Third Breath is looking for you lot”

Indeed, a moment later a messenger came knocking, saying that a diplomatic message had just arrived via the light rail system from Great Forks, informing the circle that Lee of the Third Breath, the once-deathknight now redeemed solar and general of the armed forces of Great Forks, had an urgent need to see the circle at his offices in Great Forks.

Looking somewhat distrusting at Heath Rose, Cash casually wondered: “Saved by the messenger – how lucky”

“I’m only trying to help you – using quicksilver hoof of dreams style martial arts will slowly erase you from everyone’s memory. There’s a reason why the style is rightfully feared among sidereals. Goodbye” Heath Rose stated firmly, leaving quickly.

The circle took the rest of their meeting on the move, as they walked towards the nearest light rail pillar to the Sunhill manse. Enroute Speaker told of his dread encounters with the now late Shoat of the Mire, the filly deathknight that Sullen Hoof had warned about: “She was a nightmare to fight – with a complete disregard for her own troops. She legitimately told me that being alive is a bad thing, because her ‘mother’ had taught her so – and I had my lie detector charm on… she believed that whole-heartedly”

Sullen Hoof corroborated Speaker’s observations: “She was the only deathknight I ever met, who could not just talk to the deathlord called The Bishop of the Chalcedony Thurible, but give him new ideas on how to inspire and teach others to embrace death and nihilism. Her mistress is the deathlord known as the The Dowager of the Irreverent Vulgate in Unrent Veils, who operates out of a shadowland somewhere near the pole of wood”

“Gotta love those deathlord titles – makes you wonder how they came up with them” Cash quipped.

Frowning, Speaker shook his head as the circle passed the secretary at the staff entrance to the manse: “Weird name or not, I think we should target this dowager next – exploit the chaos they’re no doubt it, with the Mask ‘going missing’ all of a sudden”

Fire Orchid loved the idea of going after another deathlord, but quickly pointed out that with the Mask they had gotten very lucky: “Speaker, we journeyed to Thorns to scout out and just weaken the Mask… we hadn’t planned on being able to take him out entirely. We’ll need to collect a lot of intelligence on this dowager before we can strike at her, or to make sure she doesn’t just run off – hell we don’t even know where she operates out of”

Everyone agreed that more information was needed. Sully noted that he had heard a few things about the dowager down in the underworld, none of it good, but none of it recent either: “Supposedly she was the deathlord who created the Great Contagion some eight hundred years ago – but that’s about it too. She hasn’t really done anything since then”

“From the usurpation to wiping out nine tenths of Creation in what… three thousand years? That’s not a small feat” Sunrise said, her scowl one of determination to end such evil.

Speaker nodded as he kept apace: “If it took her than long to develop and ennoble a disease that potent, then seven centuries of quiet is nothing – As it is right now, Creation would not survive another Great Contagion. The dowager has to go”

Everyone agreed, but it was also pointed out that Lee had known a great deal about the Deathlords during his past un-life, to which end Speaker finally relented, since meeting Lee could resolve both whatever Lee wanted but also what the circle wanted.

“Very well – you lot leave, I’ll hold down the fort. I’ve got my bean experiment back in my kitchens to check up on anyway” Sullen Hoof noted, as the rest of the circle gathered their things and left.

Zipping from Sunhill to Great Forks via light rail took no time at all, arriving at the main rail pillar in Great Forks, located in the middle of one of the largest portside squares outside the city walls.

Making their way to Lee of the Third Breath, the once deathknight that the circle had helped redeem and become a solar, required a short trip to Great Fork’s eastern quarters near the harbour: it was there that the walled compound with barracks, parade grounds and several hundred young and eager soldiers exercising and training, was located.

As the circle passed the soldiers, Speaker couldn’t help but notice that a lot of the troops had marks around their necks and hooves – the kind of marks you usually only saw on recently freed slaves, where their chains had once been.

The central administrative headquarters of the walled compound, flying the flags of Great Forks alongside that of a black flag with yellow trim and a bright yellow sunburst on it, was hard to miss.

A clearly godblooded pony wearing nice lamellar armor with a mane of seemingly living wood, and eyes of polished ebony, waved the circle down: “Ah, your lordships, I am Oak Shield – General Lee is waiting for you in his office”

With a quite non-significant part of Great Forks’ population being made of spirits and elementals, then godblooded ponies were quite common in the city – it also made the local essence flows a hilarious hodgepodge of essence. Still, despite that, Shimmer quickly stepped in front of the circle to block them before they could enter the building: “Wait, something’s wrong”

“What is it?” Speaker asked, quickly glancing around and not seeing anything out of the ordinary.

Her caste mark flaring, Shimmer’s eyes briefly glowed with cobalt-blue moonlight: “There are demons in there…”

“Hey, quiet about that – and they’re not really demons… sort of… it’s more like a possession or something. Look, just come up to Lee and talk to them, ok? They need your help” Oak Shield said with a forced whisper. It was clearly not something she wanted to talk about out loud.

Ok, now that grabbed everyone’s attention. The circle knew well enough of Great Forks’ hardline stance against consorting with demons – but if it was a case of demonic possession, then they were more than willing to help – and had the powers to do so.

Up the stairs to Lee’s office level, which also housed his penthouse residence, Oak Shield explained that these were a group of ponies that Lee had come across during his continued questing to slay and thus end the suffering of the neverborn: “He found them somewhere in the wyld recently, while raiding a ruined war manse for weapons and primordial-slaying lore”

“I know this Lee guy, right?” Shimmer wondered, looking to the rest of the circle.

Fire Orchid nodded, slowly: “I haven’t met him yet in this life either – but I’m pretty sure we both knew him. Let’s go say hi”

“You never met him Fire Orchid, but I think you’ll like him – he is a dawn caste like you after all” Sunrise noted.

The office of Lee of the third breath was sparsely decorated. There were some relatively new hunting trophies, and other trophies from Lee’s various forays into the underworld and the wyld – but not many. This was a reflection of Lee having only been a solar for barely two or so years at that point, and much if not all of what he might have had previously while he was an abyssal had been lost in his redemption.

Like the rest of the building, wrought of a red stone and thick sturdy timbers, the office was built in a style that looked quite nice, with stone flourishes and detailing – but also in a fashion that rendered it sturdy and solid enough to handle supernatural combat, training drills and the odd misfire or errant bolt of elemental essence from the outside and inside. This put Lee behind his ‘desk’, which appeared to be a single massive disc sawed from an absolutely enormous tree, capped with stone. Along with Lee, around his round table, stood three other beings, the light from nearby open windows casting long shadows in the direction from where the circle arrived, making it difficult to see anything but silhouettes.

The problem was that the silhouettes of the three pony-looking beings who weren’t Lee, did not look entirely look like ponies. Not at all.

This made approaching Lee and his strange gathering somewhat uncomfortable. Abyssals, for all their undead flaws, at least usually looked like ponies, even if they might look like dead ones – but these three… they did not quite fit that, at least not nearly that much.

The one on the right was heavily draped in silken cloth, but her eyes… she did not appear to have any – especially not in the dim lights of the office. Once closer, it became evident that her eyes were simply transparent – along with every other part of her not covered by her clothes. She was unnerving to look at, but at least appeared somewhat passable, if you didn’t look closely.

The two on Lee’s left were even worse: One was a mare. Her smile, while kind, revealed naught but thin needle teeth, and behind them her teeth her mouth was illuminated with green flame from within. Her eyes were pure black orbs, and she had no mane, only a host of brass piercings all over her head, many connected to a separate cord that gave a semblance of a mane. Her purple coat and hooves, combined with her other mutations, instantly reminded Speaker of the Neomah flesh-shaping demons.

The other one on Lee’s left had a mane of thick red hair that rolled down over his back and down the sides of his neck, making him look quite big and imposing. It almost made you overlook that his limbs were replete with various horn-like growths … plus the poor fellow had what appeared to be a set of additional limbs tucked up under his belly, in a dubious attempt to hide them from sight.

Suffice to say that the circle wasn’t quite sure of what to do or say, upon seeing these strange and horribly mutated ponies standing with Lee in his office.

“Lee, what the hell have you being doing?” Sunrise finally said, breaking the ice, her voice not judging – but concerned none the less.

Lee, The Bodhisattva of the third breath, the redeemed deathknight turned solar, stood with his back to the office windows, but you could clearly see his brown coat and his dark-brown mane. It wasn’t possible to see his five-coloured eyes, even from the light of the candles lit on his desk: “Friends, I asked you to come because I have been approached by three ponies desperately in need of your aid – and the demon wards you have around Sunhill prevent them from entering safely”

Approaching Lee and the three mutant ponies, Sunrise confidently stated: “Your minion Oak Shield certainly wasn’t kidding about them possessed by demons… Speaker, have you ever seen demonic possession result in mutations like this?”

The three strangers all looked equally apprehensive as the circle approached, Speaker walking up to the one with translucent eyes first. Up close, it became apparent that not only were her eyes transparent, but so was all of her flesh – for up close, one could see the backside of her clothes through her body via her eye-sockets: “Good heavens… what happened to you?”

From under her silken robes, hood and veil, the mare spoke with a voice that sounded quite unnatural – as if she was had the deep throaty voice of a girthy stallion, despite appearing quite lithe: “I was tempted… we all were, lied to in every way you can be – and now that we have seen the horrors that our new masters desire, we fled… we wanted out”

Shimmer came up next to Speaker, sniffing at the strange pony in silks: “Funny… I was taught that ponies possessed by demons couldn’t really say stuff like that – you shouldn’t have the free will anymore to defy them”

All three of the ponies nodded to this, the purple one’s fake mane of piercings and beaded cord jingling and jangling quite audibly, before the silken one spoke again: “We are not merely possessed… we are different than that. What we have is more like you, but twisted…”

With an explanation that vague, it was difficult to draw any kind of conclusion, but it opened up the floor to further discussion, with Lee trying to explain: “They claim to have been granted powers… but not by heaven, instead by the yozis. Their mutations came as part of that supposedly, and considering their masters then you won’t need much imagination to puzzle out their plans with their new homemade exalted host”

“That’s why we ran away” said the purple one, her needle teeth filled mouth producing a disturbingly calming and almost hypnotic voice – right until the extra-limbed one next to her shot out one of his half-hidden belly-limbs and slapped her with its clawed fist, correcting her with a strange voice that sounded as if he had several things stuffed in his mouth while talking: “Cut that out!”

The purple one quickly apologized, her voice sounding far more normal – but still quite beautiful and gentle to listen to.

Lee sighed and told Oak Shield to fetch food and refreshments.

The silk-veiled one shook her head and drew up her hoof of almost transparent flesh and bone: “You will have to forgive us. Being bonded with a demon was part of the ‘deal’ – a part of the many things the yozis didn’t tell us about. It changed us, both physically but also mentally. It’s difficult for Shirin to not sound seductive, for her coadjutor is strong in her”

Shirin – the purple one – nodded: “I’m sorry… she can be difficult to resist sometimes”

Formal introductions followed: The veiled one said that her name was Ashi of Six Wheels, for she was the sixth daughter of a traveling merchant who had operated a wagon and a half, something Cash nodded to as he recognized the kind of setup she was describing from his own time as a traveling merchant. The extra-armed one said that he called himself Fallen Twin, explaining that him and his twin brother had been lured into a demon worshiping cult, which had led to the two of them ending up in Malfeas after some kind of blood ritual: “There we were preyed upon by the demons, and became deadly sick, but my brother was clever and found a place for us to hide – but he was so clever that it caught the eye of the yozis, who somehow offered him power… but he came to me one night about four weeks ago, telling me of Shirin and Ashi, and the horrors they were being made to witness. He convinced me that we needed to get away from there as quickly as possible”

Twin’s face soured, with everyone else listening carefully as he relayed what his brother had told him of the grotesque practices of the demons: “He had brought a demon slave with him, a blood hound – and said that while he would never be able to get out of there alive due to the dark bargains and oaths he had been made to sweat, then he could save me…”

It was clearly difficult for Twin to explain what happened next: “He had the demon kill him, using some kind of strange weapon of a white material, and took something that burned with green flame from his chest – it took that into itself, and then it ate my brother… and then it ate me”

“You know, for someone who got eaten by a demon, you seem to have survived the ordeal…” Cash quipped, ignoring the disapproving glances he got from everyone else.

Twin nodded: “Perhaps saying that he ate me is wrong. Swallowed me. I awoke sometime later, the demon having merged with me and granted me my brother’s memories and powers… which included a plan on how to escape, without the baggage of being bound by the oaths he had made”

“We emerged deep in the dune sea in the south of creation. Almost died of thirst and hunger more times than we care to remember – and once we found civilization, we had to deal with our appearances being so monstrous, plus dodging the assassins and other of our kind that were sent after us” Shirin added.

Sunrise nodded empathically: “You’re not the first ponies we’ve met who were tempted by dark powers and found it to be a raw deal. We’ve helped others before, helped them find redemption – we’ll gladly help you too”

Speaker nodded in agreement, having detected no lies from the three demon-tainted ponies– though he was quite curious at the nature of these demonic exaltations… for with essence sight he could see their souls blazing with demonic power, no doubt about that, but it was difficult to nail down the nature and source of their power. Had the yozis found a way to replicate Autochton’s work and make their own exaltations? That was bad news in all kinds of colorful ways.

Fire Orchid seemed to share Speaker’s worries, though she voiced them somewhat more directly: “What exactly did the yozis want with you? Twin, what was it that your brother wanted to save you from so badly that he was willing to kill himself for it?”

Shirin spoke up, saying that she, Twin’s brother – who’s name had been Apple Thorn – had approached her and Ashi during their training, before it was complete: “We escaped before we were let in on whatever grand plans the yozis had for us – but we know this: We can cross from Malfeas to Creation freely, while the demons can’t – and that’s part of what they seek to exploit”

Twin nodded: “A lot of my brother’s memories don’t make any sense to me, for they were twisted and tainted by the demon he was bonded to – another blood hound – but it stands to reason that we were made to help establish footholds in Creation, to found new cults and spread the influence of the yozis – for conquest, mass ritual sacrifice… for revenge again heaven”

“…that and a lot of the demons were not at all shy of telling us just how murderous and cruel they would be to all of pony kind when they got back here. It made me sick to my stomach to see and hear that kind of madness” Shirin noted.

Lee, appearing satisfied that the three ponies had been allowed to explain themselves and plead their case, spoke up: “Exactly – and this is why I found their plight so sympathetic, having been in their same situation myself. I was hoping that you could use your connections in Yu-Shan to arrange a meeting with Lytek, so we can get them sorted out”

“What, no! We can’t go to heaven!” Shirin suddenly cried out, her veil bulging unnaturally as her mouth clearly didn’t just have tongue and teeth anymore.

Apparently, Shirin had been in the process of being trained for espionage, which had included a briefing or two on what celestial gods were secretly still loyal to the yozis. She wouldn’t name any names, for she didn’t actually know if it was true – or some kind of test to see if she could keep a secret, for that had apparently been something that her demon trainers had loved to put upon her. Still, it had left her and the two other demon-ponies convinced that heaven wasn’t a safe place to go just yet.

“Well… that complicates things. Lytek won’t come down to Creation – too risky – there are still far too many deathknights who would love to kidnap him, to prevent regular solars, lunars and sidereals from exalting” Cash stated, sounding at the same time understanding but also dismayed at this impasse.

Indeed, without that kind of divine assistance in figuring how the exact nature of these strange new exalts, the circle couldn’t really offer much aid.

“Look, I was at least hoping that you could host them in Sunhill. There are far too many godblooded and divine citizens here in Great Forks who can detect demons – it was difficult enough for me to get them in here and keep them hidden for this m-” Lee began, when a bell at Lee’s door rang. It was apparently connected to a cord outside the office, that messengers could ring instead of knocking.

Excusing himself, Lee went to check the message, quickly returning: “The message is to the Lords of Sunhill, From Lord Sullen Hoof – there is trouble in Sunhill. A powerful unicorn and his entourage have arrived by ship and is making trouble”

“Oh delightful – Speaker, can you handle that while we figure something out here?” Cash asked.

Nodding, Speaker moved over to a nice reclining chair and sat down, floating out his hearthstone amulet set with the hearthstone of the Sunhill manse. While the others brainstormed and negotiated, with Cash and Sunrise sounding worried about Sunhill’s repuation if they were to start hosting half-demon whatnots, Speaker focused his mind on the hearthstone, transmitting his senses to the city of Sunhill.

What Speaker saw didn’t look all that out of the ordinary. He recognized the streets he had built, the houses, the nice and spacious tenements and apartment buildings, all connected to the essence-fuelled water supply systems he had set up. The alchemical district was still standing, which was nice – since it was one of the biggest fire hazards in the city. The forging district next to the harbour was also still standing… so what was the issue?

With his magical birds-eye view of the city, Speaker used a charm to quickly give the whole place a quick look-over, the charm enhancing his ability to instantly pick up details that he might have otherwise missed, to which end he detected a new ship in the harbour, and the harbourmaster trying – and failing – to talk a regally dressed pureblood unicorn in moving his ship, with the unicorn mainly just shouting abuse back at the poor pony in heavily accented rivertongue.

Using another of the hearthstone’s powers, Speaker combined his farsight with the ability to make illusions appear – namely by making an image of himself appear next to the harbourmaster, allowing Speaker to address the situation directly: “I am Lord Bright Machine Speaker – identify yourself”

The unicorn looked quite frankly insulted at what Speaker had said, standing resplendent in his regal black, grey and green silk robes, with his magnificent green jade staff by his side: “Identify myself? Do you take me for some commoner?”

The accent of the unicorn revealed him as being from the blessed isle, meaning that he was some kind of Realm nobility – but the realm had unicorns by the tens of thousands… and Speaker was much more acquainted with Lookshyan unicorn celebrities: “No I do not – but this is not the realm, and I am one of the Lords of this city state – so do be polite and tell me who you are, lest I order you ejected from the city”

It seemed clear that the unicorn was quite baffled by Speaker’s response, but that expression faded into a condescending smirk: “Adorable. I knew that this place was boorish, but this is just sad”

Speaker was about to say something snarky back at the unicorn, when the unicorn did… something. It was an arcane gesture of immense subtlety, yet its effect was instant: The magical illusion of Speaker froze, and he was unable to make his voice manifest as part of the illusion, effectively locking him out of the conversation.

The harbourmaster quickly fled, sensing the disturbance of essence in the air, even though he didn’t quite understand it, as the unicorn advanced down the pier in a calm and collected manner, past the frozen illusion of Speaker. Speaking in old realm, the unicorn quietly spoke in Old Realm: “Deploy the vanguard and sweep up to the city manse – have the morays check their staff to identify their doctors. I’ll judge their heresies and see if there’s anything I can use. We’ll dispose of the rest”

Speaker snapped back in Great Forks, finally able to shape off the spell the unicorn had cast on him enough to release his senses from the hearthstone: “Demons!”

Everyone quickly turned to look at Speaker, the three infernals looking unsure if they should be worried or insulted from what had just been shouted. Speaker quickly got up, making towards the door. Cash instantly picked up on Speaker’s worries, asking if he needed help.

“Shimmer, come – Sunrise, message Sully and tell him to put a kettle on!” Speaker quickly said, just before racing out the door and going quite loudly down the stairs.

The three demon-ponies looked at Lee, hoping for an explanation, while the rest of the circle quickly sprang into action: Shimmer leapt out of the nearest window, shapeshifting into her seagull form. Sunrise began shaping up a sorcerous messenger spell, relaying Speaker’s message to Sully – the circle knew quite well what it meant when Speaker requested that Sullen Hoof prepare his tea: It meant to prepare your best poisons.

Fire Orchid gave Cash an apprehensive poke: “Should I join him?”

“No, we need to finish hashing out a solution here – and I appreciate your point of view” Cash said, remaining composed and professional as ever.

The three demon-ponies looked quite unsure, Ashi stating: “If you’re having a demon problem in Sunhill then we can’t go there – any demon who spots us will rat us out to the yozis. The bounty on our heads in the demon realm is unbelievable, and no demon would be able to resist going after us”

Speaker leapt from rooftop to rooftop, Shimmer flying alongside him, racing to get to the portside light-rail pillar.

The supernatural peacekeepers of Great Forks weren’t exactly happy with someone jumping around on the roofs – but they knew Speaker well enough to not try to bother him or the bird flying next to him once they caught on to who he was. Meanwhile, Shimmer was certain that the situation was dire, but beyond the dire cry of “Demons” then she wouldn’t mind some more information: “What’s going on Speaker?”

“A powerful realm sorcerer has breached our wards and snuck in an army of demons into Sunhill – we need to contain and repel them before the city is overrun!” Speaker quickly stated, in between deep breaths and supernaturally long leaps.

At the rail pillar both of them quickly dodged the line of ponies waiting to get their goods or themselves moved via rail carriage, latching onto the light rail with their essence directly and zipping to Sunhill in the blink of an eye.

Arriving at the harbour rail pillar, amidst warehouses and merchants loading goods to or from ships or rail-wagons, the duo quickly scanned their surroundings with essence sight.

“Can you use the hearthstone to issue an alarm?” Shimmer asked, as she shifted into her warform and flew up into the air.

Shaking his head while looking at the hearthstone amulet in disbelief, Speaker replied: “He did something… something magical… jammed or broke the thing. I’ll have to find out what he did later”

The duo quickly found the unicorn in question, flanked by half a dozen other unicorns – all clad in robes that looked far too fancy and officious to be random coordinated fashion. It was uniforms of some kind.

“Shimmer, fly ahead to the manse – he wants something there. Prepare a lockdown if any fighting starts out here. I’ll try to talk him down in person, or deal with him” Speaker said, before towards a point between the hospital manse and the harbour, figuring that he could head the intruder off.

Knowing full well that Speaker prioritized the wellbeing of his citizens over his own health, Shimmer flew off hard and fast to carry out her solar mate’s wish. Speaker similarly raced to head off the intruder, finding the unicorn and his entourage calmly moving through the streets of Sunhill towards the manse.

Landing some thirty paces before the unicorns in a crouching stance, Speaker instantly recalled his singing staff from elsewhere and slammed it into the stone street. The shockwave it sent out could be both heard and felt for several blocks – and everyone in Sunhill knew quite well what it meant: It meant get in cover or to a safe distance. With a flick of the wrist Speaker had the singing staff back in elsewhere, at which point Speaker finally got up and addressed the host before him: “I am Lord Bright Machine Speaker, exalted and chosen of Celestia of the Twilight Caste – now you are going to tell me who the hell you are and why you’re here”

The regal looking unicorn, clad in the finest of embroidered silken robes – which was clearly a fancier version than the robes than the dozens other unicorns behind him – shook his head and issued orders in a tongue unknown to Speaker, his followers all nodding and making way for one of them to step forth.

A unicorn mare on the left of the lead unicorn stallion walked out and began to shape up some kind of sorcerous spell – that much Speaker could recognize – to which end Speaker raised a hoof before him and swiped hard to the right, as if slapping the mare at a distance.

Nobody present appeared to have expected the slap to actually connect, even less so for the mare to fly off as if struck by the fist of an angry god, slamming into a nearby building.

“Very curious… but the powers of the anathema are always quite curious. Apprehend him” the lead unicorn said in high realm, still sounding quite disinterested.

Speaker was not impressed, as he felt their air around him subtly shift. He knew the presence of immaterial demons when he felt it, having prepared his demon-sensing charm – and thus, spreading out his forelegs he sent out a blazing ring of gold-white light in the form of a potent spirit-repelling diagram. The howls and snarls of invisible demons around Speaker quickly became evident as the power of the diagram forced the demons around Speaker to either materialize or shy away from him at great speed.

…this of course meant that several of the hulking blood-hound demons approaching Speaker to capture him simply materialized – but the instant they did that, Speaker executed another lightning-fast series of attacks, striking each of them with his spirit-slaying charm. The unicorn looked somewhat surprised at seeing Speaker barely swipe at the demons, yet all of them ruptured as if struck with the mightiest of blades, their thick hides granting them no apparent defence.

“Attempted kidnapping of heads of state is very illegal here in Sunhill. I’m going to have to ask you to leave now – though first I would have your name, so you can go on our list of ponies banned entry here!” Speaker called out, the collapsing demons around him splashing quite a bit of blood on the ground, as his hooves dripped with bright and colorful demon blood.

Chapter 43 Prelude to Darkness

The Sacrificial lamb stylist lets herself be diced up into tasty lamb soup - but nobody else gets hurt

…

The regally dressed unicorn stallion facing Speaker, having just witnessed Speaker effortlessly destroy some of his most powerful demon minions, very seriously considered his next move.

One of the follower unicorns quietly spoke to the unicorn stallion in a language that Speaker did not know, after some of their number had retrieved the unicorn sorceress that Speaker moments earlier had somehow struck at a great distance without visibly touching her. The stallion nodded, giving orders in the same language.

Some of the unicorn followers retreated back onto the ship, bringing the struck unicorn mare with them – but the rest fanned out around the lead unicorn, who cleared his throat and addressed Speaker: “I am Ragara Bhagwei, Dominie of the Heptagram! I came here because I have heard tall tales of magical healing being done by anathema – healing of such potency that I felt it warranted my attention”

Speaker could only shake his head. The very headmaster of the realm’s grand academy of sorcery? That would make the other unicorns some of his best and most powerful student, and probably some of the professors as well – and the demons… well, they were realm sorcerers, so of course they had summoned an army of demons slaves to serve them before arriving. Oh, what a bother. What a waste.

Taking a deep breath, Speaker approached the quite intimidating lineup of unicorn sorcerers: “If you had come here peacefully, I am certain we could have learned a great many things from each other – sadly, you appear to have followed the foreign policy of your realm house, trying to take anything you want by force”

Bhagwei issued a few quick orders the unicorns around him. Several of them began shaping up sorcery, while four others enacted charms that formed elemental restraints from their horns to Speaker’s legs… well, that was how they were aimed – for Speaker caught all of them, and in turn simply yanked the four unicorns all the way over to him, taping each on the forehead – which caused all of them to fall to the ground, instantly asleep.

The other unicorns quickly finished their spells, which turned out to be similar sorcerous restraints. These spells were a fair bit more difficult to dodge or avoid, Speaker quickly finding himself wrapped up in magical ropes of verdigris – but Speaker had taught himself a basic counterspell from the Book of Three Rings, so with but a thought the ropes faded into pure elemental essence around him: “Are we quite done here?”

Bhagwei appeared somewhat torn between complimenting Speaker’s ability to maintain his composure, or to take insult at Speaker so thoroughly trouncing all of his attempts to grab him: “Not likely. I have already confirmed that your city’s defences do nothing against dematerialized demons at this point – so if you do not surrender, I will have them turn this city into a slaughterhouse, as you said; in the tradition of my house when it comes to dealing with anathema”

“And here I thought you were here about our healing services – not to harm ponies” Speaker replied bluntly, finding that his patience for the unicorn before him, sorcerous accolades be damned, running thin.

With a deep frown, looking quite insulted, Bhagwei was about to issue some kind of order to his fellow sorcerers when Speaker did that… thing again – flicking around punches despite not being in reach of anyone, though the solar also erupted with bright golden soul-flame, as his anima ignited from the considerable amount of essence being used.

Bhagwei suddenly found himself standing quite alone, all the unicorns around him having fallen over, asleep – a few tipping over in each other, leaning upon one another.

“If you want to inspect our medical facilities, I’ll give you a tour – we have very few secrets – but you will come alone, with no demons and none of your retinue – your other choice is to leave. Pick one” Speaker said, struggling to keep his tone polite.

The unicorn looked around himself in thorough disbelief, never having witnessed such a subtle use of magical martial arts – though magical martial arts were quite removed from where his passions and interests were. Still, he nodded towards Speaker and followed him: “Should you take me hostage, the Ragara legions will descend upon this place like fire and thunder from the heavens”

“Sunhill has no interest in hostages – and the Ragara legions are tied up in the realm civil war, they will do no such thing” Speaker calmly replied, happy that he was facing away from the unicorn, as this covered for his wide smirk. Just how full of himself was this bag of hot air calling himself Bhagwhei?

Later in the evening the circle returned to Sunhill, finding messengers instructing them to meet Speaker and Ragara Bhagwei at Sully’s restaurant, where they had ended up after an extensive tour of the Sunhill hospital, the alchemy district, the big foundry with its fire elemental tenants/employees, the gem and stone-cutting industry where light-rail pillars were made, and the many other marvels of Sunhill.

Joining them at the restaurant, they found Speaker, Sully, Bhagwei and a few dozen other unicorns there – the unicorns all absolutely marvelling at the food they were being served, while Speaker was still telling Bhagwei of Sunhills history and the circle’s adventures.

“There you are – Sunrise, could you fetch the staff of sorcery from Sperimin – Bhagwei here refuses to believe that we claimed the place!” Speaker drunkenly called out, before anyone in the circle had a chance to introduce themselves.

Sunrise smirked and withdrew the beautiful orichalcum and jade staff from elsewhere, the old realm inscriptions on it quite clearly denoting it as the symbol of office for the head of Sperimin’s college of sorcery.

Bhagwei and the unicorns looked as if their eyes were going to roll out of their heads as the staff was passed around, after which Bhagwei gazed quite perplexed at Speaker – barely able to get a word out.

The circle, satisfied that Speaker had handled things somewhat peacefully, met up later the next day in the Sunhill manse, discussing what had happened and what the others had figured out for the three ‘infernals’ in Great Forks, a term the three strangers had suggested they use.

“Oh, so he was willing to accept your medical charms, but not that you are the new Chief Librarian of Sperimin?” Cash joked, having found Bhagwei’s behaviour quite amusing.

Sunrise smiled, appearing to feel quite happy with her choice to seek sorcerous enlightenment: “Anyone can tell a tall tale – but now we’ll have to deal with the realm learning that Sperimin is open for business again”

“Perhaps – but Bhagwei’s ambitions aren’t to aid the realm as such. He seeks knowledge for himself – and once I told him that we could not in good faith grant him access to the book of three circles while the realm civil war was ongoing, and until we could be certain that whoever gets to be charge wont abuse the book’s knowledge against us, then he actually seemed to accept that without question” Speaker noted, sounding a little surprised himself.

Sully, having carefully observed the unicorns while at his restaurant, chimed in: “That’s not surprising at all. I got a very solid read on Bhagwei: He wants to learn how to magically cure all diseases there are – even the great contagion”

Fire Orchid found that information both interesting – but also disconcerting: “Wait… that plague ran its course like seven hundred years ago and killed basically everything. How can he think he can cure that today?”

“If he wants to be the best healer in the world, it makes sense – sort of” Shimmer noted.

“Nobody ever found a cure – and if he could find some ancient samples to reinfect a few test subjects… sure he’d get even more famous than he is already among sorcerers and healers, but the risk of it spreading again is insane” Fire Orchid added, sounding not at all positive about the idea of a realm gloryhound potentially unleashing an ancient incurable plague, just so he could try to get famous for curing it.

Nobody else found that prospect all that alluring – not even Speaker, who commented: “We were talking about the Dowager – the deathlord who had originally made the great contagion. If she was ever looking for a vector to sneak new samples of that disease into the realm… then Bhagwei would totally be it”

It thus occurred to the circle that there might have been more than one reason why Bhagwei had come to this part of creation – to which end Sullen Hoof and Shimmer were instantly dispatched to track where he’d left on his ship, while the rest of the circle got cracking on finding information on the Dowager.

Sunrise headed to the grand Sunhill temple and prayed to various gods, requesting information, all the while Fire Orchid returned to the Sunhill military encampment, training herself and the best of the jungle fighters under her command. Speaker went to meditate on his first age memories, trying to recall what had once been in that part of Creation, while Cash said that he would reach out to some of the merchants who had come from the eastern-most river provinces.

“By the way Speaker, we resolved the issue with the strange half-demon ponies – the infernals” Cash said, just as he was about to leave the war room.

Perking up at the mention of the strange ponies, Speaker shot Cash a curious look.

“Sunrise reminded us of the strange pony you had encountered in An-Teng. The trio said that he was probably another of their kind – and what you and Shimmer had found, with him also being hesitant at using demons to overtly turn the place into a hell hole, it fit well with what they wanted. We arranged for them to journey there via a local water elemental currier service”

“Sounds great – I’m sure Bitter Copal would love some help from allies like that, and his cult would probably be quite accommodating to them, even with their mutations”

Sullen Hoof returned a few days later, reporting that Bhagwei and his ship was indeed heading east, up the yellow river. Shimmer had attached herself to the ship in the form of some obscure western sea creature, to remain undetected, allowing her to effortlessly track the ship further.

While waiting for her report, Cash was able to learn from the merchants he had spoken to of only few and scattered settlements and plantations as far east as where the Dowager was, yielding little useful information. It was Sunrise who had been able to get some interesting information from Hran-Tzu, informing her that very close to the elemental pole of wood there was a shadowland, an ancient one that according to Hran-Tzu’s records, which predated the primordial war – and it was the only shadowland of note for thousands of miles in that area, due to the wood pole’s aggressively supernatural healing essence.

“Aggressively supernatural? Really?” Cash quipped, finding that particular wording somewhat silly.

Speaker frowned, having experienced that healing essence up close and personal: “Oh it’s quite real. That far east your wounds will heal almost instantly, and fester just as fast – things grow too fast, growing back together wrong if you’re not quick. Lookshyan medical protocol for broken limbs in that region, call for repeated rebreaking until you get the limb to heal in the correct alignment… and its next to impossible to get right that close to the pole of wood”

The very idea of having to rebreak a limb over and over, because it would heal too fast – Cash shuddered, doubly so because he knew that of the circle, he was still the ‘squishiest’ of the lot... well, perhaps Shimmer had that dubious honor now, but he had yet to see her mettle tested in combat, and Lunars were nothing if not tough.

“So don’t get hurt, got it – but we can’t just go there regardless. We have no idea what lies in that shadowland, plus I would expect the jungle to be quite impenetrable there” Sunrise pointed out.

Sully noted that if the dowager was somehow planning on seeding a new and virulent sample of the great contagion to Bhagwei, then he wasn’t quite sure how she would do that: “Because you’re right Sunrise – it is quite difficult to get there via land, and flying there is quite difficult too because you can’t see what’s under the jungle canopy at all. There’s also the fact I picked up in the underworld that the dowager never has more than one deathknight at a time… only one, always with the same title”

“The shoat of the mire?” Shimmer wondered, recalling what Speaker had told of the psychotic filly that he and Sunrise had fought earlier while trapped on Juggernaut.

Speaker and Sully both nodded, with Fire Orchid chiming in: “Well, if her plan is to cook up diseases then she wouldn’t need that much help – at least not until she needs to spread the disease across creation – but you’re right, that would greatly limit her ability to pass anything on to Bhagwei, especially if Cash’s maps are right about the lack of rivers in that area – and while I didn’t get to speak with him much last night, he didn’t strike me as someone who’d be ok with consorting with the undead, considering his pride and personal politics”

“We don’t even know if Bhagwei is planning on doing something like that – he seemed more interested in visiting the medical scholars in Great Forks, Nexus and Greyfalls when I was chatting with him” Speaker pointed out.

It was thus that the circle resolved to probe the territories surrounding the dowager, both to find out where they could enter her domain from – but also to simply find things like landmarks to navigate from, since none in the circle were all the familiar with such a far reach of creation. To facilitate this, Cash and Sully flew off on Nah, returning several weeks later with much needed information, just a few days after Shimmer had returned as well.

“We had to fly slow, and only at night, to keep our presence hidden. Sully put a lot of effort into making sure we weren’t followed – but we found the nearest piece of civilization, only a mere three-four hundred miles of impossibly dense jungle from the Noss Fens” Cash explained, tracing the route that him and Sully had taken with glowing essence on a detailed map of the east the circle had in the war room.

Sully nodded, sounding not all that happy with what they had found: “It’s a duchy called the Gossamer Stockade, ruled not by mortal ponies, but by two reasonably powerful changelings”

“Ponies living under changeling lords? The horror…” Sunrise said, sounding genuinely upset at the very notion.

Tilting his head from side to side, Cash made a motion for Sunrise to calm down: “It’s actually not that bad. We spent a few days in their capital, a place with the rather apt name of Glass Fortress. We found that the changelings there for the most part live somewhat amicably with their pony serfs. The ponies who live under the rule of Obsidian Wave and Plestara pay a tax of dreams – and nothing else. I don’t think I’ve seen ponies that wealthy so far from Nexus, ever…”

To say that this confused the rest of the circle was putting it mildly, but Cash told the tale of Gossamer Stockade well, cluing them in the sources of the wealth of the place: “The gemstone mines in their underground is what supplies the caravans that go down through Chung Do – it’s their stones that lay the foundation for Chung Do’s gem-cutting and resale economy. Beyond that the ponies of the Gossamer Stockade also produce a large volume of medical herbs they sell…”

“Well, that’s perfect – that gives us two… maybe even three excuses to visit the place: A trade deal for gems to Chung Do, one for Sunhill for medical herbs, and depending on how the ponies there are treated, that” Shimmer quickly rattled off, having figured out Cash’s plan.

Nodding greatly, the solar diplomancer smiled widely: “Exactly. We’re not going there to set up a base of operations for our forays against the Dowager – we’re there to set up a trading post and embassy. Sully set up a meeting for us, while disguised, before we left there. Now, what you did find you while tracking Bhagwei Shimmer?”

Everyone turned to listen to Shimmer – and it was clear than the Lunar neophyte was a bit intimidated by having what to her felt like elder Solars look at her expectantly. It took a bit of essence for her gather the courage to speak up: “I tracked Bhagwei’s ship first to Great Forks, where he apparently had several others waiting. They then set off east, up the yellow river. I had a look at Bhagwei’s navigator’s notes. They’re heading to a place called Mahalanka on their maps”

“Figures that they’d go to Sperimin – Mahalanka was what Rakshi called it. Oh well, it will be a while before they get there – should give us plenty of time to shore up the garrison there and give the spirit things controlling the place instructions on how to handle them” Fire Orchid noted, nodding to Shimmer that she had done well.

Shimmer beamed with pride that her second real solo ‘mission’ as a part of the circle had gone well.

Preparing for this diplomatic mission took a few weeks, as various diplomatic gifts, documents, and other supplies had to be gathered, packed up and loaded. Shimmer found that Speaker was restless in this period, and it didn’t take much to figure out that it was the idea of changelings lording over mortals. Trying to soothe her solar mate, she found it difficult, not knowing much about this strange country in the far east-north-east.

To this end, Shimmer sought information from other lunars, namely the lunar she had read about living in Great Forks, originally re-discovered via the notes left by her last incarnation. It was through this that Shimmer learned that much of the north-east of Creation was the claimed territory of a pair of elder lunars, one Rain Deathflyer and one Silver Python – information that she relayed back to the circle, as it might be useful. This prompted a quick discussion:

“That certainly explains the stories I’ve heard of the Haltan ponies from a variety of merchants – they live up in the trees – and produce a wide range of wood-based products… living very much in tune with nature” Cash noted, sounding as if a lot of facts and rumors he had heard suddenly made a lot more sense.

Fire Orchid looked at the maps in the war room: “But the nation of Halta is spread out so widely – and I’ve heard plenty of their warring with their neighbours along their western borders, so they probably won’t have much in the way of military assets in their south-western territories… so asking them for help probably wouldn’t do much”

“Moot point – if we approach Halta as solars, they’re not going to help us. They helped the Bull against the realm in order to strike at their ancient rivals, the Linowan – who are those ancient rivals Fire Orchid mentioned, but their leaders also got quite frightened when they saw the might and carnage that a solar warlord can pull” Sunrise commented, sounding as if she had heard something the rest of the circle hadn’t.

Elaborating, Sunrise explained that she had spoken with spirits in Great Forks, including wood elementals from Halta who were visiting friends there. Sunrise added: “For Halta the undead are strange things they’ve only heard stories of, strange things from far away. There’s only one mid-sized shadowland near them, one bordering to their Linowan rivals, stemming from an ancient battle between the two. They have no real experience with fighting the undead – because the undead can’t climb up to them, and ground-based ghosts don’t last long in those areas due to the changelings on the forest floor”

“Fair enough – but we’re aiming at setting up a base of operations in the Gossamer stockade, not in Halta. Will they be more willing to help?” Speaker wondered out loud, knowing full well that none in the circle had an answer to that just yet, but he wanted to bring things back on topic.

Cash shrugged: “We’re not looking for military aid from the changelings there – just a place to rest and stable a yeddim or two. They shouldn’t object too hard with that”

“True – and from what I saw, then they didn’t have much in contact or trade routes leading further east, which would be in the direction of the shadowlands. The stockade around their borders from which they derive their name, the titular gossamer stockade, is made of changeling magic. Damn things moves on the outside, makes it impossible to climb it, and you can’t light it on fire. Great defences against greedy hundred kingdom warlords, or barbarian tripes further east trying to raid them” Sullen Hoof added, using essence to form an illusory image of the stockade. It appeared made of shimmering glass.

Looking at the illusion, Speaker got a funny look on his face. Shimmer was about to ask into it, when Cash beat her too it: “You’ve got that expression that tells me I’ll be selling something new and lucrative pretty soon”

“I was just thinking… if they’re reasonably friendly changelings, and building things that large out of gossamer – and they haven’t been overrun by a random warlord with iron weapons just yet – then we could look at trading some of the filled dreamcatchers I have. Maybe I could even learn something from them on how to use dreamstuff” Speaker mused, appearing pensive at the idea of normalizing diplomatic and trade relations with changelings of all things.

The rest of the circle agreed that it was weird – no doubt about it – so everyone was both curious and apprehensive as they finally flew north-east.

Their flight-path mainly took them along the heavily trafficked main rivers of the hundred kingdoms, going along the yellow river, then up the rock river. This took the circle by the Gunzota redoubt, still being rebuilt by Lookshy after the circle had made it safe to be in years ago. This of course also brought them past countless river-side ports, city-states and other small principalities, too numerous to count.

Following the rock river north, Cash followed the roads and other visual markers visible down on the ground, the terrain soon changing from jungled riverland with small villages and rice paddies interspersed, to pine forest – the evergreen trees standing tall from the ground like green spears striking at the heavens.

It certainly made for an interesting change in terrain, for despite the regions proximity to the elemental pole of wood, then it was too far north to sustain the kind of jungles that the hundred kingdoms were known for.

Speaker, having never been in this part of Creation – at least not in this lifetime – found the scenery unfolding down on the ground fascinating: While the ground was broken up by countless great pine trees, then it was possible to see farmland squeezed in between them, along with no small number of lumber operations. It was none the less strange to see territory like that, for it looked superficially similar to the hundred kingdoms, but the foliage was so different… it wasn’t thick jungle, it was “just” dense mostly pine forest.

Approaching The Gossamer Stockade, it also became quite evident that what Sully had said about the great wall there was very true: A vast forty-foot wall stretched from horizon to horizon, with blockhouses every couple hundred yards. The walls were clearly fortified and manned by… something… but whatever strange changeling creations that stood guard atop the battlements, then it was clearly not ponies. Many of the strange defences seemed thoroughly integrated into the magical wall, which indeed seemed to wiggle and continuously flow on the outside, making scaling the wall quite impossible.

Indeed, the fluttering glass-like tentacles that sprouted from the wall and migrated down its outer surface appeared quite well able to snatch nearby trees and rip them about, shattering the trunk on the ground – the circle witnessing such a violent feat, as they flew in over the wall.

“A wall like that will do a number on any kind of siege tower rolled up to it – nice” Fire Orchid commented, sounding duly impressed.

Cash shrugged: “If they’re the biggest source of gemstones in all of the east… and like also the north… then it makes sense to be well defended – though I would still question how well the wall holds up against iron”

Everyone agreed that the nature of the wall raised some interesting questions – indeed, further into the lands of the gossamer stockade, other buildings could be seen that showed clearly signs of changeling artifice, mostly in the form of various forms of transparent materials that simply should not be transparent – such as stone or wattle and daub, giving quite a lot of the buildings they passed large sky-lights.

Further afield into this strange land, Cash steered Nah along well-kept main roads towards the largest city there. To Speaker’s surprise the city appeared to have infrastructure set up to receive flying visitors, in the form of an aviary with a total of five landing platforms, two of which were actually occupied: One by what appeared to be absolutely enormous birds of prey the size of yeddim, that platform being under heavy guard by ponies at arms who did not in any way look local – and the other looked to be full of much smaller birds, each strapped with small boxes or crates on their backs, or with cargo held in their talons, all of them appearing as if getting ready to take off.

“Hmm, it would appear that both the Metagalapans and the Haltans do trade here” Cash commented, recognizing the ponies at arms for being natives of the flying mountain, and the lesser birds that seemed… intelligent enough to tie packages to themselves… as being Haltan in origin.

Speaker, having basically no clue what the haltans were, and only faintly recalling the strange floating mountain that was Mount Metagalapa from when he had recovered from a brief stint of madness many years ago, after which the circle had brough him to a hermit who lived under the mountain who had saved him. How could ponies live up on a flying mountain?

Landing, the circle was quickly approached by a very official looking welcome party consisting of three ponies and a changeling who’s form could best be described as colourfully insect-like, with a lot of bright orange and green shell segments, as if a pony had been pieced together by large insect-parts.

“Greetings, I am Thorax, first keeper of the staff here at Green Keep. On behalf of our twin lords Obsidian Wave and Plestara, I welcome this delegation from the far-off lands of Sunhill” the diplomatically inclined changeling eloquently and politely stated in forest-tongue, his speech sounding both well-rehearsed but also earnest.

Cash instantly gelled with the diplomat and his attendants, Thorax expressing great curiosity and delight at meeting the leaders of the far-off market place where the majority of the gemstones mined within the gossamer stockade ended up being sold for the time being. Cash in turn spun yarns like a seasoned weaver, getting on with Thorax like a house on fire.

This left Speaker, Sully, Sunrise, Fire Orchid and Shimmer wondering what they should do – but somehow, in-between talking Thorax and his attendants’ ears off, Cash also informed the circle that an official meeting with the two changeling lords were scheduled to take place in about six days, during which the circle was free to explore the city and whatnot: “If you buy anything, make sure its delivered here – there’s a warehouse section downstairs where they can store our goods before we load up and fly off – and I’ll have a place for us to stay arranged before you know it”

“Flying off on your yeddim? Oh, you simply must tell me how you manage to do that” Thorax said gleefully, appearing quite overjoyed at the prospect of getting to hear so many new and strange stories, his voice loaded with all manner of curiosity.

Fire Orchid quickly herded the rest of the circle off the platform, leaving Cash to revel in his duel with a fellow wordsmith: “Alright, Sully – go find us provisions for a journey to the noss fens. I read that you know how to make food that won’t spoil in shadowlands. Speaker, you wanted to have a sniff at the gossamer workers. Shimmer, make sure Speaker comes back to us in one piece. Sunrise, you’re with me”

Despite his eagerness at learning the secrets of gossamer artifice, Speaker had to wonder: “Fire Orchid, what will you and Sunrise do?”

“I’ll do what any visiting warlord or general does at a new and strange place… I’ll check out their defences and figure out why they haven’t been conquered yet. Sunrise will do the same to check up if the ponies here are being treated well” the solar general stated in a knowing tone, like a grandmother explaining something obvious to a curious grandchild.

“I’m older than you” Speaker retorted, not really appreciating how Fire Orchid had talked to him.

While a contest of elderly glaring might have been fun to witness, then Shimmer found this sudden strife silly and hauled Speaker off into the city.

Out in the city of Green Keep, Speaker quickly found himself distracted by the strange mix of changelings and ponies, living side by side. Well, sort of: It was clear that the changelings walking about were in charge. Local ponies bowed and acted quite deferential to changelings they came across, provided that the changelings were larger than ponies – for the city was also alive with small changeling goblins and other lesser figments of a changeling noble’s imagination, all of them zipping about hauling goods, carrying messages, or doing other forms of menial work – and due to the insights granted to him from his sidereal martial art, Speaker found it very easy to tell changeling illusions apart from the real deal, as the duo passed by vendors of all kinds of strange things.

The presence of changeling merchants made for a very colorful cityscape, with small winged creatures flying around with scrolls or small packages in their beaks or claws, while ponies went about their business. As Cash had taught Speaker to look for, then Speaker saw next to no empty storefronts: Business appeared to be good in the city of Green Keep.

Seeking out a gossamer artisan wasn’t difficult – well, once Shimmer found a merchant who spoke rivertongue that they could actually talk to. With that information they sought out a part of town apparently called ‘the market of dreams’.

Much like the specialty markets of Nexus, then the market of dreams turned out to be a place where changelings came to exchange and trade in gossamer. The stalls there were replete in impossible geometry, signs that blinked, gestured and even beckoned for your attention. Of course, the two weren’t there to buy more gossamer… at least not initially – they were there to entreat the gossamer artisans that had their workshops surrounding the market.

As per the instructions the two had received, the duo found a shop marked by a sign set with large glass pearls. They had been told that the pony who ran the place spoke rivertongue – and indeed, the proprietor and workshop master, a fae-blooded pony with strange glassy eyes and a mouth that opened just a bit too widely to be entirely natural, greeted the duo warmly.

Now, simply asking a master to teach them out to work gossamer – the stuff to dreams – wasn’t really an option. It would take too long to be taught by a mortal, at least for the kind of time schedule that the circle operated with, but by presenting the dreamcatcher with Shimmer’s nightmare the duo was able to get a live demonstration of the artisan’s craft. During this demonstration, Speaker used his education charm to enhance what he saw and learned, giving him a first lesson without the artisan really knowing.

Of Shimmer’s nightmare the artisan crafted a dark bauble, using a bit of black jade dust to give it great depths. Put on a necklace of a silver chain, it would allow Shimmer to change her appearance into that of a living nightmare to frighten foes around her.

“There we go – quite impressive if I must say. It was a potent nightmare, and extracted quite expertly. It was clearly not dreamt anywhere around here, considering the open oceans it featured” the artisan said, his north-eastern accent quite notable, but none the less understandable.

Having agreed not to reveal their true nature just yet, Speaker refrained from explaining that he himself had drawn out the dream – but Shimmer explained that it was pulled from her in the west some time ago, before coming to the east.

“Fascinating – but I was more referring to the… how do you say... the edges of the dream. Dreams taken by changelings have a certain mark, like a bitemark – but this dream had soft round edges, like a hoof. Quite fascinating…” the artisan mused, clearly wanting to know, but appearing to recognize that he wasn’t going to get a straight answer.

Buying some more gossamer, the duo spent the rest of the week examining the rest of Green Keep’s industry. To absolutely nobody’s surprise, then the city had a thriving support industry making tools and kit for the various mining industries within the gossamer stockade: Mining copper, tin, iron, coal, salt – and most importantly of all: Gems. The production wasn’t in any way as prodigious as in Gem in the deep south… but with Gem having fallen to demons not that long ago, then the gem mines in Gossamer stockade were bound to become a lot more lucrative.

At the end of the week, the circle had its official audience with the twin changeling lords of the land, which happened with all the pomp and pageantry one might expect from heads of state meeting with other heads of state. Cash had been so kind as pack everyone some very nice sets of clothing for the event, and meeting up at the castle he quickly briefed everyone on what talking points and negotiation were bound to come up. It wasn’t anything unexpected, though since it was essentially a changeling court, then the circle didn’t have to worry about revealing that they were exalted.

From the very nice tavern that Cash had rented rooms for everyone in the circle, they travelled in style to the palace of the twin lords via the nicest rented carriage service available in the city. The palace of the twin lords was in turn quite spectacularly decorated, appearing to have been decorated in both the green and gossamer colors of the twin lords, as well as some very tasteful green on black with yellow sunbursts, as a creative reinterpretation of the Sunhill coat of arms. Indeed, the very palace actually greeted the circle… because of course it did: The grand structure itself was a specially made changeling, a living building.

A palace that could open itself own doors for you was… new – at least from what Speaker could remember, though Sunrise seemed certain that in the first age she had been to manses with similar features.

The court of Obsidian Wave, who appeared as a bug-looking changeling of black obsidian, with shining amethyst eyes, and Plestara who had more of a wood elemental aesthetic, with a body of policed hardwoods and various north-east flowers and grasses, had prepared some very impressive festivities for the circle. It turned out that the court of the twin lords had spent the weeks following the arrangement of the visit from Sunhill scouring all of their connections for stories and legends of solars – and thus the court had been very much so hyped up about the circle.

Cash in turn made great efforts not to disappoint on that, the rest of the circle struggling to keep up with the yarns he spun and the many questions they were asked.

For the grand court audience everyone who was anything in Green Keep had showed up, some as courtiers, some simply to bear witness to the curious visitors from far away – and the circle did not disappoint: Sunrise put on a performance of her musical martial arts, stirring the hearts and minds of everyone in eartshot, impressing even the most hardened of the court’s cataphracts. Cash equally amazed everyone with the stories of the circle’s exploits, and Speaker wondered if he should try to show off by doing something medical… or if he should do something with dreams.

Now, in the days prior, Sunrise’s investigation into the welfare and treatment of the ponies of the gossamer stockade had showed that it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as what the circle had feared. She had found that the changelings treatment of their pony citizenry was surprisingly fair – arguing that it was even better than how ponies in Great Forks were treated by their god and spirit masters. Cash and Fire Orchid had both found this analysis sounding quite right, with the ponies of the stockade not paying taxes in the form of money – regardless of how much or how little they earned – instead they had to pay a tax of dreams, meaning that a few days per month they wouldn’t gain any true rest from their sleep… which all things considered, was a very small price to pay, considering the brisk trade of uncut gems flowing from the mines of the of the stockade territory. The twin lords even patronized a large number of poets, writers and playwrights, seeking to enrich the dreams of their subjects with as much creativity as possible.

It was with this largely positive review of the stockade and its leaders in mind, that the circle had put on their best faces for the audience with the twin lords – and it was equally for this reason that Speaker chose to reveal his sidereal martial arts, asking for a dream-eaten pony to demonstrate his skills on.

“Oh, esteemed lords of Sunhill, we do not engage in such short-sighted practices here. Full on dream-eating is reserved only for unrepentant criminals of the worst sort for the duration of their sentence – and thus we are loathed to see such ponies restored, for we have heard legends of your healing powers Lord Bright” Plestara stated from her magnificent throne of jade and gossamer.

While hearing such a thing made Speaker quite happy – then it equally frustrated him a fair bit, for he had come up with a really neat trick to show: “Do you have any such ponies who are near the end of their sentence? Lord Charmer can bind such a villain to never willingly commit crimes if you’re worried”

Obsidian Wave jittered, as an insect might, its mandible jaws twitching: “Fifth Page, my dearest chief justice – do you know if we have such a colorful character in our penal workforce?”

The changeling known as Fifth Page, who had a form that appeared to be made of folded paper, with a mane and tail of flowing black ink, creased the paper that was its forehead as it thought of the question: “We have a few potential candidates – shall I have one brought here?”

Messengers were quickly dispatched, and libations for everyone in the court of the twin lords were brought in during the wait.

Chapter 44 A Mother’s Love

The live wire stylist whips the shit out of his soup with two whips at once, for great justice.

…

The court of the twin lords of the Gossamer Stockade became very quiet, as it bore witness to Speaker not only healing and restoring the hollow husk of a dream-eaten convict pony, only to see this criminal – a mare who had repeatedly stolen from a gem transport, as well as having violently assaulted and killed several transport guards – drop to the ground in the deepest of sleep the instant her mind returned to her.

Of course, that was only the first part of Speaker’s ‘trick’: For he then leapt into the dream of the pony, and remade the pony’s dream into a most fantastical and epic dream, one truly worthy of the first age, leaping out of the pony’s dreams again to great applause… and then stunning everyone by drawing the dream out and storing it effortlessly in a dreamcatcher. Dozens of changelings got to have a sniff at the dream, all of them thoroughly impressed and dazzled by the rarity and exotic qualities of this most exquisitely artisanal dream…

“None in this court have ever witnessed a pony so effortlessly perform a reaping… much less one that doesn’t seem to harm the pony” Plestara said, descending from her throne and approaching Speaker, her wooden form like that of a beautiful but living wooden sculpture, carved and polished as if living art.

Obsidian Wave in turn beheld Speaker from his throne, looking at the pony intently with more than eyes – with organs and senses that only changelings had, speaking quite quizzically: “…and yet we sense no graces from you, no feeding maws. This is not how ponies nor changelings work – it is impossible, doesn’t fit the narrative”

“We are solars – and in ancient times the solar host did the impossible on a daily basis. I practice a martial art that lets me master dreams, to grant or take them from others” Speaker stated proudly, feeling quite satisfied with his truthful boast.

Many other changelings in the court found this display endlessly interesting – and the circle thus found itself in the good graces of the court, as trade deals were arranged on behalf of both Chung Do and Sunhill, and special deals for Speaker to come and create dreams of supernatural potency in willing subjects that were about to pay their dream tax, in exchange for a fortune in subsequently spun gossamer.

During the long evening the circle also learned that the gossamer stockade was attacked at least half a dozen times a year, the greedy warlords of the hundred kingdoms often having a go at their outer wall to raid them for their wealth, or to conquer them outright. With that in mind, the circle in turn informed the changeling court of the development in Gem: The demon invasion, the effective loss of Gem’s gemstone mines – and that once that became common knowledge, then the gossamer stockade would become an even more prized target.

“That’s terrible – the attacks on our walls are a big enough drain on our resources. When exactly did this demonic invasion take place?” Plestara burst out, her mouth opening so quickly that flecks of bark and splinters came off her.

Shimmer put the invasion at a few months prior, noting that the circle hadn’t heard anything new about it since then: “…but considering the economic value of Gem, then I can only imagine that most of the south would rally and send their combined armies to reclaim the place”

“Oh sure – and then they can start fighting over it themselves. It’ll be a very long time until Gem stabilizes enough for production to resume – but it will likely also be at least a season or so until news of Gem has organically spread this far” Fire Orchid pointed out, knowing well enough through her military education how most of the major powers in the south truly did not like each other, so sharing information was slow in the region.

In the end the court of the twin lords thanked the circle for both the marvellous entertainment, the quite useful information, as well as the promise of future trade in dreams and other strange things, including a signed contract for a later downpayment for a light rail pillar – once the Sunhill network expanded that far north-east.

A few days later, once everything had been tallied and trade deals had been committed to paper and signed, the circle flew off from Green Keep.

Once well out of earshot of the changelings, the circle discussed their experience in the strange land. The very idea of changelings and mortals living peacefully side by side… it was strange – and while they had all seen things that could be improved upon, then it was difficult to dismiss what they had seen outright. Cash found the idea of lords that cared not of monetary taxes, who let their people prosper freely, quite nice. Sunrise similarly found that the changelings let their wards worship freely – indeed, they forbade the direct worship of changelings, for the twin lords used their dream tax to also keep their changeling minions in line, by ensuring that they controlled the only supply of gossamer and dreams in the land.

Of course, deep discussions on the philosophy of magical and novel governance could only last for so long, until the seemingly endless jungle of the deep eastern everfree forest appeared to sicken… to rot… and yet it stood tall and fruitful.

“That… that simply doesn’t look right” Cash said, heaving at Nah’s reigns to make the yeddim stop.

It was surprisingly easy to spot, the rough border where healthy jungle yielded to a rotting and mouldy canopy. In some places enormous tree-sized mushrooms grew, while in other places it was possible to see rotting fruits growing on rotting trees – it was a strange sight, to put it mildly, even more so as Shimmer and Sully pointed out that the shadowland beneath the rotting canopy sounded as if full of ‘life’.

Landing, it turned out that this ‘life’ was… anything but living – and yet it didn’t take long before Shimmer and Sully had spotted an undead wild dog and its recently ‘born’ undead puppies, already rotting with skin peeling off them, yet they were undeniably alive and aware of their surroundings…

This was beyond grotesque.

“How? This is… this is so wrong” Shimmer said, holding a disgusting undead puppy up for the rest of the circle to see.

Too nauseous to reply, Speaker couldn’t give Shimmer an answer, despite her inquiring eyes. Sunrise stepped in, her considerable sorcerous lore granting her the insight into the effects of strong elemental essence exposure: “Shimmer, consider where we are: We’re very close to the elemental pole of wood – there is so much life-giving wood essence here, that even in a shadowland, the dead live… sort of”

Shimmer grimaced at the undead puppy, before pitting it down on the ground and shooing it back towards its ‘mother’. Oh, this was going to haunt her so much, for sure.

Making camp, the circle sent out Sully to scout the area. Their plan was still to only scout the Noss Fens, not to make the same ‘mistake’ they had done at Thorns… sure, they had been able to defeat The Mask of Winters pretty quickly there, but they knew damn well that they couldn’t rely on being lucky again.

It also didn’t help that they knew full well that the Dowager of the Irreverent Vulgate in Unrent Veils had been at Thorns – so she knew of them – which no doubt meant that she was preparing for them.

Sully returned later that evening, finding Shimmer having set up a camp in the jungle treetops. Using her essence-webbing, she had created a sturdy foundation of interwoven branches, vines and thick jungle leaves. Speaker had equally built a lovely wooden lodge on top of that for the circle to stay in.

“So… found anything interesting?” Cash wondered, sensing that Sully had something to tell.

Unloading the wild fruits, nuts and exotic far-eastern vegetables he had foraged while out on his foray, Sully sat down and began to peel, slice, mash and otherwise process his haul into pots and pans he drew in from elsewhere: “I found several villages dotted around the shadowland – strange ones too… little to no signs of mutations, despite being so close to the pole of wood”

Perking up at the mention of locals he could talk to, Cash got up: “Oh, you think they know anything?”

“Probably – I only observed them from afar, and only briefly while I circled the shadowland”
Sully noted, having already finished dinner.

One scrumptious meal later, the circle agreed to seek out the nearest of these villages in the morning for more information. You couldn’t live on the edge of a jungle shadowland without knowing something about what happened in there – or at least what might come out from there.

During the night heavy rains partially inundated the area, the thick jungle dirt too dense with tangles of roots to let the water seep down further. The hut that the circle slept in held just fine, but it was a rather noisy bit of nighttime weather.

Indeed, the next morning the circle sallied out, led by Sully. Shimmer took careful note of the local wildlife, spotting signs of local predators and the few gore-trails they could find, which hinted of undead creatures wandering the area.

“This village… this… this is wrong” Cash said, as the circle entered the small clearing ringed with simple wooden huts thatched with wide jungle leaves. The locals kept their distance, looking quite fearful of the strangers suddenly in their midst.

Sunrise looked around curiously, not quite sure of what Cash meant – but trusting his judgement, and adding her own observation: “Probably, and I’m not seeing anything that looks like a shrine for local gods or spirits, and there’s nothing that looks like a graveyard or site for funeral pyres”

It made complete sense that the priestess had first looked for places of faith and burial rites – it was also a rather worrying observation that this place had neither, for it was well known that even jungle tribes would make deals with local spirits. The circle had already seen the ‘naturally spawned’ undead in the area, but Speaker quickly noted that there weren’t any undead villagers among the local population.

“True… and you know what I’m not seeing either? There are no old ponies here – not even young adults… and they all look sickly and miserable” Shimmer pointed out, having expected to see some elders running the place and coming out to check on the strangers that had arrived, but seeing none.

Cash stepped forth, using charms to call upon the attention of the villagers – denying them the chance to hide or run away. Forced to confront the strangers, a weary adolescent mare, with a young foal clinging to her side, approached. She spoke a tribal tongue unlike anything Shimmer anyone in the circle had ever heard, but Cash’s charms let him be understood by anyone.

The introductions that followed quickly turned awkward, as the villagers appeared to have absolutely no idea of the world around them. Cash quickly ended the conversation, turning to the circle: “They keep asking if we’re from ‘great mother’ and if we’re here for the harvest… and I really do not like how they say harvest”

Sully agreed, saying that his profiling charms were telling him that the villagers appeared to be eyeing up the circle and trying to gauge how easy they’ll be to kill: “….you know, for the harvest”

“So that’s how they stay alive – they give the Dowager a tithe of corpses to stay in her good graces” Sunrise said, letting out a resigned sigh at the thought of what malevolent cruelty and madness that was needed to engineer such a horrible society.

Everyone in the circle agreed, with Speaker noting that it looked as if they would have to completely redo the village if they wanted useful information out of them – mainly so they wouldn’t start trying to kill the circle.

“Redo the village? Shimmer wondered, not sure if she liked how that sounded.

Shrugging, Speaker looked around at the crude huts and the muddy paths that the villagers trod around in: “Undo the mental corruption, teach them how to live properly – this place is a mess, even with so much food and life in the jungles around them. We’ll basically have to start over with them”

Shimmer balked at the idea, for it sounded like some of the projects that Sage had taught her about back during her training as a lunar…. And Sage had said that such projects would usually take years. This simple reconnaissance mission was spiralling out of control already… it was just like Thorns!

Seeing Shimmer’s apprehension, Sunrise quickly intercepted the Lunar and pointed out a few things: “Look, it’s not like we have to start from scratch. These villages know how to cook food and clothe themselves – they can even fashion simple huts, that much is clear. We can build on that, to guide them in a better direction, and then they can spread that knowledge to the neighbouring villages. Speaker can teach some of them how to make better huts, Sully how to forage for better food, and Cash can organize it all – we’ll be done in a week or two, tops”

It was truly miraculous. By lunchtime the circle was in full swing giving the villagers a great boon of knowledge on how to fashion better huts that would keep local insects out, what kind of herbs and locally sourced remedies would work for medicines, and there was a delicious smell of many exotic fruit stews and roast pig wafting through the village. The villagers were all in good health, for the first time in the living memory of the place, and they were even smiling.

Shimmer had tried to help out where she could – but lacking the linguistic charms of Cash, she couldn’t really talk to the villagers, nor did she have any training charms that could teach useful skills, so she had been relegated to hunting for local jungle pigs and felling trees for firewood.

The Lunar’s frustration wasn’t lost on the circle, Sully at one point taking a break from teaching the villagers new cooking techniques to talk to Speaker, who was similarly on break from teaching the villager’s basic medicine: “Is she ok?”

“I think so – but once we’re done here, I suspect that she’ll want some alone time to learn some new skills and charms. She hasn’t really had time to develop her powers since I found her, and I would be lying if I can’t see her resentment…” Speaker mused.

Sully nodded, the large angular orichalcum mask he wore hiding his expression – yet perfectly conveying his agreement: “It’s funny how that’s switched around – I remember feeling the same towards her back before Deep Rot”

By that evening, the village… it looked almost the same – but there were subtle differences. Drainage ditches had been dug, making the paths within the village less muddy as rain-water finally had somewhere to go. Similarly, then many of the crude huts had been reinforced with new timbers and much better thatch, plus proper flooring had been added in most of them. It wasn’t much, but it was a good start, and the villagers had been taught how to take it even further, as spots for proper wells to be dug had even been selected.

With all of these gifts given, the circle in turn found itself much more freely given information in return: “When Great Mother comes for the harvest, she raises us within the fens. When we get too old, she sends us back to rebuild and await her return”

As Cash Translated, the rest of the circle didn’t quite know what to make of what they were being told. The village adults, if they could even be called that – the oldest among them were younger than Sunrise, only barely old enough to have had their first foals – were strangely reluctant to say what had happened to their elders, to their parents.

Of course, Cash’s charms of social deduction and intrigue-detection quickly had him sus out the dirty secret: Apparently the Dowager didn’t as much exact a tithe of corpses, as she simply came and collected all the children… and killed anyone she deemed too old.

“So that’s what they meant by the Dowager raising them in the fens… because she murders their parents and kidnaps them, then releases them back to repeat the cycle. That’s demented” Shimmer said as she despaired, having found the Mask of Winter’s operation in Thorns a lot easier to understand – an evil ghost warlord having conquered a place and slowly extracting souls, corpses and valuables from it, while the Dowager’s continuous harvest of children from these villages full of innocents made no sense what so ever, being so incredibly slow and inefficient.

The circle agreed with Shimmer, Sunrise hypothesizing that it might be to create some kind of perfect society or candidate that doesn’t value life: “They certainly seemed quite resigned to their early deaths”

With the village gathered for the feast, and all of them eating the finest meal in their life – if not the first actually good meal in their life – the villagers took little heed of the circle speaking softly about them in a strange language.

“Could be. They all spoke so well about their experiences under the Dowager’s care… it sounds so creepy” Cash remarked, not quite sure what to make of what the villagers were saying.

Sullen Hoof pointed out one aspect of the kidnappings the rest of the circle hadn’t considered: “Do remember the Shoat. That little filly was far too comfortable with killing… I think the Dowager keeps these villages around to keep a supply of candidates for her lone deathknight”

Shimmer reiterated her point that she found such a practice incredibly wasteful and frankly insane.

The next day, the circle woke up in the village with renewed vigour and drive to thwart the Dowager… for to visit such endless and needless suffering upon innocents was beyond reproach.

From atop their flying yeddim, the circle beheld the shadowland. Rotting jungle or not, the Noss Fens were completely covered in foliage – making it damn near impossible to get a read on the landscape… and the circle knew from the village they had spoken to, that the Dowager’s base of operations was underground.

“We… will need to clear all of this away. The jungle canopy is blocking my essence sight, so I can’t pinpoint where the geo-mantic centre of the shadowland is” Sunrise said, noting that cleaning up the shadowland was a big part of shutting down the Dowager’s operation.

Pulling at the reigns of Nah, Cash agreed: “True, but clearing this much jungle… this far east? That’s damn near impossible. The trees grow as fast as you can cut them down”

“Can’t we talk to the local gods of the jungle? I was taught back east that the fastest way to wrap up a kelp forest is to get the god overseeing it to cooperate” Shimmer suggested, recalling what she had been taught about divine hierarchies.

Speaker put a kind hoof on Shimmer’s shoulder: “That’s probably our best shot – but this far east such gods would be very powerful from all the local essence and not inclined to cooperate. Our only real hope is to get orders from on high to force these jungle gods to obey us”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen Speaker, asking a jungle god to erase part of its jungle domain would simply be unacceptable to it” Sunrise pointed out.

Stroking his long bear, Speaker nodded as he retrieved something from elsewhere: “Oh that is true – but I got a celestial writ from the very god of gardening a couple of year ago…”

Cash quickly snatched the celestial scroll and read its contents; his eyes going wide: “How in the six shaven nutsacks of Malfeas did you get this?”

“I shat myself quite furiously in his office – he appreciated my offering of fresh manure” Speaker said, quickly going from sounding clever to sounding somewhat uncomfortable at recalling the events that led up to him getting the writ.

Shimmer vaguely recalled what Speaker spoke of – but couldn’t quite remember it… but she none the less found herself nodding: “Lord Bright is right – but isn’t it just for a gardening tool?”

Closely reading the writ, Cash nodded: “True. Speaker, we’ll have to think for a bit to figure out what exactly we should ask for here”

“I was thinking we ask for a ‘tool’ that could clear a large swath of far-eastern jungle in one go, and replace it with a flat plain of grass that will keep itself mowed” Speaker said, having already thought about what to ask.

The circle was at first dubious on whether something that broad-reaching could be requested via the writ, but Cash said that the writ was specifically for a god-tier grade gardening tool: “…so I think it’ll do it”

Some quick but elegant calligraphy from Cash, following Speaker’s instructions for the wording, with Sunrise conjuring a messenger spell to deliver the writ, left the circle simply waiting until their heavenly gardening tool arrived.

Just as the circle was about to settle in on Nah to wait for the heavenly gardening tool, Shimmer perked up – her catlike senses having picked up… nothing – but that was just it: there should have been something: “It’s quiet down there”

Looking over the size of the howdah, Speaker wasn’t quite sure what Shimmer was talking about: “What is it?”

“Oh Lord Bright – it’s the birds down at the village we were at… they’ve all gone quiet” Shimmer said, noted, sounding unsure of whether it was even worth mentioning.

Cash instantly pulled the reigns of Nah, the great yeddim letting out a deep rumbling groan, as it began to accelerate towards the village: “Everyone, get ready for a fight!”

Sunrise, holding on to the howdah for dear life, cried out: “What’s gotten into you? What are we going down?”

“What Shimmer said: No birdsong down in the area – it didn’t make sense at first, but then I remember an odd detail the villagers had said: Their own childhood harvest was preceded by a great quiet” Cash shouted back, the onrushing wind making it difficult, but not impossible to hear him, plus he was using charms to make everyone got what was he was saying.

“Hold on – weren’t we here to scout out the Dowager, not engage her directly?” Speaker said, not sure if the others could hear him.

The lack of a reply probably either meant that the rest of the circle had not heard him, or that they were all down for coming to the aid of the villagers. Speaker was all for saving the villagers too – he was mainly just worried about engaging a deathlord without doing proper prep-work… oh well, time to put on the fearlessness charm – and probably also his shaping, disease and poison immunity charms.

Approaching the village like a comet of sunfire, the circle was not subtle as it burst through the jungle canopy, Sunrise having clambered up upon the head of Nah’s head, her anima flared to the fullest.

With Cash’s expert use of riding charms, he was able to make the giant yeddim fly in at a blazing speed – yet come to the gentles halt, just as the circle leapt off to find a gruesome standoff.

One of the young adolescent mothers in the village stood cornered by her hut, with her young foal trying to hide between her legs, as an enormous and deformed old crone was bearing down on them.

The knew full well that powerful old ghosts, be they deathlords or not, could manipulate the form they took when they appeared in Creation – they were only essence after all, not a physical body – so that the deathlord appeared as such didn’t phase them much.

Sunrise roared forth, her charms projecting a mental stranglehold on all who could see and hear her to focus their attention on her: “Dowager – cease your harvest! This village is under our protection!”

The crone, easily three times the normal size of a pony, and with limbs that seemed to alternate between bloated and skeleton-thin, seemed to briefly fight her own body as it tried to turn to face Sunrise – it was clear that her mind wasn’t interested in obeying, but such was the power of Sunrise’s essence.

“You dare corrupt my gardens and adulterate my crops?” the old crone said to the circle, turning – one fetid limb at a time, to face them all.

Fire Orchid, seeing absolutely no reason to prolong what looked to be the inevitable, did two things: She stepped up in front to address the crone, but also subtly communicated through a body-language charm to Shimmer that she should quickly run off and round up the villagers and toss them in her elsewhere den, otherwise they might get caught in the fighting.

Her address to the crone was as bold as it was honest: “Oh Dowager of the Irreverent Vulgate in unrent veils, this is no longer a place for you for harvest – remove yourself from this place and leave these ponies be, or know that our harsh words heralds a precipitation of blades and salt!”

Craning her neck, the crone laughed at the circle, as the jungles behind her became alive with zombies crawling out of the bushes and revealing themselves from the undergrowth: “I am the untamed Kethet of the swarm… who are you to dictate terms to me? Did you think I came here alone? I am but here to claim what is rightfully mine – your interference here is neither lawful nor sensical”

“Claim what’s yours? You said we was good! You said we could leave when we grew up! You said we was good! You said so! You said we was free!” the villager mother shouted at the Dowager in her very simple and rudimentary tribal tongue, clearly agitated at the Dowager’s attempt to kidnap her daughter who was barely able to stand up on her own.

The dowager laughed, her body snapping and cracking as her form realigned from that of an old crone to a great and mighty form, the sort one might imagine when thinking of a giant jungle queen, replete with jewelry of bone and body paint of red and ochre – a bit like Rakshi, only stinking of death: “I never said you were free… I told you to go back, rebuild and multiply – you have never been free…”

Just as the dowager was about to reach for the foal with a dread limb wrought of twisted snakes, a Fire Orchid clad in heavy armor wrought of pure golden essence tackled the deathlord and shouted: “Shimmer, now!”

With essence webbing the two mortals were quickly yanked into an elsewhere den portal, inside of which the two were safely caught in an essence web set up to catch anything thrown in there. The dowager quickly threw Fire Orchid off herself into a nearby hut, opening her mouth to shout… something. An order to her zombies maybe? A battlecry?

Nothing was heard. Nothing at all. For Sunrise had used musical martial arts to render the entire village cloaked in silence – preventing the Dowager from speaking the sorcerous word of ten thousand birds, which would have transformed her into a flock of birds to fly away and make her escape… of course, the Dowager still controlled her zombie minions, so she had them surge out of the jungle to just kill everyone.

The zombies burst into white holy flame, the white fire spreading like a wave into the jungle, as Sunrise’s silent prayer smote the ruin of the undead horde: “For the mighty deathlord who engineered the great contagion, we had expected more”

Sunrise’s voice was impossible to not hear – for it was the only sound audible. Not the burning zombies, not the brief shrieks of villagers as Shimmer zipped around in her warform, snatching ponies left and right and tossing them into her den, not the gnashing of teeth from the increasingly desperate and confused deathlord.

Speaker, having seen the chaos around him but remained quite calm thanks to his fearlessness, had readied his weapon and taken careful aim with both Gift and Homage. He had beheld the Dowager with essence sight, knowing full well that the illusory form she was wearing in no way reflected her true ghostly corpus, and while he couldn’t pierce the illusion then he figured that she would at least have to be as tough as the Mask of Winters, so there was no sense in holding back for an attack on her.

It was thus that Speaker’s anima flared bright and clear as he dumped as much essence into his two weapons as possible, every tiny gear and component of them lighting up with searing golden light from within. He threw them with the precision of a surgeon, his heart crying out of the untold generations of villagers that had been butchered by the Dowager’s mad schemes.

The Dowager clearly saw the attack coming – but seemed powerless to stop it, right until she made a magical gesture at the nearest bunch of zombies, their bodies falling apart and zipping over to her, reassembled in front of her as a great shield wrought of bone and sinew. Gift and Homage both tore and burned at these, but ultimately bounced off, both zipping off as the shield held and deflected them.

With a second gesture, the Dowager had another gaggle of zombies come apart at the seams and clump together as a crude wrecking ball which was instantly launched at Sunrise. The ball crashed into her, knocking her over and disrupting her silencing technique – finally bringing sound back to the village and surrounding jungle.

It was rather loud for that first instant – a thousand jungle trees with leaves all rustling in the wind, and an uncountable horde of zombies trying to encircle and overrun the village.

“That’s my cue” Cash said, stepping up to face the Dowager – but she wasted no time, speaking a single arcane word that saw her form explode into a swarm of small black birds that flew off in an instant. Cash looked somewhat disappointed…

Finally managing to get out of the collapsed hut she had been imbedded in, Fire Orchid stumbled out, looking equally annoyed that the fighting had all but stopped. Sure, there were a few straggler zombies, but they all seemed to be retreating back into the jungle towards the shadowland just as a howling shriek of rage could be heard from within the jungle in the same direction – clearly the Dowager venting her frustration.

“Fire Orchid, could you toss me up onto that tree?” Sunrise requested as she dusted herself off, trying to remove the zombie-goop she had been pelted with.

Not questioning her circlemate, Fire Orchid heaved and tossed Sunrise up into the nearby tree Sunrise had pointed out. Up in the tree, Sunrise looked intensely in towards the shadowland – but Fire Orchid still couldn’t quite make sense of her little scouting effort: “What are you looking for? Did she steal something of yours?”

“No, but the flight of separation spell has a limited range – I’m trying to spot where she… there we go” Sunrise said, inhaling deeply before she roared: “Dowager! You can run and hide, but the lords of Sunhill have come for you! We came for the Barbate Arbiter at Deep Rot, and we came for the Mask of Winters at Thorns – so seek refuge in madness, for you shall find no mercy from us!”

With that bold declaration out of the way, Sunrise jumped back down to the ground – somewhat clumsily, but her shield charms saved her from injury as she faceplanted into the ground.

Shimmer, seeing that the danger of an all-out battle had passed, had already begun letting villagers out of her elsewhere den, and Speaker was working on repairing and cleaning Gift and Homage: It seemed that the undead zombie-shield the Dowager had wrought had thoroughly fouled and gummed up with the two weapons with undead ichors and bone-splinters aplenty.

As the villagers cleaned up from the zombies, and celebrated that they got to live another day, a thankful mother and her foal approached the circle, Cash translating their simple tribal tongue: “I don’t know how to thank you… when she came for me, when I was little… she made me kill my own mother”

The mother began to cry, bawling her eyes out. No translation was needed to understand the trauma she was clearly reliving – though Speaker was quick to employ medical charms to soothe her painful memories and grant her peace of mind.

Chapter 45 The Binding Of The Shoat

The violet bier of sorrow stylist knows exactly when the soup must die - and gobbles it up when the time is right

…

Another day dawned on the village with no name – the best word the villagers had for it was ‘home’, for their understanding of the world around them was quite limited, to the point that they didn’t even known where the other villages around the shadowland were. They had a vague idea that they existed, for when the Dowager would release a new crop of adolescents to rebuild a village, they would be composed of foals from many different villages, but they would never quite be sure.

This issue was resolved, in a way, as Speaker aimed the heavenly gardening tool that had arrived overnight. It looked like a strange device of green jade, a hefty hoof-sized emerald and golden filigree that floated in the air before him, as he poured his essence into it and saw it work.

The local god of that region of jungle, a being that appeared in the form of a tangle of branches and leaves, appeared before Speaker, somewhat confused of the strange summon that the device had enacted: “I am A Spread of Rampant Green – who calls upon me?”

The villagers had absolutely no clue what the thing was, so they ran off screaming, but the god didn’t seem to pay them any notice – it was wise enough to taste the air around it, and had sensed the presence of solar essence.

“I am Bright Machine Speaker, Solar of the twilight caste, chosen by Celestia the most high. By this writ and this tool, I would have you do your duty” Speaker proclaimed in old realm, the ancient language of the gods and primordials.

The god lumbered closer, as if the very jungle had come alive and was approaching Speaker: “My duty… do you realize what thing is telling me to do?”

“Yes – for I asked it to be made for that purpose: To clear all the jungle around the Noss Fens shadowlands and to keep it cleared” Speaker said, keeping his eyes fixed on the god.

The god groaned and rumbled, every log and root within miles trembling: “So be it… I cannot deny an order from on high”

It was then that A Spread of Rampant Green touched the strange heavenly device, rupturing the green emerald. From it poured thousands of wood aspected elementals in the swarm of glowing green hounds and moles, that instantly swarmed the target area, disintegrating all of the jungle into pure wood essence that just wafted away in the rushing wind of so many elementals flitting about.

It took a few hours – but the entire Noss Fens was cleared – leaving a vast area roughly two-hundred and fifty miles across bereft of vegetation. A lot of VERY confused animals were left behind in the wake, most of them fleeing towards the new treeline.

The process also exposed just how many legions of zombies the Dowager had hiding around the shadowland in the middle of it all, guarding her hideout – the place that the villagers had called ‘The Mound of Forsaken Seeds.

The clearing of the fens also revealed all of the surrounding villages – for the area cleared had been defined as a rough circle defined by how each village surrounded the fens: This finally gave them a clear and easy way to not only discover but also visit the other villages.

For the circle the clearing of the fens mainly meant that they could now clearly see where they were going. Sunrise conjured a small magical cloud and did some fly-bys of the shadowland, using her smiting charm to reduce many of the remaining zombies and undead things there to ash as grey as the withered shadowland itself. Once that was done in the late afternoon, getting to the mound itself was quite easy.

Well, it should have been.

As Cash guided Nah to take them to the mound, it began to resist his commands. He quickly found that not even his more potent riding charms could compel it: “Alright… looks like we’re walking”

Now, walking to the middle of a shadowland that was two and half or so hundred miles across was not a quick trek – even with the terrain cleared – but the circle quickly found a faster alternative: Loading up into Shimmer’s elsewhere den, she shifted into her warform and flew to the mound.

The inside the elsewhere den, which had been outfitted back in Sunhill to contain all kinds of supplies, emergency kit for anything from boat repair to medical emergencies, was perhaps not the most comfy place to camp in, especially not after a couple hundred villagers had been stuffed in there the day before, but there was also a table and enough seating for everyone.

“Speaker, how long do you think it’ll take her to fly in there?” Cash wondered, sounding as if he already longed to return to Sunhill.

Doing a bit of math, Speaker figured that Shimmer should arrive in a few hours.

Except those few hours turned into several. For obvious reasons this worried the circle greatly, but they had absolutely no means of escaping – a lunar’s elsewhere den was hidden in the pocket dimension of elsewhere, so there was no physical way to breach the place.

Sunrise did her best to keep up everyone’s spirits – but even the messenger spell they tried sending just hovered at the closed exit portal – and as solars, they all had a magical sense of the time day via the position of the sun in creation.

When the portal finally opened, the circle quickly exited – finding themselves unmistakably in a shadowland… the Noss Fens – but that wasn’t all the found. They found Shimmer, in her warform, covered in gore and half-dried zombie remains. Around her were the remains of thousands upon thousands of zombies, many of the bits still wiggling on the ground if they were big enough to contract a muscle.

“So… rough trip getting here?” Cash quipped, giving Shimmer a respectful nod as to her combat proves.

Shimmer let out a tired bird-noise, combined with a long yawn: “They were hidden in the ground – just kept coming, sprouted like weeds… kept trying to grab me and pull me down”

“We could have helped – you saw how we fought the undead at Thorns” Speaker said, trying his best to not sound as if he was blaming Shimmer, but none the less wanting to communicate to her that the situation could have been handled better.

Freely admitting that she had been frightened too much to the swarm of zombies, Shimmer just focused on the here and now: “Look, I know – just patch me up so we can get this over with”

Sunrise chuckled as she stepped up to survey the land they were on: “Dearest Shimmer – you don’t have to stress yourself. It will take you time to mature your essence, to grow to a point where you’ll have caught up with us. We felt the same when we first met your past incarnation – don’t try to force yourself into something you can’t handle”

Shimmer could only frown while Sunrise looked around. They were on top of the mound in the middle of the shadowland – on top of the titular Mound of Forsaken seeds… but there really wasn’t much to see, for the recently cleared swampy terrain wasn’t terribly interesting to look at.

Of course, that was only what one could see with a naked eye. With essence sight, the truth of the matter was very different, and the whole circle quickly agreed that this was by absolutely no means a natural shadowland, not that shadowlands were all that natural to begin with.

“This is wrong in so many colorful new ways” Cash stated, for even with his limited insight into sorcery then he could tell that this was not normal.

Over the years, the circle had seen a lot of shadowlands. All of them had the same telltale marks: Enough death had lingered in the area to link it to the underworld, creating a bridge between Creation and its dark mirror, tied to the epicentre of the most death and suffering of the land. In Thorns, the spiritual epicentre of the shadowland was quite easy to find, for the god of the city was being slowly tortured and kept at the brink of death.

It was always a question of a source, from which necrotic essence would leak, poisoning the lands. This was not the case for the Noss Fens: Here it wasn’t necrotic essence pouring out, creating the shadowland… it was ordinary elemental essence of all kinds flowing into the mound, leaving the land void of living essence – and through that void, as essence of the underworld appeared to simply ‘seep’ out and poison the land, in an attempt to fill the gap.

It was so very strange to look at… to see a dead swamp in a place so rife with essence of life and growth. It did explain why the Noss Fens was a swamp, despite the thirst of the surrounding jungles having turned the terrain in hard root-riddled loam.

“Do you think you can actually close this shadowland Sunrise?” Speaker said, the uncertainty in his voice fully communicating his confusion and doubt.

Sunrise stomped the ground she stood on hard, a golden ring of essence pulsing out from where she had struck: “I’ll try – but based on what Shimmer said, then there’s no telling what might be hidden under the surface in the swampy ponds around us… things that might well come up while I cast the spell”

Everyone agreed that a swamp was a great place to hide undead: The undead didn’t need to breath, and the swamp would likely preserve the undead so they wouldn’t rot – and with the size of the Noss Fens swamps, then there was room for a lot of things to hide there… which was all the more reason to close the shadowland up.

Sunrise began casting her spell, sunlight gathering into clouds of sunlight high above the mound. The rest of the circle girded themselves for battle, preparing for anything that might spring forth to stop the spellcasting. When Sunrise finally drew her head back and let out a piercing cry, the bolt of golden sunlight striking down into her, the circle held their breath – for now was the perfect time to strike…

…but nothing happened.

Sunrise maintained the spell for well over an hour, yet no undead attacks happened – but the shadowland also didn’t shrink. Sully, his eyes the keenest, leapt high into the sky more than once to survey the land… but every time he could only say that nothing had changed.

“This is impossible. There should be so much life in the ambient essence flows here – the instant the shadowland is banished from a spot new plants should start growing” Speaker said, utterly confounded.

Sunrise ultimately ended the spell, spiritually exhausted – and deeply disappointed that it hadn’t done a damn thing to seal up the Noss Fens shadowland.

“How can this be?” Fire Orchid said, with great confusion.

Everyone looked to Sunrise, for some clue, a hint, as to why the spell hadn’t worked. Had she felt anything different when casting the spell? Sunrise could only shake her head: “I don’t know – but I know that I cannot accept this… this spell was crafted by some of the brightest minds of the first age. No shadowland should be able to withstand it”

Speaker was about to ask Sunrise what she thought they should do, when she drew breath and shouted at the ground – blasting it with her sound and music-based martial arts. Having blown a hole into the Mound of Forsaken Seeds, Sunrise resolutely delved inside.

Cash groaned, loudly: “I thought this was just a scouting mission…”

“It still is – we’re scouting this place to find out why we can’t close the shadowland, so come along” Fire Orchid said cheerfully, sounding more than ready to take the fight to the Dowager.

Thus, it came to pass that the circle entered into the dark domain of the Dowager, entering the Mound of Forsaken Seeds.

The initial impression of the place was that of a rotting mineshaft dug into, of all things, a swamp. Not exactly something that exuded confidence in structural soundness. Indeed, the rotting timbers that held the tunnel aloft appeared poised to collapse at a moment’s notice. It was still big enough and wide enough that some very large wagons could pass through – but in the bug-riddled mud it wasn’t possible to tell if there were any prints or tracks.

Shimmer guided the circle, using her sensory charms to not just see in the darkness – she could not see the walls or the ceilings, but she could sense the insects and bugs that crawled everywhere, giving her a living map of the structure. At best, the rest of the circle could hear the drip of water from the moist ceilings.

“Is there a reason we don’t at least have lit caste marks, so we can see where we’re going?” Cash bemoaned.

Sunrise noted that she had her on – but the place appeared to eat light.

Sully, his own sensory enhancement charms needed at least the tiniest of hint of light to work, didn’t see the problem all the while he kept emptying out salt from his seemingly bottomless pockets: “At least your outfit cleans itself when you slip in the mud”

“Hold up – I see light up ahead… look” Shimmer whispered, gesturing towards what turned out to be a large wooden gate, one splattered in mud and covered in the kind gunk you would expect to see in a muddy underground tunnel frequented by the undead.

Speaker quickly pointed out that the lack of guards was not just a little suspicious. Shimmer noted that all the guards were up on the surface: “I spent hours carving up legions worth of zombies… this place had plenty of guards – and numbers like that wouldn’t work well in a narrow tunnel like this”

“Fair point. Considering how far this place is from any major piece of civilization, how impossible the terrain is at ground-level, and how it was for the Dowager to hide who knows how many thousands of zombies in the jungle… then that was probably her defence. Anyone entering the place with an army would be detected at the edge of the shadowland, and they would likely spend months carving their way to the mound – ample time for raids and diseases to overtake anyone trying their luck here" Fire Orchid noted, her strategic and tactical analysis being quite well thought out.

Everyone agreed that this was some very sound reasoning – and indeed, the gate opened fairly easily – though what they saw on the inside… it didn’t really surprise anyone, but honestly it wasn’t all that interesting either: Huge piles of shit.

“That… is an impressive collection of road apples” Cash said, holding a hoof up to shield his nose, not that it did much.

The circle agreed that it was probably part of some scheme to remove waste from the place. The piles of shit were crawling with insects and worms, and while Speaker, Shimmer and Sully all gleamed some knowledge about what the diets of whatever had produced such stool – they all agreed that the usefulness of such knowledge was somewhat limited.

Beyond the front hall full of shit, there were tunnels leading to other rooms: Some appeared to be storage areas where zombies just stood mindlessly, awaiting orders. They were racked and stacked like warehouse goods, often contorted into shapes that living ponies would have found extremely painful or impossible.

In some of the other rooms were large pony-sized ravenous maggots, which were quickly slain, and in another room the circle came across a strange scene of headless zombies stumbling around randomly – which never really made sense.

“Hey, look at the gate here – it’s the only doorway we’ve found so far that looks even remotely fortified” Fire Orchid pointed out, after the circle had cleared another room of strange over-sized maggots that barfed a corrosive mix of blood and digestive juices at anything they got near.

Indeed, this gate was wrought of dark stone and steel – clearly actually made to withstand a great deal of force. It was also locked with a soulsteel lock that simply ate the essence of Sully’s lockpicking charm – but Speaker just used his singing staff to move the compacted dirt of the walls aside, to open a new door to what was beyond the gate.

It turned out to be an absolute horror that was hidden beyond the gate: A single bloated ‘head’ of sorts, easily four or five yards across, stitched together of untold pieces of flesh and skin. Where the Dowager had acquired eyes the size of large watermelons was anybody’s guess – but what wasn’t a question was whether the thing was hostile or not… for the great head seemed able to use its jaw to launch itself into the air through the great hall, aimed straight for the circle as it came tumbling down.

The gargantuan head came down with a mighty crash, the wooden braces holding the walls and ceiling groaning – and from every stitch along the great head’s a great amount of blood spewed, which quickly revealed itself to be of the same corrosive sort, that the local giant maggots had a tendency to hurl around.

Springing into action, the circle leapt at the great head: Shimmer spun her essence webs to tie it down, Sunrise began to inhale sharply and bounce to a quick little rhythm only she could hear and Speaker struck the creature to slam it up against the wall with great force of essence, keeping it disoriented. Sully pummelled the creature with his cooking-based martial arts, tenderizing its thick flesh so that Fire Orchid could slash at the necro-surgical monstrosity along its seams, its thick flesh gaping open.

Sunrise then shouted into this gap, the great head briefly inflating – and then bursting, everyone trying to dodge the shower of blood. Well, everyone except Cash who just ignored it as his magical outfit shrugged off stains, and Shimmer briefly sought refuge in her elsewhere-den, coming out once it was safe.

The vocal onslaught that Sunrise had unleashed left very little of the monstrocity behind – everything had been torn, ruptured and rent asunder by the power of her voice. The single largest remaining piece was a great big tooth, half the size of a normal pony’s head. Upon closer examination, it was revealed by a strange mix of many teeth that had somehow been melted down and ‘recast’ as a big one – Speaker could only shudder at how many poor souls had been killed to make the parts for this beast. It was put into Shimmer’s lair as a grotesque trophy to be put up in Sunhill later.

“Well, that’s one way to guard the true entrance in your lair” Cash said, pointing towards the stairs heading down, which the monster appeared to have been keeping watch over.

Sunrise and Speaker both confirmed via essence sight, that the subtle essence-sucking effect that appeared to be creating the shadowland led down the stairs – and so the circle continued onwards, ever vigilant, searching for whatever prevented them from closing the shadowland.

The crude wooden stairs soon led to an underground stone structure that was markedly different from the muddy earth-hewn tunnels up above: This was an actual building… one buried underground.

Some quick sounding checks by Speaker, using his singing staff to get a sense of the structure’s shape and size, revealed it to be some kind of ziggurat – a stepped pyramid. It was within the top levels of this ziggurat that the circle found the last crop of foals that the Dowager had been indoctrinating… or… something…

The foals weren’t exactly talkative – already traumatized from having witnessed or been made to commit the brutal murders of their parents. Shimmer saw the empty looks in the eyes of the foals, and was about to quietly ask not if – but how – the circle should put these poor souls out of their misery.

Shimmer painfully recalled the stories of her childhood, of fisherponies that would venture too far west, who would get caught by aquatic changelings… who would end up drifting back to their islands as dream-eaten husks, often heavily mutated to boot. The worst of these would ‘return’ to their fishing villages mutated into fish or seals… unable to speak to their kin, but ultimately gutted and eaten by them. It was a mercy to end their suffering, right?

Speaker wasn’t quite sure why Shimmer was zoning out, while he went around and used his medical charms to give the foals a combined check-up and to cure them of any physical ailments. Cash then huddled the foals together and quickly ferreted out what magical lies and chains the Dowager had put into the minds of foals, purging them and giving them a new lease on life, with a desire to honor their dead parents by doing well in life.

“Hey Shimmer, open up your elsewhere den – we need to stash the foals there until we’re out of here” Fire Orchid said, poking the lunar.

It came to Shimmer as a shock, that the circle had already solved the issue of the foals. Such soul-crushing trauma, turned into happy smiles and eager hopes for the future. For some reason this was so much more difficult to comprehend, compared to the battles she had seen fought at Thorns – but there it had been so much more… straight forward: An evil villain was killing everyone and taking their stuff, and planning on conquering everything else. Here the Dowager was just needlessly traumatizing foals for shits and giggles?

“You ready to move on?” Cash inquired, as Shimmer helped herd the last of the foals into her elsewhere den.

Steeling herself once more, Shimmer shook off her doubts and nodded, following the circle deeper into the deathlord’s lair.

Exploring the rest of the level they were on, the circle found kitchens ‘staffed’ by magical soulsteel cooking utensils and equipment that cooked food on its own. It wasn’t difficult to identify the ghosts bound to these things as the source of their animation. In examining these things, mainly to see if they were a threat, but also because Sully basically had a giggle-fit when he saw the magical kitchen cooked stuff on its own, Speaker did make the worrying discovery that the worn and tattered ghosts bound to the objects were all looking at Shimmmer… regardless of where she went – even through walls and whatnot.

Destroying a few pots, pans and knives freed these ghosts of their bondage – to which they quickly rushed Shimmer, not to attack her… but ask to see their children.

These were the ghosts of the parents of the captured foals. The dowager had bound them to serve her forever – and indeed, to the great sorrow of the ghosts, then it turned out that the foals that Shimmer had stashed contained none of theirs. The ghosts admitted that they had sensed no passage of time while bound, indeed they had barely been able to think on their own, so the grim truth was likely that their foals had died long ago… likely also taken to the Mound of Forsaken Seeds as subsequent generations of adolescent parents to be slaughtered and made to serve the next generation.

“Good grief… how long has the Dowager been doing this?” Shimmer said, her mind already feeling worn and tired from the previous shock – now she was finding herself unable to get upset over this revelation, since it was simply too grotesque.

Sunrise did some quick thinking: “For millennia likely – if not longer. If Sully’s intelligence on the Dowager is correct and she somehow developed the great contagion here first, then she’s been working from here for quite a while”

“Well not anymore – once we figure out how to close up this shadowland these villages will be free!” Shimmer said, now more determined than ever.

The stairs to the next level down into the buried ziggurat were guarded by a pair of foals… though honestly, saying that they were ponies anymore was a misnomer: Surgical abominations, carved up and stitched back together in ways most hideous.

The guard room in front of the stairs even featured magical doors that slammed shut behind the circle after they had entered, locking them inside with the two necro-surgically conjoined foals: One of them was a fair bit larger than the other – its muscles unnaturally bulky, and on its brow was tattooed the old realm pictoglyphs for “Contusion”. From its gut trailed a long and leathery-looking cord to the other foal – though calling it an umbilical was probably as far from the truth as it was possible, considering that both of them looked to have been conjoined after death and reanimation.

The other one – the smaller of the two – appeared to hover in the air, its head the largest part of its body, the rest appearing shrunken and vestigial at best. It featured a tattoo in old realm spelling out the word “Suture” on its forehead.

The two instantly attacked the circle, contusion charging at them, while suture appeared to heave and then barf out a stream of corrosive blood every now and then.

The circle sprang into action just the same, Fire Orchid charging at Contusion, to meet the necro-surgical creation head on. The two wrestled, while Sully and Speaker came around on the side to double-team the thing while it was busy tussling with Fire Orchid. This simple deception worked splendidly, Contusion ending up cut into pieces.

This left Suture hanging… literally… with the torn umbilical cord hanging from it, and with the loss of its ‘sibling’ the thing appeared to redden, its face contorting into a permanent rage-filled scowl as it began to fly towards the circle quickly, shrieking like a screaming child.

Shimmer caught it in her essence-webbing, the little thing quickly revealing itself too physically weak to break free. With all threats thusly neutralized, Speaker helped Fire Orchid clean up while Sunrise sang Suture a requiem – her quiet prayer smiting the abomination with holy fire.

“So…a guardian at the stairs to the next level? I wonder how many more we’ll have to face before we get to the bottom of this” Cash mused, sounding not as much intimidated, and more… managerial. It was clear that he was simply trying to figure out how long this little venture would take, trying to calculate when they would run out of essence to fight with.

Speaker poked the remains of the two monsters: “No clue – but if the top level was mainly storage and logistics for things being moved further down into this place, and the second level was living quarters for the captives… then I would expect the deeper levels to be laboratories and production facilities for the diseases that the Dowager researches. She has to have made the great contagion somewhere here”

The circle agreed that there was definitely something they had not found yet.

Delving deeper, slaying stranger necro-surgical creations – from headless zombies that would try to pry your head off, to horrors too grotesque for polite description, the circle found no laboratories. Instead, they came across a great chamber lit with glowing amber where they found a single foal surrounded and beset upon by undead monsters. The child was being beaten and tossed about, barely clinging to life as claws raked its hide and corrosive bile and blood seared its wounds and flesh.

The circle instantly sprang into action, slaying the monsters quickly and efficiently. Cash held back during the fighting, saving his essence for untangling the mind of the foal, expecting the Dowager to have messed with the foal’s mind a lot more than the others.

It turned out that Cash wasn’t wrong… but he was also very much off the mark:

Approaching the foal, amidst the sliced and diced bits of undead monsters, Cash used charms to first calm and sooth the mind of the foal. It was curled up on the floor, covered in dirt, blood and gore to the point that you couldn’t really see the natural coat colors of the poor little thing.

“There, it’s safe now – we’ve slain the monsters” Cash said, speaking softly and kindly in the local tribal tongue.

Of course, while Cash was focused on the foal, he paid little attention to the piles of undead remains around him – including the skeletal snakes that seemed to slide out of the piles towards him, suddenly snatching Cash and coiling around him.

In a blur of motion Cash was caught, the skeletal snakes poised to strike, their venom-dripping fangs grotesquely enlarged through necromantic surgery. It was in that instant that the foal roused, crying out and from its tear-filled eyes, black fire shot forth, consuming the snakes in dark flame.

Fireballs of black flame was not something normal foals could do… but it was something that the circle had seen a few abyssals do.

“What is your name… or title?” Sunrise said, approaching the foal carefully, keeping an eye out for more fireballs.

The foal staggered to her hooves, shivering as necrotic essence washed over her and reduced any dirt or blood-caked mud on her to ash and blew it away: “Mother calls me Shoat. Shoat of the Mire”

Chapter 46 Endless Depths of Fractal Madness

Flame and Stone stylists do not use spoons, they breathe fire and smack you with a club if they do not like their soup. They are simple folks, but get their point across, brutally.

…

Sullen Hoof, having fought the previous incarnation of the Shoat of the Mire, was quick to ask a few questions. Cash translated, and the foal thus explained that ‘Mother’ – the Dowager – had chosen her earlier that day, and said that in order to be a good girl she had to give up her name… and she had complied, and thus she had been chosen by the abyss. Indeed, she answered every question put to her, appearing to be under some kind of compulsion to do anything she was told do.

“You have got to be kidding me… exalted mere hours ago? I guess the Dowager was desperate for a new deathknight” Speaker said, wondering just how the Dowager had killed the foal, for a black exaltation could only latch on to a mortal soul at the moment before they died – that much the circle knew from other abyssals.

It certainly raised several uncomfortable questions on what to do now. Cash said that he would need time to deprogram the Shoat, to give the foal some semblance of her own mind back. The rest of the circle took this time to recover their essence, a slow process seeing as they were in a shadowland, but it beat running out of essence.

Several hours later, Cash was able to report that he had salvaged what he could of the foal’s mind. She could now think for herself, and no longer considered being alive a waste, didn’t worship death… but he had not been able to recover her name: “I suspect the Dowager summoned a passion-moray to eat her memory of her name. She only knows her title at this point. I also think I’ve managed to teach her to speak river-tongue… or maybe she used a charm to learn it – not sure, but you should all be able to talk to her now”

What Cash had not said – something the circle was keenly aware of – was whether the Shoat could be trusted. Sure, he said that he’d gotten all of the Dowager’s brainwashing out of the young filly, but had he gotten all of it?

“I… I need your help” the Shoat said, looking at the circle. Her expression was like that of a blood-drenched axe murderer staring at her next victim, and yet Cash was enthusiastically nodding.

Like a grumpy grandmother suspiciously looking at a grand-child that had just broken her favourite porcelain vase, Fire Orchid approached the Shoat: “Help with what exactly?”

The filly looked around at the circle, a darkness in her eyes and on her brow: “Mother… no, sorry… the Dowager… she challenged me. She told me to prove myself – that only by proving myself, would I be worthy of her love. Cash told me what her ‘love’ was… and now I want the memories of my parents, the memory of my name… I want it back – and I’m willing to fight for it”

“And when you have that back, then what? Sunrise inquired, appearing to be on board with aiding the barely adolescent deathknight with her plot of vengeance, but none the less hesitant at unleashing a heartless murder-hobo on Creation.

The tears that formed under the eyes of the Shoat were pitch black, and sizzled as they struck the dirt floor: “I still remember my parents – they were alive a day ago – but the Dowager took my memory of their faces and names. Once I take her face, I’ll take every piece of soulsteel in this mound and labour to free the souls tied up to them or within them”

The circle couldn’t find anything too offensive with that plan of action – and Speaker sensed no lies – so the Shoat was allowed to come along, proving herself exceptionally adept at slaying the various monsters that inhabited the mound.

It wasn’t all perfect though: There was one major difference between how the circle dispatched the monsters there and how the Shoat did: The junior exalt fought with a frenzy and glee that was truly worrying to see – for it was with the pale glowing eyes of hungry ghosts that she fought, and she would occasionally outright consume the ghosts and monsters they came across, somehow absorbing the powers and abilities of the things she ‘ate’.

Due to this strange ability of consuming and expressing the powers and abilities of the ghosts and monsters of the buried ziggurat, then the Shoat ended up looking quite monstrous and grotesque after half a dozen levels further down: From a wolf-sized spider she ate its head, growing two more eyes – letting her release withering quadruple volleys of black teardrop fireballs against anything that beset her. From another monster she had torn what she had claimed was ‘food’ – though Sully protested loudly at calling it that – but when the culinarian saw her eat it, he just up and vomited. The shoat swore that it made her stronger. This repeated many times over.

Examining at least some of the strange things that the Shoat absorbed/imbibed or wore, Speaker confirmed that they were in fact brimming with essence, and subtly hidden magical materials and components. To this end, their effects on the Shoat made a bit more sense, though it was rather unnerving to see her become less and less of a pony, as she willingly debased and mutated herself in her rapid pursuit of power… for she kept saying that she needed that power in order to face the Dowager. She no longer called her mother.

This showdown was quite a while in the making, every level of the ziggurat the circle descended revealing a level bigger than the last, and the strange emanations from the depths of the accursed place only growing stronger.

This baleful and corrupting radiance appeared particularly potent after the circle had banished a very powerful second circle demon – a demon lord in its own right – one summoned to guard the access down to the deepest pit of the mound.

“I… good heavens – I guess it’s my turn to say that it feels all kinds of wrong now” Speaker said plainly, as he peered into the darkness of the stairs beyond where the banished demon had floated in the air. The air still hung with a potent odour of… not death – but something else in the air, something alien – something than none in the circle, or the Shoat, could identify. It wasn’t good.

Down the next level, the first thing the circle took note of was how clean it was: There was no longer any trails of dirt dragged by patroling necro-surgical creations, instead there were quite a lot of ghostly or necromantic cleaning staff and creations hiding in the corners, or clumsily trying to ambush the circle as they explored the level.

It was on this level that the circle came across quite a few macabre necromantic surgery theatres, many of them appearing to feature paused necro-surgical procedures that were only half-way done… though it was difficult, even for Speaker, to accurately gauge how far along the ‘assembly process’ things were in a given room. The Shoat picked over the raw materials, body parts and organs for anything she could absorb power from, the circle burning the rest with holy fire.

“The only thing we haven’t found yet is her personal sanctum… yet with these gory halls of unholy creation, then we’ve seen everything from storage areas, living quarters for the stolen foals, the intended proving grounds for the Dowager’s deathknight – the only thing we haven’t found any sign of is the source of the strange draining effects of the manse, and the Dowager’s own private quarters” Sunrise stated, as the circle sifted through the cinders of the last undead horror that the circle had slain and put to the torch.

Speaker found himself nodding: “You’re absolutely right – though this buried ziggurat isn’t a true manse. The essence being drawn in here isn’t an effect of the architecture. This place was just built on top, or around it… but a very long time ago”

“Hmm… if it’s that old, but with this drain of essence… then even this stone should have withered – but it looks very new and well kept. Fire Orchid, could you see just how strong this floor is?” Sunrise mused, looking at the martial mare.

Fire Orchid stepped around on the floor, listening closely to her steel-shod shoes against the stone tiles, listening for any sign of cavities or… oh…

The floor collapsing saw everyone scrambling: Cash shot his claws up into the ceiling, to avoid falling. Shimmer turned into a seagull, watching helplessly as Speaker and Sunrise dropped down among the barrels of blood, crates of embalmed flesh, stone tables and boxes of soulsteel surgical tools. Sullen Hoof managed to jump up onto a wall, somehow sticking to it.

The Shoat landed on her hooves first, quickly seeing through the dust and chaos what she had been looking for: “Mo- Dowager! You killed my parents!”

Sully quickly and safely jumped down, helping Speaker and Sunrise get up. Fire Orchid pushed off the crates and surgery table that had landed on her, and Shimmer flew down, growing her seagull form to waft away the dust using her wings.

It appeared that the circle and the Shoat had landed in a great chamber with a vaulted ceiling. Not far from the circle stood a solitary throne of bone and pale rock, and on that throne sat the Dowager… though she had donned a new form, one of a tall and sleek mare painted in red and ochre tribal patterns, and her rear-hooves were cloven and her front hooves were split into tangles of snakes: “I am your true mother – the fool that birthed you was never truly alive, just like you, living only a shadowy half-life”

The Shoat roared, her caste mark erupting as a black wound on her forehead that bled profusely, while her anima erupted to reveal an infinitely regressing arrangement of dark shadows appearing around her. It was the ghosts of all of her ancestors that the Dowager had raised and slaughtered. With eyes that truly saw red, for the blood from her caste mark was running down over her face into her eyes, the Shoat glared at the Dowager: “You are nothing – your lies are transparent to me!”

It was quite eerie, if not down-right disturbing, to hear a foal shout words with the wisdom and vocabulary of an adult, for the black exaltation she bore had granted her centuries, if not millenia, of knowledge – especially that of her past incarnation.

It was also the last thing the Shoat managed to say, for with a snake-fingered limb wreathed in necrotic essence forming all manner of sorcerous sigils, the Dowager launched a dread spell at the Shoat, seizing the foal and floating the Shoat over to her – as the junior deathknight wiggled and struggled helplessly against the magical grip.

“You had such promise… such a beautiful and profound abhorrence of life. I see that you are now a lost cause. I will ensure that your next incarnation learns better discipline” the Dowager spoke, before casualy gesturing at the Shoat, the foal rocketing off to the side of the room, impacting wetly and with a bone-crunching cry of pain.

The circle needed no other call to attack the Dowager. The dread deathlord remained on her throne, striking the floor as the circle closed the distance with a staff of shadows – the floor instantly crumbling away, revealing… something that should not be.

The whole circle scrambled to avoid falling, once again– Speaker leaping away, Cash firing a claw into a wall to quickly reel himself over. Sully similarly leapt over to the wall, sticking to it via his charms. Sunrise, the least mobile of the circle, used a spell to burst into a flock of birds for a moment, the flock coalescing again in a corner of the room. Shimmer was still in her seagull form… but she actually landed on the collapsing floor, writhing as she clawed at her head.

That was when Sully called attention to the strange vortex revealed under the floor: “That… that should not be”

Now, everyone in the circle was using a mental defence charm – they had been using it since they entered the manse, even Fire Orchid – but it seemed that Shimmer’s mental defences had been breached. Speaker scramble to catch Shimmer before she fell in, the Dowager laughing deeply: “Haha, behold the chthonic glory of the Well of Udr! Have fun going in”

Catching Shimmer, Speaker saw the floor tiles crumble away around them. Sully caught Speaker, calling for Cash to shoot him a claw – which Cash quickly did, but the claw never made it to the three, getting sucked into the strange nightmare vortex that was the well instead.

Indeed, describing the well was a futile effort: It should not be. It hurt the mind to even contemplate, something that shouldn’t be possible even with solar mental defence charms. It wasn’t even like looking into the wyld – the circle knew how that felt quite well, and knew that their mental defence charms worked just fine against that kind of exposure. Instead, this strange phenomenon appeared to a be hole in reality, a pit that sucked in potential, essence, matter, and anything else not nailed down with the strongest of essence fortifications.

Shaking a little sense back into Shimmer, Speaker scrambled to shuffle away from the crumbling floor. Shimmer in turn cried out: “Deep Wave!”

The overgrown moonsilver bracer on her right forehoof sprung to live, the moonsilver octopus clinging to Shimmer with four tentacles while turning the other four into moonsilver pick-axes that it dug into the floor and used to haul both Shimmer, Speaker and Sully to safety.

“Was that your only plan deathlord? Not very impressive!” Fire Orchid called out mockingly, one of her steel-shod hooves solidly embedded in the wall to keep her safe from the well’s pull.

The Dowager snarled at Fire Orchid, her face morphing into that of a war-painted lioness as she made an magical gesture at the pony with her snake fingers: “Fool! I am the greatest necromancer among my peers – I have scried untold realities for diseases without name! The great contagion was but one of my finds. If you wish to see the depth of my bag of tricks, be my guest!”

Fire Orchid, quite aware of her surroundings, instantly picked up on the ooze coming out of the wall trying to get to her – but she was also equally alert that this was a distraction from the dowager having started to shape some kind of spell!

The constant tug on everyone, drawing the circle towards the well, wasn’t difficult to overcome – but you needed something to hold on to. It was a pull akin to having a child tugging at your robes – nothing that a firm stance couldn’t stop, but it was there… all the time – and if you weren’t paying attention, you would start to slip along the floor.

This also made it difficult to let got, for moving around – and Fire Orchid did not want the strange creeping slime that the Dowager had summoned forth from between the stone bricks to touch her. With some quick thinking, Fire Orchid spun around and thrust her hooves into the brickwork one by one, letting her remain rooted but mobile, to get away from the ooze.

It was easier for once he got back on the wall again, for his charms let him walk on walls and ignore the tug of the well that way around – but neither Sully nor Fire Orchid were skilled in sorcery, so they couldn’t do much to stop the Dowager in what strange spell she was cooking up – even Sunrise’s attempt at flinging a counterspell at the deathlord did nothing, for despite necromancy and sorcery being very close, then they didn’t work the same, and thus couldn’t be disrupted in the same way.

“Now that you have all gotten comfortable, allow me to introduce what’s left of my former lunar mate – one of my finest creations if I may say so” the Dowager cackled, releasing her necromantic spell by throwing a bone from somewhere on her out into the room.

The bone came to a sudden stop in the middle of the room, hovering in the air for a brief moment before erupting with blood from within it. Muscles, flesh and tendons followed, and in seconds a strange and horrible monster had formed: Part tyrant lizard, part many-tentacled kraken, it was a strange creation… though most egregious was the fact that it seemed to stand on the floor that wasn’t there anymore – letting it easily stomp over and engage the circle.

For Fire Orchid, fighting on difficult terrain wasn’t new – up until recently she had spent a couple of years fighting in jungles as a mercenary, rarely enjoying open ground for a straight on battle. Still, having to battle a necromantic monster, when the walls and floor were giving away at/ the seams, was asking a lot. Of course, ever aware of where she was fighting, Fire Orchid simply leapt onto the monster and conjured a beautiful orichalcum dailklaive out of pure essence, hacking away at the beast.

The rest of the circle joined the fight, though Speaker remained with Shimmer to keep her from going insane – it seemed that the well of Udr’s strange radiance was messing with her head a lot harder now that the circle was up close to it: “Hang in there Shimmer – we’ll end this quickly”

Aiding the best he could, throwing Homage at the great beast to have it carve up its many layers of thick dead hide, Speaker couldn’t help but notice that Cash was… swinging by his claw-chains towards the Dowager – but his aim was clearly off, because the way he was going to he would miss her by several yards.

That had apparently been Cash’s intension, as another claw chain stopped his swinging, leaving him dangling in front of the Dowager: “Greetings – I don’t believe we’ve met”

“Oh yes, the wordsmith from Sunhill – I’ve heard such tales of you … do you really think you can talk me down?” the Dowager in her lioness-faced form said, sounding quite amused by the thought.

Cash somehow managed to gesticulate quite well, despite hanging by a chain from his left hoof: “Oh heavens no – you seem far too dedicated to your work for that – and what work indeed! This mighty beast you’ve made, plus all the other things we had to fight our way through to get here, and the great contagion? Such a masterful find”

The dowager appeared somewhat unhappy by the mention of her supposedly greatest and most wicked creation – the great contagion – but through some artifact of her lioness shape, then its wrinkled nose expression quite clearly communicated that Cash had struck a nerve. The solar was not slow to capitalize on this: “Touchy subject?”

“Silence! Your pathetic attempts to worm inside my mind are pathetic” the Dowager roared, swiping at Cash, but missing him by a very comfortable margin – apparently to her own great confusion.

Cash smiled – quite cheekily so: “My invincible ego shield lives up to its name again – and it seems that your mental focus has been worn already, perhaps through my charms, or perhaps simply by your own necromancy – regardless, I do wonder: We all know that the deathlord called the First and Forsaken Lion was punished by his neverborn master, via being encased in his armor for all eternity, to never truly touch another being. How were you punished by your neverborn master, when your great contagion failed?”

Speaker had to admit – it was rather amusing to see how quickly Cash had zeroed in on the Dowagers deepest and darkest secrets and fears, laying them all to bare. It was certainly more fun than having to haul a near catatonic Shimmer around, to avoid having the giant necro-surgical monster and its many soulsteel-bladed tentacles hit them.

“The failure of my finest discovery was not my fault – my neverborn… patron… recognized that” the Dowager proclaimed, while Fire Orchid and Sully took turns hacking at the great monster, but its tentacles seemed eerily adept at growing back…

Cash simply shook his head: “Come now – I don’t need a lie-detector charm to know that’s not true. I am a district lord of Stygia! I know how ghosts work quite well… and if there’s one thing we haven’t seen here, in your lair, its other ghosts. You’ve been isolated by your master, forced to work here alone sans the few souls and creations you can muster out of the locals up in the jungle – and lets be honest they are not exactly intellection peers”

The Dowager shifted uncomfortably on her throne, a snarl creeping over her lioness face. Speaker hadn’t even thought of how all the ghosts they had seen were that of local slain villagers – but it checked out: At Deep Rot there had been untold convoys of materials coming in, at least until the Lookshyan siege forced them to close up. Thorns had equally still been a busting coastal city – but this place… this place was very much isolated – and the circle had not found any ghosts hailing from other parts of Creation, only what the Dowager had been able to capture and produce locally.

“I have plenty of company – I have no need of sycophants or weeping minions!” the Dowager proclaimed as she gestured wildly with her snake fingers towards her monstrous creation, either unaware or uncaring that every exchange of words between her and the Cash slowly whittled away at her mind, lowering her defences.

Cash threw a look back at the tentacled half-kraken half-tyrant lizard monstrosity who was trying to chew on Sunrise but finding her hard to swallow: “Oh yes, that thing must be able to engage you with the most stimulating of conversation! It looks to be positively brimming with conversation!”

Throwing himself and Shimmer to the side, and then scrambling to get a hold so they wouldn’t slip into the well of should-not-exist, Speaker had to wonder what Cash’s game was. He quietly swore to himself that if they ever entered a deathlord’s lair again, even if it wasn’t to pick a fight with it, then they should plan for how to fight the thing.

“Yes actually – I bound the ghost of my last lunar mate to his own corpse after I thrust his head into the well. He’s not exactly happy about his condition, but he’s learned to obey me again, and can be ordered to converse with me quite well” the Dowager boasted gleefully, sounding all too eager to speak highly of her own twisted creation. Perhaps she truly was lonely and in search of someone mildly intellectual she could talk to?

Speaker could feel Shimmer squirm at the mention of such a horrible treatment of a lunar – while he looked more carefully at the monster…. No, there was no mind in that thing. It was flailing wildly, without even any visible eyes. This was not the fighting of an intelligent foe; it was the rampage of an unthinking creature. If the Dowager thought she had conversations with that… then she was truly deluded.

Cash appeared to have drawn that conclusion a while ago, but played the Dowager expertly – though he knew well enough that chatting with lunatics was always an unpredictable endeavour: “Pray tell, you said that the great contagion was your greatest discovery? In Stygia the word is that it is your creation – are you saying that you simply found it?”

The great necro-surgical monster howled, its many fanged maws braying and roaring all at once – but the Dowager appeared caught between observing the fight and entertaining her conversation with Cash: “Oh I found it, but I also ennobled it… strengthened it – my very finest work!”

“Fascinating – and I take it that this thing here is part of how you found it?” Cash wondered, twisting about briefly to dodge a cut off tentacle that came flying his way.

The Dowager barely seemed to notice how her once-lunar monster was finally being worn down, Fire Orchid and Sully having exposed a crack in its inner bone-slabs to allow Speaker to throw Gift into its innards, as the Deathlord cackled happily: “Oh yes – I spend millennia scouring the strange realms that the well of Udr connects to. Took me ages to simply find a safe way to do so, but now I can plumb the depths for plagues and diseases…”

It was clear that the Deathlord had indeed plumbed the depths of madness through the well – for the Dowager seemed to completely zone out as she regaled about the lunacy she had witnessed through the well.

This gave the circle just enough time, as Fire Orchid and Sully managed to cut down the monster they were battling – cutting the necromantically fortified organs within it, that seemed to be fuelling its regenerative powers, at the cost of Sully wrangling several of the monster’s soulsteel-bladed tentacles in exchant for some very nasty wounds. With that brief, if not costly, reprieve, Sunrise began shaping a spell – a powerful one at that – which was meant to do something very simple: It would force any ghost caught by the spell to seek reincarnation – and Deathlords were, if nothing else, ghosts. The mask had been wise enough to dodge it, but here the dowager seemed quite busy chatting, right?

The problem was that shaping any kind of sorcery was not a subtle endeavour – so Cash had to really start straining himself to keep the Deathlord from not noticing what was happening right behind him. Even using enough charms to make his anima begin to light up, which made it quite obvious that he was using charms on the Dowager, but he knew that it didn’t have to hold for long… just a few more seconds.

Such seconds felt like an eternity, as Cash rapidly spun words as sweet as honey, to lure the Dowager’s attention away and grip it – the challenge of it all being to maintain his composure as his friends were getting hurt: “Oh you must tell me of these adventures with your search, they sound so amazing – it sounds like you have seen things that no other pony ever has!”

It was impossible to see what strange and mad thoughts ran through the Dowager’s head, but between her resolve having been eroded by Cash’s charms and her complicated and hasty summoning ritual, then… it seemed that Cash had made her ignore the bright golden light half a stone’s throw from her. Or maybe it was hubris, thinking that circle couldn’t really do anything? Maybe she was more worried about her once-lunar necro-surgical creation appearing to actually falter?

Fire Orchid rode the creature down and yanked her essence-formed blade from its ichor-gushing innards, howling triumphantly. The Dowager snarled, reaching out for the monster – but in an almost confused manner, as if she suddenly snapped to attention from the daze Cash had lulled her into. It was in that same moment that Sunrise unleashed her spell, for she spoke the five arcane words of release and flung the sphere of glowing cicada glyphs…

And with that, all hell broke loose. The Dowager finally seemed to realize that her most masterful creation had been defeated, as it fell to the non-existent floor – she shot up from her throne, howling as if the circle had struck down the once love of her life. That’s when the sphere of glowing magical symbols struck her, the symbols instantly wrapping around her and pulling her upwards.

With an ear-piercing shriek, the Dowager found herself seemingly ripped in twain: Sunrise’s spell was pulling her towards reincarnation, regardless of whether she wanted to or not – but at the same time spectral hooked chains manifested, holding her down… or ripping her apart: “No! You will not get me this easily!”

It appeared that the Dowager’s neverborn master wasn’t keen on letting its minion go that easily, but the spell did seem to immobilize the deathlord – not that this meant that the Dowager stopped trying to get over to the slain monster. Reaching out with her snake fingers, the snakes appeared to stretch – to the point that their scaly skin ripped and tore, the snakes enveloping the necrosurgical half-kraken corpse, tying it together so that it wouldn’t fall apart, or into the well of Udr.

Now, why was the Dowager so desperate to recover this thing? Pride over her supposedly finest work? Did she truly believe that it still somehow spoke to her? It did appear as if the physical contact with the monster reanimated it, causing a few of its soulsteel bladed tentacles to spring to life and lash out at Sunrise, catching her and turning the tentacle-blades inwards as they worked to crush caught mare.

Sunrise barely managed to squeak out a frightened cry for help before she was smothered by undead flesh, Fire Orchid springing into action to try to hack at the tentacles.

Smiling for a brief moment with her snake-fingers latched onto the monster, the instant that the monster’s ability to manifest a magical floor under itself so it didn’t fall into the well failed, the Dowager found herself dragged along with her creation, screaming all the way in an unearthly shriek as the brain-twisting vortex quickly pulled the giant corpse straight into it.

The problem was that Fire Orchid still was standing on top of the monster corpse, along with a quite wounded Sullen Hoof, along with Sunrise wrapped in its tentacles – and as the Deathlord was dragged in, the Dowager snatched Cash with her other snake-finger hand. The disappearance of the magical floor that the monster made also caused more of the room’s remaining flooring to crumble, which sent left Speaker and Shimmer falling in as well.

Going into the well of Udr was not pleasant.

Chapter 47 House Call

The Black Tide stylist meditates on how sunlight reflects off his soup, then swims through it and stabs you with a trident

…

It was just another day for Doctor Ordrup. Sure, being renowned as one of the best and most experienced doctors alive was nice and all, but Dr Ordrup knew damn well that he had earned those accolades through decades of hard work.

Still, accolades or not, it was a bit strange to have been called to a remote military base somewhere in the absolutely dustiest parts of New Mexico. The base was located somewhere between bullet-riddled signs saying not to pick up hitch-hikers as they might be escaped convicts, and the kind of dirt farms that looked more like prepper fortresses than places of agriculture. It made the good doctor wonder where the preppers got their drinking water from.

Oh well, there’s the exit for the base.

Driving up to the outer gate checkpoint, Dr Ordrup flashed his ID and was let in, with instructions to drive to building six and park inside gate three.

The drive to the base from the outer gate took a while – which fit with what little the good doctor had been able to gleam by looking up the base online… because officially the place did not exist: Only unofficial sources had written of the place, talking about a secret government research facility, where shady unmarked vans and trucks would occasionally arrive and sometimes not come out again. Had some scientist gotten hurt while working on something sensitive? Maybe it was some special forces general who wanted a doctor he could trust – that is, a doctor they had served with. It was a funny thought, considering how most of Ordrup’s old special forces squad mates had gone on to rise in the ranks… but this didn’t look like a special forces base – not enough razorwire and landmines.

Indeed, it certainly had been a while since the good doctor had found himself on a proper military base of any sort. The old reunions with what was left of his old unit were few and far between now, so while Ordrup still stayed in touch with some of them, then he didn’t have anything to do with them or their work ever since he had AES’d and used his bennies to get a doctorate.

Still, it was a very strange military base. The kind of base that the doctor knew, was all barracks and bunkhouses, where infantry and other troops were screwing around and getting shouted at by butter bars and people talking out of their brass – but this… this was all large and non-descript concrete structures, plus the odd patrol of three or four soldiers walking around with what very much looked like live firearms. This was most definitely not a regular military base – this was not a place for training troops, but a place you got stationed and got ruinously bored at.

Pulling into gate three at building six, yet another large and nondescript concrete building, Dr Ordrup had to wonder what he was being called in for. There wasn’t the medical field he hadn’t dabbled in, having done rotations as GP, surgeon, and of course his emergency medicine residency and then some. There weren’t many other like him, a true poly-med. What was it his old colleagues in Praque had called him? The human medical octopus, with a specialty for each arm? Hilarious.

And there were the three soldiers waiting for him, one of them looking like a lieutenant – the doctor’s escorts.

Getting out of his car, he nodded to the soldiers and saw that the lieutenant was a butter bar – a second lieutenant. Cute, a junior officer to lead the escort. Now, the good doctor knew better than to expect his escorts to be able to explain to him why he had been called – but he did figure that they could tell him where they were going: “Gentlemen, where to?”

The lieutenant nodded to one of two soldiers, who hesitantly pulled out a white cloth bag.

“Officer, you’re not thinking of ordered those two boys to do what I think you are?” the doctor said, suspiciously looking at the head-sized bag.

The two soldiers exchanged worried looks – while the junior officer kept a stone-faced expression towards Ordrup: “I am – you are not cleared to see what is inside the facility you’re to enter”

“Adorable. I’m not going fucking anywhere – I’m a civilian these days. You can’t order me anywhere, and if you try to bag me, I know several special forces colonels and generals who will all swear at the court martial, that you magically managed to fold yourself backwards three times over all on your own” the good doctor mused, recalling his extensive martial arts training from back in the special forces and exactly what he could use it for.

The lieutenant’s expression faltered, betraying worry and doubt. What exactly had he been ordered to do?

“I’ve seen shit back during my active service that won’t be declassified in your lifetimes – I might not officially have a top-secret clearance, but I might as well have… so what’s it going to be boys” Ordrup said, both looking and sounding not terribly impressed.

The two soldiers seemed to fidget, the one with the white sack certainly not wanting to be on the receiving end of someone like Doctor Ordrup. In the end the Lieutenant also seemed to cave, sighing deeply and simply gesturing for the doctor to follow them to an elevator, with no bag on.

“I assume that I won’t have to remind you that everything you see in this facility is classified top secret?” the lieutenant said, while deftly punching in a surprisingly long code on a keypad with his right hand.

The good doctor breathed deeply, gazing up into the ceiling: “I’m former special forces… I’ve done stuff you will never hear of, with people you’ll never hear of, using gear you’ll never know of. Don’t insult my intelligence kid”

The Lieutenant shot the doctor a dirty look before opening the door, leading everyone down a corridor lined with doors that each featured a QR code, instead of a label with plainly readable text. The lighting in the corridor gave off a sterile white color of light, making the corridor appear as if it went on forever.

Walking for a while, without anyone saying a word, the four finally turned a corner and took an elevator. The elevator didn’t have a normal interface, the lieutenant instead pulling out a smartphone and activating some kind of app, then basically taking a selfie as the phone scanned his face for facial recognition. Once that clear, he punched in another password, then a QR code appeared on the phone which was shown to a camera on the elevator wall. The procedure continued for a bit before the officer somehow got the elevator start moving.

Doctor Ordrup had to admit that he was quite amused at the ridiculous amounts of security for activating the elevator – though he couldn’t quite sense if they had moved up or down, but suspected down… since the building he had parked in hadn’t been more than three stories high, while it had felt like they had moved vertically for longer than that.

Exiting the elevator, the level the four emerged into had a distinct emergency room/bio-lab vibe to it: The floor was covered in smooth-cast cement with some kind of polymer coating, ideal for washing away spillages, and the floor curved up to the wall so there were no sharp corners that dirt could hide in. This was something the doctor had seen countless of times before. It also worried him… because this was not where you would put an infirmary – so this was NOT about treating some wounded soldier – that would have been on an above-ground facility.

Down more hallways with doors that only had QR codes on them, the four finally arrived at a group of people who stood outside yet another non-descript door. There were four riflemen standing guard, and a familiar face that doctor Ordrup recognized instantly, prompting him to break away from his escort and approach to embrace his old friend: “Chuckles you old goat-toucher, you the one who called me here?”

The colonel who stood before the doctor, the one just called ‘Chuckles’, grimaced at Fred. The woman had the face of someone who’s skincare routine was, at least at some point in her life, a steady mix of gravel, ground-up caffeine pills, hard liquor and spec-ops work – and even if she had cleaned up later on, then such a life had left its fair share of marks and scars. To the good doctor, the new twist on things was her lack of quips, something he was quick to home in on: “Why the silent treatment? What’s wrong?”

“Kjartan, this… this isn’t something I can joke about” the colonel replied, shaking her head at the doctor.

This was not the smart-mouthed officer that doctor Kjartan Ordrup had known – and seeing her this shaken sent a chill down his spine: “I… how bad is this? Did someone get hurt here?”

Steeling herself for a moment, then quickly dismissing the doctor’s escorts and waiting until they were out of earshot, the colonel opened the door and gestured for the doctor to follow.

Inside the door it looked like a waiting room – or a guard room: It was just a few chairs along the wall, and then another door leading to somewhere unknown. The colonel sat down and gestured for her old friend to join her: “Nobody’s hurt – but we are looking at a mystery that I was hoping you could help unravel”

“You had my attention… now you have my curiosity” the doctor said, sitting down next to the colonel.

Sighing, the colonel pulled out a smartphone: “Well listen up Decaprio, what we’re dealing with here is all kinds of fucked up. We found her three weeks ago wandering in the southern parts of the New Mexico desert – she tripped a border camera, but was initially ignored by local border police”

With only the colonel’s story to build his initial diagnosis on, the doctor began thinking of exposure, dehydration and other complications that could come from wandering in a desert. Of course, the military knew damn well how to treat simple stuff like that – and why would the military have any interest in some illegal jumping the border? No, something was off here: “You said… her. A woman? Who exactly are we dealing with here? Did a special forces joker go rogue and run off to fight the cartels or something?”

“Oh, I fucking wish – no, look – I just need you prepare you here. This won’t be anything you’ve seen before. By the way, how are your veterinary skills?” the colonel said, looking down into the tiled floor.

Ok that last comment caught the doctor by surprise: “I’m a human doctor, I don’t do pets – you know that”

“I also know that you helped treat a Saudi prince’s pet camel last year – didn’t he try to pay you with three sportscars?”

Frowning ever so slightly, the doctor replied: “Three sandblasted sportscars that would have ruined me if I tried to import them back here – no I took a nice cash payment thank you, and it wasn’t that difficult to work with a camel… it just had a rash – I told them to stop rubbing it with whatever perfume they were using. It wasn’t a rush job either, I had time to read up on how to treat the damn thing – so I wasn’t going in blind”

“Well, you are in luck here – this isn’t time sensitive either – well, nobody is sick or dying yet. You can take all the time you need to figure this shit out along with the rest of the team I’ve put together”

With a raised eyebrow, the doctor inquired: “Team? Who’ve you got?”

The colonel told of an anthropologist that the doctor recalled hearing of at a psychology conference a few years ago, relating to a talk and panel on linguistic implications on human thought. There was also a particle physicist and a biologist, but none of them sounded familiar.

“So… a doctor, an anthropologist, a physicist and a biologist. Did you find a space alien?” the doctor wondered, drawing the somewhat obvious conclusion – even though he knew it was quite far-fetched.

Shaking her head, the colonel sighed deeply: “I wish – plus if we’d found a spaceship or something there’d be engineers involved – no, it’s not a little green spaceman…”

The despair that the doctor heard in his old friend’s voice finally got to him. This was worrying. What had so thoroughly freaked out his old squad CO? Now he simply had to know!

“Alright, where do I sign?”

“Sign? Nowhere – this is so off the books that a paper trail like that would be disastrous. Plus, nothing I’ve told you so far can’t be explained away – and once you see the thing nobody will believe you anyway” the colonel said, her voice tired and weary, clearly just wanting it all to just be over.

Ok that was enough. Getting up, the doctor looked at his old friend: “Marie, what the fuck have you called me in for?”

Cracking a smile, the colonel got up and swiped a card at a spot next to the door. LEDs cleverly hidden under the wall panelling lit up brightly enough to be seen, and another wall panel slid to the side, revealing a display that read “Marie Calvert, Colonel – Access granted”

The door clicked open.

The colonel gestured for the doctor to enter. Shrugging, Doctor Ordrup stepped inside.

The colonel looked at her phone, counting the seconds. Fourteen seconds later the doctor came out, looking noticeably pale, his eyes wide. This finally brought a smirk to the colonel’s lips: “Cat got your tongue?”

“That… is a horse” the doctor said, sounding a bit like back when Marie had first shown him a photo-album from an ISIS torture prison.

Nodding, the colonel shrugged: “Yup”

“A talking horse… with purple dreadlocks” the doctor continued, looking at the colonel with the greatest of confusion.

Still nodding, the colonel simply replied: “That’s why we got a linguist on the team. Been making a little headway, but the sounds she makes are pretty damn difficult for us to replicate… who’d have thought that talking horse would be hard to understand?”

The doctor just looked at the colonel, a somewhat sour expression on his face, for her lack of acknowledgement of his confusion.

“Come on, I’ll introduce you properly” the colonel said, getting up.

Inside the laboratory/containment facility, the colonel introduced the team and finally… the horse. The very strange-looking horse.

“The feathers appear to grow naturally from her scalp, and she doesn’t like us touching them…” the biologist explained, noting that bio-chemically and anatomically the feathers appear very similar as certain common seagull species found in far-east Asia.

“What about the purple hair… mane? Did someone give her dreadlocks just for fun? And what’s up with the metal-sharpie drawings on her?” the doctor inquired, still not convinced that this wasn’t an elaborate hoax, or perhaps some cartel boss’s drugged up pet that had been painted over repeatedly.

The physicist was adamant that the samples taken from the subject’s coat over the metal-infused areas had the same properties as regular coat samples… but via gas chromatography and mass spectrometry of those samples, then a non-toxic chemical that read like mercury had been found.

“Mercury tattoos… that aren’t toxic. Right”

The physicist agreed that it didn’t sound logical, but gas chromatography and mass spectrometry didn’t lie. The linguist noted that the tattoos appear to be in a strange form of writing – though progress on deciphering wasn’t really happening, due to lack of any kind of reference material. There was no Rosetta stone for this new language.

The anthropologist was similarly tasked with trying to puzzle out the ‘civilized’ behaviour of the horse, since the thing had apparently been captured while eating a lizard it had been cooking over a fire. The doctor found the idea of a horse starting a fire rather difficult to believe – but there were photos and even video, which included a quite curious detail: “Hold on… the horse isn’t holding the stick with the lizard on it – its… telekinesis?”

This was here the physicist was trying to figure out what kind of energy that was in play – because the glow spoke of some kind of photonic emission… and so far, they hadn’t been able to detect a damn thing.

The physicist’s quite energetic and enthusiastic rundown of the energy spectra he had tried to scan for appeared to have annoyed the horse – resulting in it saying things to the team again, in a tone that was being interpreted as annoyed.

The doctor had to agree with the linguist, the language it spoke was quite strange – reminded him a little of what he had heard locals talk when he had been on vacation on the Solomon Islands. The linguist agreed, noting that he had been experimenting with cue cards whenever she was cooperative enough, and had mapped out quite a few words for various states that an ocean could be in, hinting that her culture of origin was probably coastal.

“Hold on – culture of origin?” the doctor objected, finding the idea of horses with culture preposterous.

The anthropologist agreed with the linguist, noting that this being was clearly intelligent – able to start fire and cook food. Those were not skills you could know via instinct, that had to be taught, ipso facto she had been raised either in a tribal culture or something similar.

“What makes you think she’s tribal?”

For this the anthropologist pointed to her dreadlocks and lack of clothing – noting that early hominids lost its fur once it got clever and organized enough to make clothing, and dreads are still quite common in many human tribes, of the few that still live on the fringe of modern civilization, as a result of their lack of access to things like combs or brushes, which are a bit more complicated to craft.

With the horse alert, the doctor approached the large cage she was being held in: “Is there a reason why she’s kept locked up? Is she a flight risk? Has she hurt anyone?”

The whole team got oddly quiet at that question. The physicist spoke up first, reminding the doctor of the subject’s short range telekinesis. Right, she could grab stuff… with her mind – sure, that could complicate things.

“That doesn’t answer if she is a flight risk – I’m only seeing electronic locks on the cage, not something where she can nab a key and run off”

The biologist came up to the doctor with a tablet, showing a video. It was of the horse, which in the video was fitted with a tracking collar of sorts – the horse then… melted, and a few seconds later coalesced into a snake – a snake that did not have a tracking collar on.

Quickly looking at the actual horse in the cage, the doctor confirmed that the collar was still on the pony – though it featured what looked like very obvious claw-marks. Horses didn’t have claws.

“So… it talks… and melts… what the fuck is this thing?” the doctor said, taking a despairing step backwards.

This was too much. The doctor’s head spun. Someone rushed up behind with an office chair to catch him on.

The colonel came up to the doctor, not to comfort him, but to place some firm hands on his shoulders: “Everyone here took a few days to adjust to this. You’re not any different here… look, you even woke her up – try not to scare her, or she might hide again”

The horse stirred as the doctor tried to regain his composure. The shapeshifting, fire-starting horse, with telekinesis… with a mane done up in purple dreadlocks and strikingly expressive blue eyes. Couldn’t this just have been some secret military researchers who had gotten splashed with strange dangerous chemicals that he had to help patch up? That would have been so much more… familiar, and not paradigm-shatteringly strange… and what did they mean with hide again? She was in a cage?

The horse looked… curious? She had seen the doctor when he had first peeked into the lab, and the rest of the team had noted that she had a decidedly uncanny ability to know when someone was coming. Like when the doctor had first peeked into the lab, she spoke up again. Now, the doctor knew well enough what kind of noises that horses were supposed to make – he had an uncle with nice ranch in Colorado – so the sound he heard from her… they were oh so very wrong.

Well, if they had kept a curtain over the cage and made her talk, he would have assumed it was a normal human talking – if he closed his eyes… but no, this was simply too much.

“He didn’t start shouting or screaming – you owe me five bucks” the colonel said in passing to the physicist, as she walked up to the now seated doctor.

As his old friend tried to reassure him, the doctor was told that it normally took a week or so to fully adjust to the weirdness of the strange horse. There was a room ready for him, but the doctor refused. Oh sure, the horse frightened him deeply – but not in a sense that it made him fear for bodily harm – it frightened him because its many strange implications… but that also made him curious: “No, I’m not going to hide away from this thing. What do you need to me find to out?”

The biologist quickly brought out a list of questions that a more medically skilled individual could handle. The biologist quickly admitted that she was much more used to working with samples and creatures that didn’t bite back – but the primary mysteries were things like exactly what the extend of the horse’s diet encompassed, plus she hadn’t really been examined properly yet either… not for a lack of trying, but she just wouldn’t let anyone touch her all that much.

“We’ve already tried bringing in an actual veterinarian, but she reacted really poorly when the thing started talking – we figured that a doctor who’s more used to talking patients who could also do horse would be better – and I know you’re on the level of working on classified projects” the colonel elaborated, leaving out the drama her organization had endured with subsequently keeping the vet quiet.

Steeling himself, the doctor got up and approached the cage. The horse inside stirred, appearing curious herself at the newcomer who had arrived to ostensibly poke and prod her.

Except that wasn’t what happened: The horse perked up, and on her brow a circle of moonlight shined, as did her eyes – the rest of the team said that this strange glowing mark on her brow appeared every now and then, but rarely. That her eyes glowed with the same cobalt-blue light didn’t seem to faze the team much either… but the horse appeared to get quite agitated and excited after having looked at the doctor with those glowing eyes, which quickly faded, the mark on her brow similarly fading after a few seconds.

“Hey, looks like she likes you” the biologist said, pulling out some gear for the doctor to examine the horse with.

Up next to the cage, the doctor carefully scrutinized the horse. She was right up against the cage, appearing to ‘hold’ the bars with her hooves, her nose up to the bars as well – and she was talking. It was strange to observe her mouth, how oddly human it was in its expressions. Definitely not the mouth of a normal horse.

That was when the screaming began: The horse somehow bent the bars on the cage away as if it was wet clay – it then leapt out and embraced the doctor.

The colonel and the rest of the team scrambled to help the doctor – but a creature that appeared to be made of liquid steel flowed from the horse and held them at bay, while the horse loudly spoke out a strange and alien statement. She then began to glow as if emitting moonlight, which moments later turned into silvery fire around her – completely cold and harmless – but bright and awe-inspiring… and that’s when the horse began to emit more of that strange liquid magic not-mercury from her hooves and wrap it around the terrified doctor.

Now, the doctor knew well enough of plenty of stories of medical staff getting contaminated or infected by their own patients – it could be someone sick with something infecting a nurse or doctor, or a patient who had been poisoned by something where the toxins accumulated into their blood or other bodily fluids that medical staff got smeared with. Magic silver goop that appeared to seep into his body? That was new. It was beyond scary.

With a panicked scream the doctor tried to get away from the horse, but she somehow maintained her grip – and her little metal minion, an octopus of living metal from the looks of things, were keeping everyone away, even as the colonel drew her sidearm and tried to shoot it, but its mercurial body simply absorbed the bullets.

Glowing bands of energy emerged from the horse’s silvery flames that enveloped her, wrapping around the doctor. They quickly intensified into a blinding light.

And thus, the doctor was no more – for he had never really exited… instead a second pastel coloured horse stood, blinking with eyes that were just as brown as before, but now with a teal coat and a red jacket around his chest.

“There you are – I could feel that you were getting closer” Last Shimmer said, as she could see Speaker regaining his bearings.

It was strange. The memories of his human life were fading fast, thought it would be a while before they would be completely out of his system. Looking to Shimmer, Speaker nodded: “I… I guess your moonsilver tattoos protected you from this… warping effect of the well of Udr”

“True, and honestly, I think my bond with you ensured that I appeared in the same reality as you… but I tell you, this place is weird. Next to no natural essence flows – and I mean, look at these local creatures. They look so silly” Shimmer mused, gesturing to the rest of the research team in the laboratory and the colonel, all of them looking at the two with the utmost of terror.

Right, those people – the humans - they’re still there.

Turning to the team, straightening out his jacket and quickly having Shimmer fix up his fu-man-chu beard. It was a little strange to make his mouth speak this local tongue that he still remembered, but possible none the less: “Colonel Marie Calvert, do not be afraid”

The colonel ‘replied’ by opening fire with her sidearm. Speaker’ shield charms saw the bullets impact him harmlessly. With a quick gesture and expenditure of essence, Speaker had the colonel’s gun fall apart: “Just listen – the doctor you know was never real. Think back to the earliest memories you have of him… they should be fading already, as reality readjusts to me being back in my true form”

The rest of the team looked at the colonel, not quite sure of what the new horse meant – even if they understood him. Colonel Calvert just shook her head, not even sure if what she heard was to believed.

“Try calling up to check on the car I arrived in. I’m sure it would be gone now” Speaker suggested.

Right, checking up on a parked car. Now that was a lot simpler and more real than anything else… right? The colonel quickly got on her phone, having someone check for the doctor’s car – though the reply she got didn’t seem to please her: “What do you mean there’s no car there? I was watching the CCTV feed when he pulled in… who? The doctor I called in for lab six. What do you mean there’s nothing in the log?”

Speaker nodded, looking at the colonel and the rest of the team: “I told you… now pay close attention. I don’t know how long I will be able to remember your language”

It was thus over the course of five hours that Speaker taught the assembled humans how to speak Old Realm – by the end of the lesson Speaker in turn found that he couldn’t remember the human language he had spoken… and the linguist was bouncing off the walls over having been taught an alien language.

With proper communications established just in time, including proper introductions, Speaker and Shimmer were able to leverage the secret laboratory’s resources in order to set up tools and scanners to scry for a way back to creation – for there was no reason for them to stay.

At first Shimmer had been quite cautious and hesitant – having found that the natural essence flows of this strange world being nearly non-existent, making her respire almost no essence at all. Speaker however, had the advantage of his hearth-stones and the ponies back in Creation who send him their prayers as thanks for his healing. Those streams of essence didn’t just keep him replete with essence, but it gave them something to home in on and track back to Creation.

The particle physicist was absolutely ecstatic in having the secrets of essence revealed to him, while Shimmer and the biologist had their fun with trying to puzzle out how shapeshifting actually worked.

In the end it didn’t take that long for Speaker – him being a peerless paragon of sorcerous artifice – to wrangle the strange artificial lightning-essence that the humans produced, in making a device that would send the duo somewhere else. Of course, they weren’t just trying to get home… they were trying to find their circle-mates and get them all home.

Initial tests revealed how catastrophic the setup would react to trying to draw the four other members of the circle to the duo’s location – so instead they would have to be sent to their friends, or at least one of them.

This was understandably risky as all hell, but Speaker figured that if he had been able to make a device to get them from one realm to another here, he could do it anywhere else – if given enough time and resources.

…this of course meant parting with their new friends, and all the medical miracles that Speaker had been able to perform would have to end. It was a shame really: Everyone on the team agreed that Speaker’s healing powers would have seen him lauded as a great saviour, if made public, for there were many diseases not yet curable that ravaged the world they were on. This pained Speaker, but he knew that he had a duty to his people, and the ponies of creation first.

To this end the day came when seven nuclear powerplants were instructed to generate as much juice as was physically possible for the local grid to absorb. Thick cables that ran along the hallways and service ducts of the facility smouldered, and cooling systems strained to keep everything from melting down.

The machine itself wasn’t all that big – only needing to fit two small pastel-coloured ponies huddled together – but it was not made with true magical materials… though Speaker had found the metallurgical skills of humanity quite impressive, so many workable substitutes had been found.

Another piece of artifice that Speaker had wrought, had been made from blood drawn from Shimmer, distilling traces of moonsilver from it – and using that fashion a harness meant to protect him from the warping effects of the transit, in combination with his own shaping defence charm.

The switch was pulled – the blinding flash of light as a brief rip in reality took place… and thus the two magical ponies no longer existed in that reality.

Author's Note

Yes its a "House" reference

Chapter 48 Fleeing from Shadows

It is known that the Dagger Wing stylists are quiet and glide above their soup, using wings to manipulate both foes and soup.

…

It was among towers of glass and steel, in a filthy back alley, that a sudden hole in reality tore open. Rats fled from their trash-bags, to scurry into hidey holes. Several local magi in the area sensed a small anomaly, but honestly that was probably just another mega-corporation flushing some failed experiment down the sewers. It would probably come crawling back out of a drain somewhere, but that would – hopefully – be in someone else’s neighbourhood where it would wreak havoc.

Speaker and Shimmer staggered up, trying to orient themselves. To his great relief Speaker’s harness had worked, leaving him with both his mind and body intact: “It worked! You ok Shimmer?”

Fighting the urge to vomit from the stench around her, from heady mix of rat shit, rotting refuse and what was probably a decomposing corpse in a corner of the alley, Shimmer simply struggled to keep herself standing, but nodded none the less.

Leaving the alley, the duo found themselves absolutely bombarded by neon-lit adverts and holographic projections along the many steel and glass building facades. Speaker found it quite overwhelming, while Shimmer – after having breathed some slightly fresher air – noted that it reminded her of being among deep sea fish all their bio-fluorescence.

“Well, one thing is for certain, it seems that we’re not quite in the same kind of reality as before… I’m sensing some very good ambient essence flows” Speaker said, once his eyes had adjusted to the onslaught of lights around the two.

Taking another deep breath, and wrinkling her nose at the mish-mash of synthetic perfumes, many flavours of sweat, and industrial chemicals in the air, Shimmer found herself agreeing – but at the same time she threw a keen eye around to the beings walking the sidewalks: “Sure, but… it’s definitely not that similar. Look at the strange beings walking around – this place looks like something you’d see out in the wyld”

Speaker had to agree. He recognized what appeared to be humans walking about, as well as… shorter stockier humans, and more lithe humans with pointy ears – but there were also strange green-skinned beings that walked on two legs, and sort of looked like gruff and more fang-endowed humans. Finaly there were the huge and monstrous bipeds, their heads adorned with great horns, the least of which had the appearance of very muscular and fat humans, the largest of which towered over everyone else while being at least just as wide.

The strange thing was that despite being two pastel-coloured horses, then nobody was really paying any attention to the duo – they were not the strangest things in the streets, not by a long shot.

Suddenly several loud bangs and screams from down the street caught the duo’s attention. Everyone else on the street scattered and sought cover. A large van with rusty panelling and quite a few bullet holes screeched around a corner, leaving thick skid marks as it pulled a very hard right turn. In hot pursuit came several other vehicles in identical bright blue coloration, mounted weapons atop each car blasting the van with bursts of automatic fire.

The exchange reminded Speaker of when the duo’s previous hosts had properly introduced their firearms to them – they had been so very loud – and this was more of it. Ugh, so noisy.

The van rocketed down the street, the pursuit vehicles trying to keep up while also spraying bullets everywhere. Shimmer quickly got in front of Speaker and used her horn-shell armor charm to shrug off what few rounds that struck them.

Once the cars rounded the next corner all the other pedestrians emerged again – as if nothing had happened: The talismongers dusted off their stalls, the food vendors plugged the holes in their stands, and life just… continued. Sure, a minute or so later a few medevac response teams showed up, taking away the few people injured who had insurance – the rest of the wounded bystanders… were not helped.

Shimmer saw Speaker’s compassion get the better of him, as he rushed over to a grey-skinned not-quite-human next to a shot up talisman stand, who was bleeding out from several bullet wounds to the chest. Poor soul looked quite confused as the teal-coated horse in a red military uniform magically healed him – Speaker was just happy that the strange being’s anatomy had turned out to be quite similar to that of humans, assuming that his diagnostic charms had been able to read the person correctly.

Shimmer was able to pull Speaker away as people were starting to look – though from what she was hearing, then it seemed that the people around them were speaking the same language as what they had learned in the previous world they had been in. Still, why were people quietly talking about whether the two of them were shamans that had gotten too close to their totem animals? Shimmer wanted to correct them and say that her animal totem was a seagull, but it wasn’t difficult to reason that doing so would be a waste of time.

Getting Speaker down an alley that didn’t smell of rot and decay, the two tried to lay a plan for what to do. There clearly wasn’t a conveniently accessible secret government research facility to build a new trans-dimensional teleporter in – plus they had to find out where their friends were… assuming that anyone from their circle actually was in this reality.

“Oh, I think we’ve got one here Lord Bright – look. I’d recognize that smarmy smile anywhere” Shimmer said, pointing towards a towering holographic advert, proclaiming the glory of the new CEO of Horizon, an ostensibly human looking blond man that the advert claimed that he was the new golden boy of the mega-corporate world. He even had Cash’s blue heavenly silks on.

This of course meant that the duo would have to make contact with this person – and hope that they could get an opportunity for Shimmer to undo the reality-warping that Cash had been subjected to. A plan had to be made…

Also, there was the twitchy hobo behind the duo brandishing a knife, who wanted all their ‘cred-chips’ and ‘portables’.

Speaker looked up at the poor soul, instantly identifying some kind of narcotics withdrawal. With a frown, he jumped up in a lightning-fast move, slapping the would-be robber with a combination of medical charms to cure the addictions, purge the man’s body of toxins and disease, plus a bit of dream-based martial arts to put him soundly to sleep without actually physically harming the poor soul.

“Ok, where were we? We need to find someone to explain to us how this place works… this place clearly isn’t as well organized or peaceful as our previous host world” Speaker said, frowning.

A tapping on an aluminium panel over by the alley corner alerted the duo to that strange looking grey-skinned fellow with tusks, who Speaker had healed earlier. He was standing there with another person who looked similar to him, the former patient gesturing towards the duo: “That’s the one who saved me, I told you”

The other fellow stepped forth politely, smirking at the sleeping hobo with a knife in his hand lying on the ground behind the duo: “My name is Liam O’Kirg, my brother tells me you just saved him after the knights errant hosed the street down with lead. I wanted to thank you”

Shimmer eyed the two suspiciously, whispering to Speaker that these two strangers look a bit like some fair folk that Sage told her about. Speaker shook his head: “I’m not sensing a shred of wyld essence here – and when I patched up that vendor he seemed perfectly mortal, all blood and bones, no gossamer or anything”

Turning to the stranger who had introduced himself, Speaker nodded polity: “My name is Bright Machine Speaker, and this is my good friend Last Shimmer – I am a healer by trade, so it was no problem at all”

Liam nodded, adjusting his jeans and nice ironed shirt and suspenders: “In my business charity like that simply must be rewarded. Good street-docs, regardless of what shape they come in, are not to taken lightly this close to the barrens. Please, the least I can do is offer you lunch or an early dinner”

Speaker and Shimmer exchanged knowing looks, after which Speaker addressed this Liam fellow: “Thank you for the kind offer – we’ll gladly take lunch. We would also really like to… well… know where we are – we just arrived here from another world”

Liam’s brother quickly pulled out a handful of small magical items, some glowing, some of carved bone, some of other strange materials, and waved them in the direction of the duo. Some of the talismans buzzed, some rattled, some glowed much brighter: “I told you! I fucking told you!”

With a hesitant step back, Liam quickly communicated that this wasn’t necessarily a good thing – whatever his brother had told him, which was followed up by Liam asking: “Are you two spirits or… something else?”

“Spirits? What? No, we’re ponies – flesh and blood. But I understand the confusion, why don’t we go have lunch and try to talk things over?” Speaker suggested, clearly seeing the confusion and fear in the eyes of the two locals.

The two locals ushered the duo to a well-stocked public house not far from where they were, where Liam guided them to a surprisingly well-fortified back room, through two separate thick steel doors, and past a number of other individuals of various shapes and sizes, all which exuded an aura of plausible deniability and a great willingness to commit various forms of violence or crime if you paid them enough.

It turned out that Liam was what the locals called a ‘fixer’ – a man who connected interested clients with available criminals, called runners. He was also a mid-ranking officer in a local crime syndicate belonging to what the duo understood was a tribe called the ‘Irish’. These were of course facts that were simple enough to digest – the more difficult topics were things like how it was apparently quite common in this world to hack off part of your body and have it replaced with mechanical ‘cyber’ limbs, even things like eyes, your very face – all to make you stronger, smarter, or more beautiful.

The duo in turn tried to explain their situation and origin, repeatedly having to explain that they weren’t awakened horses that had escaped some strange magical animal laboratory. It didn’t surprise the duo that nobody had heard of the exalted – or if they had meant it in a very different way to what the locals had understood. What the locals did understand was that the duo thought that the new CEO of the Horizon mega-corp was actually one of them, albeit shapeshifted and perhaps even without memory of what he had been before.

“Bloody hell… the new golden boy of the corporate world, secretly a magic horse? Well at least he’s not a dragon” Liam noted, as he nursed his fifth pint, seemingly without it affecting him.

Speaker shrugged, enjoying the local beer quite well, though to the surprise of the locals then neither he nor Shimmer seemed to be affected by alcohol what so ever – exalted constitution being quite hardy so such mild poisons: “Back home I am good friends with several dragons – even met the five prime elemental dragons not that long ago”

Liam and the few other locals that had joined looked at Speaker once more as if their eyes were about to roll out of their heads. A runner who had seen the duo arrive, who had struggled enough to reconcile the notion that these two magic horses said that they could refine and empower the essence so easily… and now they said they were friends with dragons back home?

“Honestly, at this point it would be a lot easier to understand you two if you’d just said you’re just spirits…” the mage noted, typing away like mad on his phone.

Shimmer found the locals being so confused about their spiritual potency amusing, while greatly enjoying the deep-fried rat meat and soy products they were being served – though she had found quite a lot of the other foods they had to taste horribly of strange alchemical flavouring agents, not even their water tasting clean: “Well it would help explain how Changing Goldstein rose to power so quickly, wouldn’t it? He has powers like me and Speaker – but his powers are geared towards making people do what he wants, and running large organizations or countries with supernatural ease”

“That sure fits – he came out of nowhere… talked his way into money, every business he touches turns to gold, and somehow he’s actually been able to make the entire board of Horizon obey him – I mean, he fucking dethroned god damn Gary Cline and squeezed him out as the CEO of Pathfinder… and made him bloody like it!” Liam bemoaned, clearly knowing a lot more about how the world worked than the duo.

From what Speaker and Shimmer had been able to understand, then the world they were in worked a lot like a world-spanning version of Nexus. Money didn’t just talk, it wrote the laws, and there were several large corporations that operated like the Guild which each held sovereign territory, and sometimes even waged wars against each other – or against internal parts of themselves, between their own departments.

“…but mostly they just send runners at each other. Kidnapping talent, sabotaging projects from other corps, assassinating managers, stealing hardware or goods – open warfare is bad for business, but with us running around in the shadows, it can all be hidden away” Liam explained, sounding dangerously comfortable with that particular state of affairs.

It was not a kind state of being – and Speaker understood that countless millions laboured under uncaring corporate tyrants, risking firing if they ever complained, which would instantly make them foreign intruders likely to be shot on the spot.

That Cash had managed to get to the top of such a system didn’t surprise Speaker or Shimmer much – the question was how to get to him.

“He’s a triple-A mega-corp CEO and majority shareholder. People down on our level do not exist as far as his like are concerned. He would have multiple layers of corporate runners, corporate security and bureaucracy to make sure we never get near him” Liam explained, not sounding too optimistic.

“That just makes it difficult. Let’s take our time to plan this out and raise the funds needed – If you don’t think it’s possible, me and Shimmer will just go somewhere else and find someone who is willing to try” Speaker pointed out, not willing to give up any time soon.

Liam nodded, appreciating Speaker’s sensible approach – even if he still found the whole gambit way out of his league: “True… and if what you say about your healing abilities are true, then Shiawaze corp will probably pay quite well for a demo – but then they’d also kidnap you afterwards to keep and study you. And this run will require a lot of money”

“Right… the guild would probably love to the same back home. But ok, and I assume that the silver dinars I’ve got from back home won’t work here… Shimmer, could you fetch my bag?”

Shimmer applied her many-pocket meditation, retrieving Speaker’s doctor bag from elsewhere. The leather bag, appearing to Liam and the other people present out of nowhere – which on its own raised all of the questions – contained a lot of things, mainly some backup medical supplies, and a repair kit for Gift and Homage. It was this kit which Speaker wanted to nab some spare parts from, namely some small orichalcum gears and other magical materials he would normally use to maintain Gift and Homage.

Seeing what Speaker was whipping out, Liam quickly summoned his brother. The talismonger quickly confirmed that what Speaker was offering wasn’t just shiny trinkets… it was a small gear made of pure refined orichalcum. The talismonger started getting very giddy when this became apparent. It seemed that precision made orichalcum bits were just as valuable in this world as they were in creation.

The talismonger and Liam whispered a bit, Shimmer using her charms to listen in: “They’re talking about how the gear and the other magical materials you’re offering are worth a lot more than they can pay – they’re considering killing us and keeping it, and then go look for a corporate buyer”

Sighing, Speaker wondered just how difficult it would be to find someone who would cooperate – but that was when the not very distant sound of explosions rumbled through the walls, and several locals came running into the room the duo was in, shouting that they were under attack.

Now, Speaker and Shimmer had both figured out that Liam was actually the guy in charge of this particular Irish mob stronghold – or at the very least one of the guys in charge of it – so he quickly bolted upright: “Who the bloody hell is it?”

“Looks like halloweeners boss” the stout barkeep said, showing a scuffed and burnt brick that had been painted with black with orange flames. He said had had rained down the block, along with a number of impact grenades.

Liam whipped out his phone and poked it a few times, activating alarms and sending out call to arms: “You know the drill – a hundred nuyen per dead clown corpse, open contract!”

That statement apparently wasn’t for the duo, or the barkeep, but for everyone listening in on the phone – namely all the local mercenaries known colloquially as shadow-runners. Turning to the two pastel-coloured horses, Liam apologized as he pulled out a heavy handgun: “Terribly sorry to halt our negotiations – but if you’re looking for a little seed money, then go clip these clowns”

Shimmer looked at Speaker, seeing him carefully evaluating if they should join the fight or not, and Liam was out the door. This left the short and stout barkeep looking somewhat apprehensive, giving her someone to ask: “What are these halloweeners?”

“Rival gang – loves to light everything and everyone on fire. They must have pushed the other local gangs out to get here… mean’s they’re trouble” the barkeep said, sounding quite fearful.

That was enough for Shimmer. She got up and made for the streets outside, shapeshifting mid-stride so that her bulky warform coalesced as she came out the back door.

Speaker took a deep breath, appreciating that Shimmer had made the choice for them, as he pulled his ruby pinions out of the doctor’s bag and attached them to the uniform clips on his shoulders. Following the same path Shimmer had taken out, Speaker found himself in a warzone.

The pub evidently had magic enchantments, greatly dampening outside noise on it.

Several black vans with orange flame paint-jobs had rolled up, and several dozen halloweeners were laying covering fire, quite a lot of them were tossing what the local defenders were crying out warnings for as ‘molotovs’ which on impact splashed burning liquid everywhere, and several of the halloweeners were also armed with weapons that simply sprayed some kind of burning fuel all over – and it was quite obvious that these halloweeners were not afraid to kill indiscriminately, seeing as they were targeting not just those who fought back, but also civilians running for cover.

At least it was easy enough to see the attackers apart from the locals: The halloweeners all had black and orange clothes on, plus they all had variations of garishly coloured black and orange dyed hair and war paint on.

Quickly recognizing that the attacking force seemed to be relying mainly on ranged weapons, Speaker leapt forth with his shield charms blazing, throwing Gift and Homage left and right to cut up and destroy the guns his foes were using.

The shrill cry of a very large bird of prey announced Shimmer’s presence on the battlefield just the same, her warform flying overhead with her essence-webbing tangling up foes left and right, as if she was a cruel puppet master picking up wayward toys. Her bone armor soaked the bullets that her foes fired at her, and her dagger-long claws carved a long and bloody path through the few foes that somehow managed to leap up and try to attack her.

Speaker in turn also cut his way through his foes, using Gift and Homage to repeatedly smack molotovs back to their senders, while also exploiting his suite of magical martial arts to slap halloweeners around left and right, leaving dozens of foes soundly asleep with but the slightest of touch.

It also turned out that Homage, with its energy-bladed cutting edge, was able to quite thoroughly destroy the engines of the vans that the assault force had arrived in, as well as ignite and explode their power source. Doing so scattered the halloweeners and seemed to break their morale, at least until a large troll – that was the name that the locals had for that kind of meta-human – came thundering into the street turned battlefield.

The troll in question was massive. Easily two and half yards tall, with arms and legs of metal, much of it painted with glossy orange and blacks. Even his face, his tusks, and his body were replete with metal components – and he came barrelling in through a building wall, hauling two half-pulped Irish mob enforces that he threw mockingly towards the nearest Irish mob barricade.

This appeared to rally the halloweeners, who formed up behind the troll – gunfire doing seemingly nothing to him and his heavy cyber-body armor.

Speaker quickly galloped up in front of the troll, stopping at a safe distance in front of the beast, assuming a clearly martial stance before this great towering foe who simply pointed at the little horse in front of him and laughed loudly: “Oh that’s adorable… I want it as a pet! No, skinned and stuffed!”

Taking a quick breath, Speaker simply flipped his two gyroscopic chakrams around so they stuck to the side of his hooves: “Why do you attack this place? You are burning down people’s homes!”

“We want the turf – they can join us or die” the troll said, sounding very satisfied as he slowly moved towards Speaker… but that was when Speaker punched the air in front of him once, his hoof sizzling with golden essence.

The troll laughed at the silly display, but that quickly stopped as the punch somehow connected – despite the distance between the two – and the troll suddenly flew backwards, all the halloweeners behind him being flung out of cover.

The scattered halloweeners were easy pickings for the local runners and irish mob enforcers with their firearms, while the troll appeared to have become quite enraged by Speaker having ruined his one-man advance.

The troll’s cybernetic arms and legs whirred and began sprouting all manner of metal blades, spikes and claws, while his mechanical eyes spun up and glowed bright red. This was when the troll’s wired reflexes kicked in, letting him close the distance to Speaker in almost an instant – meanwhile Speaker’s own magical martial arts lent him the speed needed to react accordingly, defending from the troll’s blows effortlessly, though he did find that the troll seemed worryingly immune to his sleep charm… and his medical diagnostic charm told him exactly what: The troll’s skull implants weren’t working right, constantly shocking him a little bit, which worked perfectly for keeping the troll alert and on edge, but also woke up him up if need be.

Gift’s blades sparked against the trolls’ cyberblades, and Homage left glowing streaks over the troll’s cyber limbs, but weren’t able to melt through the strange heat-resistant alloys. It was almost as if a large enforcer from a gang that had a penchant for pyromania had built-in cyber systems that made being set on fire, or other exposure to high heat, a non-issue.

With the fighting at a stalemate – the troll either unable to hit Speaker well enough to hurt him, or punch through his shield charms, and Speaker unable to meaningfully harm the troll – it was the arrival of Shimmer that turned the tide: Appearing from on high, her bone armor replete with the marks of bullets and grenades, she swooped down and webbed the troll to briefly confuse him.

The troll’s many cyberblades quickly sliced up the webbing, but the few precious seconds it took was all Speaker needed to throw Gift and Homage in such a way that they struck the troll from opposite sides – this saw the troll fall over.

Jumping onto the troll, Speaker struck at the troll’s cranial cyberware with a hoof of the daystar charm he had learned from Fire Orchid; The armor shattering strike. Rivets and welds burst left and right, as cyber armor was stripped with each blow – leaving the troll’s inner cyberwear exposed. A quick touch with a disassembly charm finally got the malfunctioning bit of brain-chrome disabled… and a second touch finally put the troll to sleep.

With the trolls frantic flailing finally coming to an end, so did the rest of the dust settle. The few remaining halloweeners managed to boost a car and drove off, the local runners and irish mob enforcers giving them plenty of lead as a send-off.

As the wounded and dead were collected, plenty of injured halloweeners got captured in the process. Speaker and Shimmer helped triage and heal any local who wanted medical aid, the people in the area quickly starting to cheer the two on as Speaker healed through his golden charms and Shimmer via her flesh-sculpting art, a charm Sage had taught her for its usefulness in quickly staunching wounds, removing unwanted scars (or make ones to facilitate a disguise) and then some.

Speaker had found her use of the charm rather funny: “You know, the first thing you did to me when we met last time around – in your last incarnation – was that you used that charm to grow my beard out”

“Why would I do that?” Shimmer wondered, finding that to be a very odd way to greet someone.

Shrugging as he patched up his next patient: “I think it was to make me look more like how I had in the first age… your past incarnation had found images of me from the first age, and so sought to make me look like that”

Once the healing was done, many a bullet-wound done away with, and quite a few cyber-limbs that had broken in the battle were also replaced by regrowing their organic originals, the irish mob announced that they were going to host a grand party to celebrate the victory and everyone being ok.

Speaker and Shimmer accepted being the guests of honor – though Speaker was quite worried about the captured halloweeners. Liam didn’t want to go into the details, but a Shimmer in warform was apparently sufficiently intimidating to make the mobster talk: “Alright… christ – we’re screening them for warrants and bounties. Anyone with a price on their head will get sold off, and the rest we’ll see if can’t either ransom back or otherwise see if I can’t turn a profit from them”

“Turn a profit from them? Like what, selling them into slavery?” Shimmer quickly asked, sensing that Speaker wasn’t happy to hear that explanation, but wanting to spare him from having to ask for it.

Liam gestured for calm: “Slavery? No, the corpos have plenty of wageslaves – no we’ll just pick them over for cyberparts and sell their bits to street docs, then dump ‘em back on their own turf. They’ll be more of a burden for their kin than any use that way, keeps them busy so they won’t come here again anytime soon”

Speaker found this acceptable, and was about to ask something when an enforcer came running in: “Boss, the troll woke up – he’s demanding to parlay”

It turned out that the troll was indeed a ranking lieutenant among the Halloweeners, and he wanted to negotiate for his release and that of his fellow gang members. He had plenty to offer, knowledge of stashes of stolen goods, he had access to gang accounts he could transfer money from, knew of weapon caches – but Liam wasn’t buying, because the one thing that apparently did interest the Irish mob, more territory, wasn’t something that Spark Fang the troll could offer.

“I would much rather just send your corpse back to the rest of your clown buddies as a warning” Liam said, his right hand moving towards his gun holster.

A compassionate hoof from Speaker stopped Liam: “I told you I won’t permit executing prisoners”

“Hah! Is the irish mob now taking orders from silly painted horsies? That’s rich” Spark Fang laughed, revealing that one of his tusks did indeed have a lip-activatable lighter implant in it.

With furrowed brows Liam took a step back: “No mate, this here is Bright Machine Speaker – and considering that he one-manned three dozen clowns, including you, then I am at least inclined to listen to him… and if just half of what he’s told me of his abilities are true, then he’s a grim bloody fable as far as you’re concerned. A regular ol’ kelpie”

An idea crossed Shimmer’s mind, her quickly whispering it to Speaker. He nodded, then looked to Liam: “If you want to return Spark Fang to his gang as a warning – then I think I know just what to do… did a thing to an undead little girl a while ago that might work here”

It was thus that a few days later a hacked carryall cargo drone zipped in over Halloweener barrens territory and dropped its load. The massive steel cargo crate deployed its bright green parachute, curious halloweneers quickly rushing out to catch and bust open the crate – only to find Spark Fang inside, swearing up a storm.

Liam reclined in his chair, looking at the remote video feed from the camera drone monitoring the delivery: “You sure this’ll work – I would hate giving those bastards a fully functional street samurai like that back to the clowns”

“You saw how he was screaming last light – Speaker took away his ability to sleep. He’ll go insane within a week from sleep deprivation. No amount of drugs or alcohol will give him true rest. You wanted him to be both a warning and a burden to his gang… just wait until he pops and then watch the fireworks” Shimmer said, sounding quite certain in her understanding of Speaker’s powers.

The mob lieutenant nodded, agreeing that if it did work, then it was a wonderfully underhanded and sneaky way to mess with someone – he also noted that the preliminary reports he had gotten from the runners he had sniffing around Horizon’s matrixes (that was apparently the local term for their information networks) and then some, had finally started yielding some interesting information: “It seems that Horizon has started a new initiative. They’re not being very secretive about it, though they’re keeping the facility where they’re doing it quite secure”

“Neat – what are they doing and how is it relevant to us?” Shimmer wondered, poking at her soy-based noodles. All the synthetic soy foods had been novel to begin with, but it had worn off quickly.

On a wall-mounted trid display Liam brought up what looked like a corporate memo, which detailed a “Project Equestrian Portal” – a project to scry the outer planes to seek spirits and planar creatures the corporation could summon, capture and exploit as living cartoon characters for their shows for children.

Speaker found the notion rather amusing: “Well at least they’re not looking for diseases…”

“Oh, it gets better. They’re looking for a specific kind of spirits… pastel coloured horse spirits” Liam said, looking at the two pastel-coloured ponies in the room with him.

Shimmer nearly fell over: “Don’t tell me this project was started by the new CEO?”

“The very one – It proves that he’s looking for you, and he has god knows how many thousands of corpo mages scrying the outer planes looking for his kind – and if they’re trying to grab someone from there, that’ll also show them how to send stuff back there” Liam said, beaming with pride that his runners not only got info they could use, but did it quickly and efficiently. He didn’t mention anything about the kidnapping of Horizon staff to torture them for passwords, the shootouts at the server farm, or the other things that the runners stole as part of the heist – but that was part and parcel for the life of a fixer.

With this information, it was resolved that Liam would send out a call for mages who had contacts within Horizon. The plan was simply to present the duo as exactly what Horizon was looking for, and since it appeared that the CEO was directly overseeing the project, that would put them into contact with their guy… in theory.

“Ya… once they close the door behind you, they might strap you to a surgery table and dissect you just the same. But that is the kind of risks you have to take to meet a megacorp CEO in the sixth world these days” Liam lamented.

Speaker found the comment odd: “Sixth world? What? We’re from the second age, the age of sorrows – what are you talking about?”

Liam and the couple of mages he had called in all got some very strange looks on their faces, demanding a quick detour to the bar for some fresh pints to sooth their nerves. It seemed that the locals, while accepting that the duo weren’t spirits, then now they thought that Speaker and Shimmer might be time-travelers – which was supposedly even more impossible, though the mages at the table quickly started talking about things like being “time-lost in the outer planes” or perhaps some kind of extra-planar time stasis?

“Look, does it matter where we’re from? We’re here now, and we know where we have to go – can we get a move on?” Shimmer said, finding the endless bickering of the locals increasingly annoying.

The fixer gave Shimmer and Speaker an apologetic smile – it looked a bit forced all things considered – but the orcish mob lieutenant ultimately nodded: “You’re absolutely right. You’ve paid well for our services, so let’s get this show on the road”

Chapter 49 Seeking Higher Power

Shadow Hunter stylists stalk soup at night, clawing at wayward soup-thieves, leaving only blood and shadow.

…

It was the dead of night. The drop-off had been arranged well in advance, through careful and reasonably paranoid anonymous middle-men. The Horizon rep and his corporate security guards all knew that the company’s extra-planar scrying efforts weren’t a secret anymore – and while the company had originally been ridiculed for looking for cartoon characters in other dimensions – then when a mage runner usually in the employ of the Irish mob had contacted them, saying that him and his fellow runners had come across something that actually fit the description of what they were looking for, they were all ears.

Of course it sounded far too good to be true, plus it didn’t help that at least four other groups of morons had managed to somehow scrounge up a horse or two and spray-paint the poor things and glue on a horn and some wings, trying to collect the reward that Horizon had listed. The one group that had gotten a street doc to actually graft some seagull wings to an actual pony, and bolt a cut off troll horn to its head… well, they got points for style, but like the rest of them they had all been lined up a shot for wasting company time, as well as for animal abuse.

It was with this in mind that the Horizon rep’s security guards had readied their weapons well in advance – but when the corpo-mage that the rep had with her started quaking, saying that he was detecting that the people approaching were brining something that was quite powerful… well that suddenly got interesting.

The large and deceptively well-armored rigger van rolled up to the warehouse nice and slowlike. The hilariously over-modified and souped-up engine inside was the pride and joy of decker driving it, while the other runners were equipped with some of the best black-market weapons and gear that nuyen could buy, on account of the very generous mission budget that the sale of one of Speaker’s orichalcum spare parts had afforded.

The guard station at the warehouse lot looked at the van rolling up with disgust, its garish paintjob not at all subtle – his eyes rolling quite demonstratively as the van pulled up revealing that there wasn’t a normal driver up in front… but instead a decker-pod strapped to the front seat, with a printout featuring the blurry picture of a face glue to the top of the pod, along with a hat for good measure, giving the pod the rough silhouette of a humanoid at a distance. The pod was connected via a couple of wires to the van’s control console – oh the glory of power steering.

A speaker built into the pod sounded, with the synthesized voice of the decker calling out to the guard: “Hey, we clear to enter or what? You fuckers don’t want your magic horses?”

Considering how many fools the wageslave guard had already waved through on this topic, he could only shrug and wave the pod-driven van through.

The van followed the route outlined via the local matrix-network’s augmented reality projections to a specific warehouse entrance, where the gate quickly rolled up to allow the van inside. It was quick, clean, corporate – and once the van was inside the gate rolled shut again.

This was where coming with an armed escort had been judged necessary – to help extract the duo in case things went tits up.

“Alright cargo-peeps, we’re inside – looks like… oh shit they had me park on an auto-conveyor and they’ve clamped the wheels!” the decker suddenly called out via the speaker to the van’s cargo pod.

The van shook as the ground beneath it moved, but the acceleration quickly lessened as the movement became smooth and uniform. What those in the pod couldn’t see was that the van had been moved to what amounted to a hidden underground cargo conveyor system – an internal rail system for moving large volumes of cargo around that connected to other Horizon warehouses in and around Seattle. It seemed that whoever they were to meet might not even be at the warehouse district they had driven to – or, as the dwarven street samurai pointed out: “Could just be to disorient us, so we can’t drive off in a hurry”

It was hard to tell – the warehouse they had arrived at wasn’t well lit, and while the decker had a lot of external sensors on the van, then the warehouse had a corporate amount of sensor jammers in place, specifically to prevent rival or runner spy-drones from sniffing around inside, leaving the runners quite blind.

The van came to a final halt within their destination warehouse not long after – the decker informing everyone else that based on his pod’s accelerometer readings then they hadn’t actually moved that far: “We’re still in the same building complex, but we a mile or so further inside – and I can’t see where we came in, and I have no comms with the drones I left flying outside for overwatch. We’re blind, so be fucking careful when we’re uncorked - oh and someone’s coming to do that in three, two, one…”

There was a loud tapping on the cargo pod – something metallic was knocking from the outside. The whirring sound of the cargo pod’s door locks being opened came next, the decker reporting that his pod’s anti-magical netting was heating up: “That means someone’s trying to put a spell on me – remember rule one boys”

“What is rule one?” Speaker wondered, looking around at the very dimly lit and cramped cargo pod as the last of the pod door locks were worked on.

The street samurai inspected and cocked his massive shotgun and checked its underslung grenade launcher, and clipped on the very nasty looking twin bayonet blades that also attached to the gun, connecting the smart-link cable from the weapon to a port in his cyber-arm: “The rules are geek the mage, conserve your ammo, and never make a deal with a dragon – in order of importance”

The door finally began to creak open, the mage among the runners quickly putting up a spell as the door opened to catch… yup… three flashbang grenades. He ejected them just as quickly, the loud pops and flashes of light outside the pod eliciting a fair bit of laughter from the runners inside the pod.

“Why would they attack us before even having a chance to talk to us?” Shimmer cried out, greatly annoyed that there wasn’t room to shift into her warform… yet.

The pod door came down with a bang, the corporate lackeys who had been carefully trying to open pod door correctly having evidently been replaced by some corporate troll security goons with very large and beefy cyberarms – so large that they would have made Spark Fang look lithe and skinny by comparison.

With the door down, the mage shifted his magic to provide a magical shield – but powerful lights from outside the pod were shining in, blinding everyone who didn’t have the means to counter it, such as Speaker’s elemental immunity charm.

From a loudspeaker, someone outside the pod called out: “We’ve already scanned you – whatever those two mutant quadrupeds you’ve brought are, they aren’t what we’re looking for, so to compensate Horizon for wasting its time, you’re been volunteered as target practice for Horizon’s security forces. Please have a nice day, a Horizon day”

It occurred to the duo that the message spoken over the loudspeaker had come off as either hilariously well-rehearsed, or down right pre-recorded.

Regardless, the forces outside opened fire and began blasting into the pod, the runner mage’s shield quickly buckling – but before that the street samurai inside had busted out through a side door, covered by a smoke grenade – for this mission had been planned well, and the pod made to have a secret exit only accessibly from the inside in case it was needed.

The rest of the runners followed suit, exiting quickly under the cover of the smoke, leaving only the two ponies inside – for despite their hurried urgings, then they weren’t planning on going anywhere.

…because now they had room to let loose – especially Shimmer.

As the mage left his magical shield left with him, but by then the pod was full of bone-armored feathers.

The security force eventually held their fire as the smoke cleared – the runners veiled by the optical camo of their hilariously expensive tacsuits, or the invisibility spells of the mage, as they moved into position for a nice and polite ambush. A squad of security goons came up the ramp to the pod, but were quickly webbed by Shimmer and held up in front of them as living shields as she burst out, her warform illuminated by bright cobalt-blue moonlight flames, Speaker just barely holding onto her as he stood on her back, one hoof holding on and one hoof up with Gift held out as a shield to parry incoming fire.

Those outside, in front of the pod were clearly not expecting something like that – demonstrating the ‘corporate quality’ of security forces as many simply turned and ran, while few others managed to bring up their weapons before Shimmer had begun webbing them.

Speaker in turn jumped off his lunar mate, engaging the foes before him as he focused on wide sweeping cuts with Gift, aiming to mainly cut guns in half. To his great satisfaction, then disarming them caused many of his foes to turn and run, only a few revealing cyber-weapons extruding from their hands and legs as would try to fight him – but they found that his armor-removal and disassembly charms were quite efficient and rendering cyberware inoperable or full-on detached. Shimmer’s approach was less subtle but arguably more efficient; slicing her way through squad after squad of goons and webbing those who tried to run.

After barely half a minute’s worth of fighting the duo was well into the second half of the security force – the corporate soldiers baffled as Speaker’s golden shield charm stopped all bullets that struck him, while Shimmer’s heavy bone armor similarly meant that barely any blood was spilled other than from the luckiest of shot – and those shooters quickly found themselves chewed up and run through by massive claws.

The runners, well hidden, were very quietly wondering why the hell those two had even needed to bring escorts – but that was when it appeared that the corporate security officer in charge had called in heavy reinforcements: The cargo-conveyor system buzzed to life as the mono-rails near the fighting were primed to received and stop a high-speed shipment – two large battlemechs that quickly unfolded and just began blasting everything: The pod, the two brightly glowing ponies, and the remaining Horizon security forces.

The calibre of their guns was such that Shimmer quickly found herself on the defensive, weaving and dodging, as well as using charms to boost her armor and even heal herself as an intense hail of rotary-gun automatic fire riddled her with heavy calibre armor piercing rounds.

Speaker quickly leapt into action, being a much smaller target for the mechs – and to him it wasn’t that different that engaging a warstrider, expect these things fell apart very easily once he started using his disassembly charms on them!

The second battlemech turned to focus on Speaker the instant the one he was on started glitching out and falling appart, but that’s when the runners made their move, hitting that mech with several armor piercing rocket-propelled grenades that saw the mech’s legs and left arm-canon disabled.

Of course, corpos never do things small – so three more battlemechs arrived moments later, engaging the runners and tying them up in a game of cat and mouse between warehouse crates and the wrecked remains of the cargo pod.

Speaker sighed, hoping that the local spirits here spoke roughly the same language they did back home, as he leapt from the by now disabled mech onto the one trying roast him with its front-mounted flame throwers.

On this second mech, Speaker quickly cut a few choice holes in its armor where he could lodge his hooves, as he threw Gift up to burst the sealed sky-lights above them – for he needed sunlight for this: Chanting the arcane Five Hundred Words of War, and weaving a golden lattice of essence around himself, Speaker erupted in golden flame that roughly outlined a warstrider.

This was not something that went unnoticed by the other battlemechs, as two of them turned to engage Speaker – but it was too late: the previously quite dormant spirits of all the things around them, from the floor plates to the broken cargo pod, to the very components of the battlemechs, all came forth in brief but joyous song, joining Speaker’s chant as they bonded to the lattice around him, forming a mighty orichalcum warstrider with him inside of it.

The battlemechs had clearly not expected to see something their own size suddenly being conjured out of thin air – such a thing was unheard of – but they quickly opened fire, as Speaker in turn charged them to engage them in melee combat.

It was quickly quite clear that the battlemechs were not made for dueling things up close – they were made to shoot stuff with their heavy guns, not face off against a mech that was able to flip them around like they were stained body pillows.

Speaker found it very amusing that these machine-suits had not been made as proper warstriders – they had not been designed to survive simple joint locks.. then again they had clearly not been made to engage in melee combat either – so… ya.

Soon the other battlemechs were in similar states of having their weapons either ripped off or broken.

The runners breathed a sigh of relief, coming out of hiding – arguing more than ever why Speaker and Shimmer had needed any help if they could pull stunts like that – but that’s when the warehouse lights all came on all of a sudden, and internal walls shifted, revealing that a corporate legion of troops, heavy troops and mechs had been assembled.

This was much more than what the runners and the duo could hope to defeat… except that wasn’t what Speaker saw – for his dream based martial arts had lent him a simple but profound insight into the nature of illusions made of dreams… and this was one of them.

Calling out from his warstrider’s voice crystal to Shimmer, Speaker told her to not worry: “It’s a massive illusion – none of them are real!”

Passing this to the runners, everyone seemed to relax a bit – except of course for the question of who was conjuring such a massive and elaborate illusion?

That was when the runner mage called out that he was sensing high-powered mages approaching – but he couldn’t see any… and invisible mages sneaking up on you was never a good thing.

Speaker swept the place with essence sight, as well as his investigation charms to quickly spot anything out of the ordinary. He pointed out a ripple that was approaching them – Shimmer confirmed: “Ok that is actually quite well hidden… but I still see them”

Turning the warstrider to wave a hoof at the approaching people, the group appeared to acknowledge that their attempt to sneak up on everyone had failed, and so the invisibility spell was ended.

It appeared that it was a very well-dressed man, followed by a group of other corporate looking jokers in expensive business suits – though all of them were also brandishing very snazzy looking firearms.

Since they were well within firing range, but not shooting, Speaker opted to give these strangers a chance. Walking to meet them – still in his sorcerous warstrider – with Shimmer, now fully recovered thanks to her healing charms, by his side. The runners were also there, but safely peeking out from behind the orichalcum warstrider’s four legs.

The runners looked quite confused as the frontman of the group began talking to the two ponies, especially as it was in a language that none of them recognized… but the duo instantly recognized rivertongue: “Hey you two, took you long enough to get here”

Looking at the man with some suspicion, for that was not the voice of Cash Charmer – nor was it the face of the man the duo had seen adverts of on the side of buildings, the man quickly tapped a few buttons on his very complicated-looking wristwatch. His entire appearance shimmered for a moment, the illusion around him fading to reveal the much more recognizable blue jacked of heavenly silks, the blond hair coifed to perfection, and that grin…

“I can’t be seen just freely running around you know – but I must say, it is good to see you two again. Are any of the others with you?”

Speaker dispelled the warstrider, appearing to inadvertently greatly disappoint the people hiding behind the human-form Cash. Shimmer equally took the cue to revert to her normal pony form, eliciting a few more remarks from the people behind Cash, mostly comments about how cute Shimmer looked.

“I guess it’s good to see you too Cash – though we’ll have to do something about how you look, luckily Shimmer figured out a way to do that when she fixed me in the previous world I was in” Speaker noted.

Cash looked quite relieved, both at hearing that there was a way to turn him back into a pony, but also that Speaker had already puzzled out a way to travel between realities: “That is great – by the way, you won’t need your runner buddies anymore. These Dawkins group runners are on my payroll, they’re great”

The runners that Speaker had come with looked positively humbled to be in the presence of prime corporate runners such as the legendary Dawkins group – and as Cash not only assured them of safe passage from the facility, but a hefty finders fee for bringing his friends to him, then they left feeling all kinds happy – though the decker, once extracted from the thoroughly shot up wreckage of the van with the cargo pod, his decker pod having kept him safe by also trapped in the wreckage, was quite sad about leaving his vehicle behind. Cash assured him that he would have the wreckage delivered to a location of the decker’s choosing, along with giving him a reimbursement chip with enough credits on it that the decker found himself at a loss of words.

With them out of the way, Cash and the Dawkins group led Speaker and Shimmer deeper into the corporate facility – away from warehouse sections and into what looked like office spaces and meeting rooms, the kind of places were business was conducted at all hours of the day.

In one such meeting room Speaker and Shimmer were debriefed, them telling their story to the curious ears of the mages of the Dawkins group along with other corporate mages. Apparently dimensional travel like what they claimed to have achieved was considered quite impossible – though Speaker and Shimmer both emphasized that it was in large parts due to their powers, not local technology or magic, that it had been made possible.

The Dawkins group also accepted that story that the duo was in fact from the second age… or world – it was at least the easiest way to explain what they were, to get them to stop asking questions.
For Speaker and Shimmer it was also quite interesting to hear that Cash had emerged in this world looking quite human, but with his mind quite intact – for he had already been protected by his mind-control and shaping protection charms when he had been verbally duelling with the Dowager.

“Interesting – Shimmer had to reform both my mind and my body when we met. I guess that means there’s a chance that the others will have their minds intact too” Speaker noted.

Cash in kind told his fellow circle-mates how he had taken control of the mega-corporation, ousting one of the most popular CEOs on the planet – namely via his business and administrative charms, for they had let him conduct business at such a speed and with such financial impact that even now there were investment companies and other corporations desperately trying to catch up to him: “If I keep this up, I’m pretty sure I’ll have Horizon owning all of Seattle within a few months, and a very sizable chunk of most other AAA mega-corps”

“And they just let you?” Shimmer wondered, having gleamed enough about power struggles in this reality that the moves and take-overs which Cash described would have resulted in no small amount of assassination attempts and other counter-moves.

With a deep belly laugh, Cash reclined in the luxuriously soft chair in the executive lounge they were currently in: “Oh heavens no – loads of people came after me – but people here just cannot properly resist a good mind control charm, it’s almost sad really – plus most companies stopped sending runner assassins after me once I bought them out. It’s kind of hard to justify that kind of expenses when I’m the one holding their purse strings”

“So, you would walk in the door of a business and just tell everyone that now they work for you?” Speaker asked, finding the thought highly amusing.

Half shaking his head, half nodding, Cash said it was almost like that: “No they use this thing called the matrix – it’s a global information network. I can buy and sell things just with the push of a button – we simply have to set up a communication extension to the light rail network’s signalling system so we can do something like this at home”

Speaking of which, Cash explained that he had indeed set up an initiative that had taken much of Horizon’s mage staff and set them on a quest to scry for what the locals called cartoon-looking pastel coloured horses, mainly in a hope of finding and summoning the rest of the circle to him – but also to find a way home.

Speaker and Shimmer found this to be a very good use of Cash’s time and resources, Speaker gladly contributing the blueprints he had memorized of the inter-dimensional scanning machine him and Shimmer had helped build in the previous reality.

Several dozen magi-tech engineering companies were commissioned to pour over Speaker’s designs, to see if they were viable to make in this reality. Four months and two surprisingly successful seasons of Speaker and Shimmer’s story hour trid series, the scanning device was rebuilt and running – now fuelled by local magical sources, instead of barely adequate substitution materials and essence-conversion relays that constantly melted down.

The Horizon mages were equal part amazed – but also really annoyed – as the magi-technical solution had essentially automated one of the biggest mage industries on the planet, that of scrying or remote-viewing for stuff. The spin-off projects that arose from these new technologies saw the corporation of Horizon rise to even greater heights, attracting the attention of some of the most powerful beings on the planet: The ancient dragons that lorded over the other mega-corporations.

This led to some very brief but quite tense confrontations – Cash conversing with the dragons in very secured one-on-one meetings, and yet he somehow managed to talk each and every one of them out of declaring corporate war on Horizon… though he politely refused to actually explain how he had pulled it off.

As the main scrying machine worked its magic, systematically scanning through other realities, using Speaker and Shimmer as templates for what it was looking for, it finally got a match – a single one.

“What are we looking at?” Cash eagerly demanded to know via the display, his duties as CEO sadly preventing him from visiting the scanner facility more than once a week in person.

Speaker and Shimmer smiled back in kind: “The resolution is a bit murky, but we’re looking at a pony surrounded by people who look a bit like from here…”

“So… Sunrise? Are they worshiping her?” Cash asked, but his friends shook their heads, for they could not tell.

The answer came a few days later when the next scanning pass got a better resolution, finding that it was not a temple… well… not directly – it was a kitchen.

The summoning had already been set up, and hundreds of magi chanted and channelled, working themselves to the point of exhaustion – all of them spurred on by Cash’s rousing speech to all them, that they would now be part of a truly legendary feat – a whole new and hitherto unknown form of magical summoning – plus they were being paid quite handsomely.

Neither Speaker, Shimmer nor Cash attended this event, leaving it to the local summon professionals.

It was a few hours later that the three were called to the vast summoning chamber. Stepping around hundreds of passed out mages, and quite a few more who were reeling from the intense magical exertion, the three found an unconscious golden-helmeted troll clad in a white chefs uniform that really didn’t seem to like being stretched around his massive limbs and body that tightly – but shimmer quickly did her thing, seeking out the pure and original essence of the being before her, and restoring it to its original form – a trick Sage had originally taught her to help restore wyld-corrupted ponies.

Cash found the magical transformation quite impressive – and Speaker quickly stepped in to evaluate the health of Sullen Hoof.

It took almost a full day before Sullen Hoof came to, but he quickly seemed to accept that he had been reunited with half of his circle. Introductions were made to the corporate staff who took care of them, and Sully was quick to pounce of the kitchen staff that kept them fed, ravenously devouring every type of cookbook that could be flung his way once Speaker’s language lesson had seeped in.

The similarities between many of Creation’s culinary styles weren’t hard to miss, but there were so many strange high-tech means of cooking and preparing food that Sully found himself delightfully busy with while Speaker and Shimmer searched for Sunrise and Fire Orchid.

Cash in turn made absolute bank, marketing Sullen Hoof’s culinary divinity to the corporate upper crust. Even the most hardened and soulless corporate executives found their hearts swelling and their mouths in pure delight from the miracles that Sully pulled off, spawning bidding wars over who got to attend his culinary creation happenings.

Sullen Hoof’s presence also helped in rooting out the mass of spies and other infiltrators that had wormed their way to get close to the ponies and to Cash – his counter-intelligence efforts quickly saw even the Dawkins group impressed, and Horizon corporate security were soon known as the muffin men for reasons not entirely unrelated.

Two months later, on a rainy day while Shimmer was helming the scanner – for exalted essence was needed to power its arcane mechanism – she found something, and unlike with Sullen Hoof there was no doubt nor need for a second scan.

Another summoning was set up, and using the experience from last time all the mages working on the summoning ritual were outfitted with head-mounted helmets featuring cooling systems to keep their brains from frying, along with intra-venous fluid systems to keep them safe. Quite a few executives and VPs had protested at this great expense for something as silly as employee wellbeing – any kind of corporate cog could be replaced – but Cash would have none of it.

A brief round of executive layoffs later – complete with golden parachutes and golden cement shoes, and the summoning continued apace.

To the circle’s surprise, then Sunrise appeared as a pony – no need for turning anyone into anything.

“Took you long enough – I was stuck in that desert for years” Sunrise simply said as she got up, instantly starting to take off her strange-looking black rubber body-suit.

The circle celebrated once more, Sullen Hoof revealing his latest creation of Neo-Indonesian euro-fusion cooking, which looked a bit like a very tender game-foul strained through an overweight kitten, and then dipped in goat milk. It did taste a lot better than it looked, Sully commenting: “The local so called ‘master chefs’ seem to enjoy making their food not really look like food… wouldn’t let me out of the kitchen with it without making it look like this – gods I miss my tea-kit sometimes”

“Now now, killing people for great justice can wait for another day – with my power I’ve made sure they’ll be financially ruined and career-wise untouchable for quite a while. They’ll be selling soy-fries at Stuffer Shacks for the next ten years. But enough of that, Sunrise – we’re all dying to know where you’ve been and what you’ve been passing the time with” Cash said, looking at Sunrise with eager anticipation.

Aside from Speaker’s quick medical examination of her, Sunrise Glow had been quite tight-lipped about her experience, where-ever it had been. It was for this reason that Cash had organized their celebration at a very private corporate executive retreat high atop a tower of glass and stell within Seattle, on the rooftop of such a vast structure, which was so large that an entire forest had been planted (or transplanted) there. The retreat was built as a cabin in the woods within that forest. It was the grandest of luxury and privacy, in a city where privacy didn’t really exist and coffin-hotels was where many people slept.

Sunrise, having shed her strange rubbery garb earlier that day, after having accepted the circle’s toast to her return, finally began telling her strange tale: “I arrived in a strange world of sand and no water – and I was hailed as a saviour no less, for once they found that the merciless heat of the deep desert held no sway over me, and my survival charms allowed me to forage for food in even the most impossible of barren wastes… oh how they loved me”

“Doesn’t sound like you had that bad an experience” Sullen Hoof noted, having already regaled of his own experiences as a master chef in the strange reality he had been stuck in, having catered to and influenced the most powerful heads of state via his cooking, driving tyrants to madness via withheld recipes to addictive dishes, and given strength to stressed out leaders who needed aid to overcome cruel pressures and the temptations of corruption.

Speaker recognized the painful expression Sunrise made at Sully – and so did the culinarian – but he understood why Sully had jumped to that conclusion as she explained: “Oh it started out well. I taught the people I ended up leading how to survive – I was their prophet, a stranger from beyond the stars. The problems started after I was initiated through some kind of strange religious ceremony, to become a true spiritual leader in accordance with their ways. It turned out to be some kind of poison – a really nasty one. It assaulted my mind, so I had to use some of my most powerful mental shielding charms, alone with my transcendent hero meditation… but after that, my mind was truly restored: I remembered us, and that I knew that I was not in my true form”

Everyone looked at Sunrise with great curiosity – because she had arrived in the reality they were in, in the form of her pony self… so how had she accomplished that?

“There were a people I was put into contact with, melders and engineers of flesh – their skills not unlike that of Neomah demons we know at home. The desert people I led did not like them, but were surprisingly open to the idea that as an untouchable prophet – one that even their water of life poison could not do anything to – then my true form had to be different from them” Sunrise explained, elaborating that sadly these flesh-worker people were unable to help her. They could only clone and replicate her, but had no means to change a person already alive… and it was difficult enough to stop them from selling off clones of her, though such ghola thankfully had no exalted powers and thus were found to be quite useless by the fools who had sought to buy such a magician slave.

The rest of the circle listened on with rapt attention, while enjoying sweet red wines from places that Sully hadn’t quite had enough time to vet yet – but the drink was luxurious, so the “vino santo” was enjoyed regardless.

With an essence-laden gesture, Sunrise manifested a pale golden illusion of herself as she had appeared in that other world to begin with: She had looked a fair bit like the beings native to this reality, and the one that Shimmer and Speaker had ended up in – so, a human. Sunrise commented that she recalled fair folk from the first age also appearing like that every now and then, but she quickly got back to her story: “It was at this point I despaired. I poured over the copy of the book of three rings I had stored elsewhere, but to my surprise then sorcery to change oneself was not recorded in it. It was then that I met a most hideous creature, a being supposedly originally like myself – but mutated through generations of use of an addictive substance that gave one the ability to tell the future… it was curious about me, for it could not detect me with its foresight, though it could track the influence I had on the people around me. To this end I conspired with the people I led to amass a quite worryingly large volume of that drug, the raw substance of which the desert people I led gathered and traded in, as a way of life. This amount of mutagenic drugs, combined with the aforementioned mind-altering waters of life, were to be my way of changing myself via foresight-guided mutation”

Shimmer had to admit that, for the lack of any better tools, then that didn’t sound like a bad idea.

“Oh, it had its price. There were others on that desert planet, cruel colonizers and taskmasters that sought to harvest and mass produce the drug as a source of wealth and power – they sought me out with both assassins and their armies, making an enemy of me in very short order. They quickly learned just how destructive my ability to silence the area around me was for the purpose of sneaking troops around… for the deserts of that world contained great blind monsters that would consume anything smaller than themselves – and these things could eat stacked yeddim – and were attracted to sound vibrations in the sand… but I was invisible to them when I used my silencing technique” Sunrise regaled, her illusions changing to show her leading strike teams to engage enormous mechanical harvesting machines, to both challenge the off-planet invaders, but also to steal what they had harvested for her own use.

Cash found himself chuckling: “Oh that’s rich – so in making an enemy of you, this foe ended up supplying you with the materials needed to turn yourself back into a pony?”

“Basically. Engaging them up close was strange: Their regulars mainly fought with blades, while their officers and leaders used strange devices that worked to slow anything fast coming at them, such as arrows or discharges from firearms… but you could speak through them without any problems… making their shields worthless against my shouts” Sunrise noted with a quite sly look on her face, replicating the pleasant surprise she had found herself in as she had found herself able to use her sound based martial arts to obliterate such foes with each.

With a flourish of essence, Sunrise showed the shocked and dismayed faces of bloated and overweight lords as their champions were crushed by sound: “In that place, such skills were called weirding ways – and sadly nobody else were able to really do it… but once this foe had been sufficiently crushed to the point that it was no longer a threat I retreated to the deep deserts in the southern hemisphere. There I engaged in a long ritual of my own design that took well over a year of fasting, meditation and imbibing enough drugs to make even Burning Feather embarrassed, along with more doses of that dreadful-tasting water of life than anyone had ever survived… which was more than one. I think I had at least four doses of the stuff, been having nightmares of how bad it tastes ever since”

“I can fix that” Speaker perked up.

Nodding to acknowledge Speaker, Sunrise continued: “I know – and it would be lovely if you could aid me there later on – but… that was about it. The mutagenic drugs and, as it turned out, the equally mutagenic waters of life, ultimately worked. I don’t think anyone of the desert people I led had ever seen a pony, for they had no idea what to call me once I was done. You brought me here not long after that”

The circle toasted to Sunrise’s return, and she soon joined the circle’s efforts to scry for Fire Orchid. This effort took a while, but ultimately, they found her… or rather… she found them – as one day gaps in reality opened up next to each of them, swallowing each of them up, despite each of them being in separate locations doing their own thing, and Cash still being in the form of a human.

Chapter 50 Corpse God Risen

The five-dragon stylist besets his soup with all five elements, making for tasty soup

…

The circle found itself all together, cushioned and floating in a golden glow. Shimmer quickly turned herself into a cat, allowing her to effortlessly flip herself around. This let her see the rest of the circle. When in that position, she turned back into her normal pony self and called out to the others: “Is everyone all-right?”

It took a few moments before everyone had gotten their bearings and were able to reply. Nobody seemed to know what had happened, but Sunrise was the first to examine the essence they were all cushioned in… and she quickly recognized what it was: “It’s Fire Orchid’s essence!”

Everyone cheered for this – but… Cash was very quick to pick up on Sunrise’s sad note in her statement: “What’s wrong?”

“Her essence is… hurting… failing. I think she’s dying, or the act of bringing us to her is killing her!” Sunrise cried out, sounding genuinely terrified.

Speaker quickly examined the essence around them, and indeed it had numerous micro-ebbs and flows within it that kept winking out, as if every second something was burning out in trying to produce or marshal the essence. It was a grim realization, but Speaker had seen the essence of others dying – including that of Fire Orchid’s previous exaltation – that he knew this wasn’t quite right… but he didn’t get time to tell the others, before they were all deposited back into reality… but it was not the reality they had been snatched from.

The air was thick with incense, the point of being choking, along with heady whiffs of strong perfume, mineral oil and the ozone-funk of electrified air. His elemental immunity charm kicked in instantly, letting Speaker breathe and orient himself – but still, the place he found himself in was strange beyond words. It was not the clean-cut and efficient corporate aesthetics of the Horizon facility he had been in: It was a mile-wide hall of some kind, that reverberated with a deep yet oddly melodic thrumming of industrial machinery and chanting in the distance.

The rest of the circle was there too – Cash, Sully and Shimmer all choking on the air, while Sunrise was able to withstand as he could, using the same charms. That was when Speaker became aware of the movement around them: Gun barrels, thousands of them, pointed at the circle.

These weapons were from golden armored giants, each wielding what was clearly some kind of gun – but each such firearm was easily the size of a pony!

“Enough! Bring them before me – we do not have much time!” sounded a deep and booming… thought? It wasn’t a voice – it was a telepathic broadcast, and not a targeted one; Everyone had heard it, including the golden giants with the huge guns, as they too seem to twitch and reel from the intensity of the broadcast which had struck like a mental hammer.

The golden ones approached the circle with purposeful and strong strides, their armored steel boots sounding quite heavy to the metal floor. Their helmets featured uncaring red lenses over the eyes, and grim expressions on the face-filters, lending them the appearance of gilded skulls.

Considering that three of his peers weren’t really in a condition to fight, Speaker chose discretion as the better part of valor, quickly helping his friends on their hooves so they could all follow along – without having to be grabbed or shoved too much.

Walking for the better part of half an hour, the great hall seemingly with no end, the circle finally made it to a spot before a truly mindbogglingly grand ziggurat of strange machinery, atop which sat the sorry remains of a familiar face. It was Fire Orchid, in her bright scarlet power armor with its orichalcum trim… but it was quite heavily damaged, and so was she.

The voice in their mind spoke again – and now it was clear that it was Fire Orchid, though it didn’t quite match her normal voice: “You’re here… finally – I so worried I would never get to see a friendly face again. Quickly, I don’t have much time…”

In between coughs, Cash’s charms of perfect social understanding let him interpret what Fire Orchid had actually meant to say, letting him cry out to Speaker: “She is dying – see if you can heal her!”

Speaker quickly moved to ascend up the steps of the golden ziggurat, but the equally golden giant warriors in almost comically thick armor plating were quick to stand him and block his passage. Speaker did not take this well: “I have been asked to see a patient – step aside!”

The golden warriors stood silent and unyielding – at least right up until a psychic emission from atop the ziggurat saw all of them brought to their knees. Not wanting to question this aid, Speaker raced up the steps with bounding leaps, his charms lending him supernatural height and stability to each jump.

At the top of the ziggurat, on a grand throne, sat a heavily wounded… no… that word didn’t really fit. She didn’t really detect as being alive anymore to Speaker’s medical charms. It was a pony corpse with the soul of Fire Orchid bound to it, the link between body and soul maintained via strange magi-technical conduits which seemed to feed her a constant stream of essence… and all of it howled with the screams of the dead. This was what Speaker had detected as constantly burning out to maintain her.

Whatever had kept the golden giants kneeling finally relented, and so they quickly raced to intercept Speaker – but by then he had begun to attempt to heal Fire Orchid… maybe. With her soul and exaltation still there, he figured that if he could mend her body enough, the soul could latch on again… maybe? It had worked, sort of, like that for Lee of the Third Breath, right?

Focusing his healing charms on Fire Orchid’s head and vital organs, Speaker had his essence weave new flesh into being, reviving the withered remnants on the corpse and growing new tissue from desiccated old scraps. To his surprise this went very quickly, as the constant flood of essence going to her appeared to accelerate the process greatly.

Just as the golden giants reached Speaker and attempted to yank him away, did Fire Orchid gasp loudly and draw breath! This somehow sent out another pulse of essence through the entire mile-long hall… and a sudden hush came over the entire assembly of millions. The only sound was the deep thrumming machinery that kept pumping essence into Fire Orchid – but everything else, including the distant chanting, became silent.

After a few minutes of confusion which Speaker capitalized on to restore more of Fire Orchid’s body, the legions of golden giants and other attendants erupted into absolute insane jubilation.

Speaker didn’t care much for the festivities – he wanted Shimmer to come up and help with her flesh-melding charms, to aid in sticking Fire Orchid’s bits back together right – but the golden giants near him seemed far more interested in wresting his patient away from him. Considering that their fists were the size of his head, this was a fairly one-sided struggle – especially since Speaker didn’t want to start a real fight, but once Fire Orchid was done heaving, and appeared to have reconciled the agony of only having her brain, the breathing parts of her head, her lungs and just barely enough musculature to facilitate breathing she called out: “Let my circle attend me! They are my peers and should be treated with equal reverence! So decrees your empress!”

Ok, so Fire Orchid was the new scarlet empress of this place? Hilarious.

The rest of the circle was quickly ushered up to Speaker and Fire Orchid. Half an hour’s worth of treatment later, and Fire Orchid had enough of her chest, torso and head restored that she didn’t need external help staying alive, allowing for most of the quite invasive life-support devices to be disconnected and removed.

Sure, she didn’t have any functional limbs yet – they were growing in a bit slower, since she had ordered herself disconnected from her gilded essence-infusion system at her part-seat part open-air tomb. This disconnection process took several weeks though, during which the rest of the circle was kept separate from Fire Orchid – though due to her decree they were able to visit her regularly, during which they were told the grim story of what had happened to her when she had arrived there:

“I appeared here during a terrible battle – brother slew brother, and this world was in flames. I was within a grand vessel sailing the stars, though one crewed by poor souls fighting a losing battle and slowly being devoured and corrupted by demons – so I fought my way to the bridge, only to find a showdown between a father and his son. It was the son, I think his name was Dark Horse, who had just struck down his father, the space king, and was gloating at how he would now lay waste to this world. I intervened before a deathblow could be dealt, destroying Dark Horse, but the father was beyond salvation. For my bravery he gave me his coat of stars and somehow gifted to me his powers, for as he died he faded into nothing… and when relief finally came they all seemed to recognize me as his chosen heir” Sunrise regaled, barely pausing to breathe, all the while a swarm of heavily cyber-augmented technicians fiddled about her, diving in and out of the machinery connecting to her as they slowly worked to safely disconnect her.

Within the cathedral-palace that Fire Orchid had been enthroned/entombed in, the circle pondered the nature of this recognition – but also just how Fire Orchid had ended up in such a state as when they had found her. Sullen Hoof inquired with much worry: “Please don’t tell us that getting us here was what brought you to the brink of death?”

“Oh, heavens no… no, it was Dark Horse. See, it seemed that he had engaged in some kind of genesis artifice, making copies of himself in case his confrontation with his father didn’t go well. I’m not even sure if the one I slew was the original. The remaining ones weren’t slow to make their intentions clear; They would rearm and set up new dark crusades to destroy me now, sensing their father’s powers in me now… and on several occasions they almost got me. Every fight was costly beyond measure, both in the lives of the troops defending me, but also in how the dark herd managed to chip away at my body and soul… and thus I ended up bound to this horror for who know’s how long, drifting in and out of sleep, not able to move, see or speak… wasting away slowly, without ever being able to see the open sky again” Fire Orchid regaled, her voice pained and her eyes in tears as she remembered each sorrowful battle, on worlds drenched in blood, along with countless millennia sitting upon her golden throne.

Speaker found all this quite impressive, though also equally horrifying: “Was that why they were… are… infusing you with essence? To keep you alive?”

“Speaker, you saw how I looked – you used your charms. By all rights I should have been dead, but they managed to connect me to these things and bind my souls to my body, both my hun and my po souls… but it wasn’t just for that: I didn’t have their former kings’s full power anymore at that point, due to my wounds, and they needed that for their interstellar ships to navigate by. I don’t understand how it works, but the sorcerers that manage their long-distance navigation basically use me as beacon – but now that I am recovering, it shouldn’t be necessary to have me connected… plusnow I can finally get to see the sky again” Fire Orchid said, her tears flowing freely from her elation.

The idea of being guided from afar by the light of a Solar wasn’t all that strange-sounding to the rest of the circle, so to Sunrise the whole setup with the very temple-looking palace they were in made a lot more sense now: “…and here I thought the people I led worshiping me as a prophet were bad enough – these people worship you like their guiding light, their god basically”

“With the power I was granted I basically am – I have led untold legions across the stars, uniting this people in a glorious golden age of prosperity… until Dark Horse finally struck me enough to bind me here” Fire Orchid said, her voice and her gaze faltering mid-sentence, as if some terrible realization had come upon her.

The circle was understandably worried, but Sunrise seemed to see the issue first: “How long were you ‘asleep’ here? How long did your people go without your direct guidance?”

Cash felt his brows collide into a most worried expression: “Oh lovely – so now we’ll have to contend with your priesthood getting upset that their living goddess doesn’t live up to her own hype?”

“More like me disagreeing with how they have interpreted my will – but yes, this will become an issue… but not one for you. I will deal with the needed reformation of my cult turned state religion later” Fire Orchid stated, her voice tired, but sounding resolute that this was both something she could do and do properly.

The circle retired again for the day, the cyber-technicians continuing their work tirelessly as they seemed more metal than flesh from underneath their bright red cloaks with black and while checkered trim.

In the private chamber set up to house the circle, Sunrise voiced her worries: “I do not possess the same charms you do Cash – what isn’t she telling us”

Cash Charmer looked at Sullen Hoof, to wordlessly communicate his own theories, before he turned to Sunrise: “It’s like she said, she led the people she was given charge over, but then had to sit and watch for… who knows how long… as they had to fend for themselves – and I got the impression that she really doesn’t like the path they took”

Sullen Hoof walked along the intricately decorated wall, inspecting the features and dizzyingly detailed artwork – before thrusting a hoof through an illuminated piece of stained glass and pulling out… a jaw-less skull with what looked like wiring and cables having replaced its spine: “Maybe we can ask this thing”

The skull had a lone cybernetic eye and some kind of electronic device where an ear might once have been – but beyond that, it only had the bone of the skull as a visible organic element. Sully handed the ghoulish thing to Speaker, who – to his great horror – reported that with his medical charms he detected a living brain inside the thing, nearly dropping it from chock.

With utmost care, and the precision of a heavenly artificer and healer, Speaker removed the cyber-components from the thing and began to heal and regenerate the poor soul – giving it the same treatment that Fire Orchid had received, though she hadn’t been in nearly as bad a state. It took time for the body of the woman to reform, but Fire Orchid needed more time to disconnect properly from her essence infusion throne, so it all worked out… sort of, for Speaker also found that several sections of the brain within the skull had been surgically removed, altered with electronics or tampered with, so there was no telling how much person was actually left within, even with everything regrown.

When the restored woman had been healed enough that she could breathe on her own, Speaker brought her out of the medically induced dreamless coma he had been keeping her in. She instantly screamed something that Cash’s linguistics charms translated as a desperate plea to end her life, her eyes wide in absolute horror. Instantly putting her to sleep, Speaker looked at the rest of the circle: “Ok… that wasn’t entirely unexpected, right?”

“I’ve been there – I’d say it’s a fair response. Try to bring her back slowly, and then let me work on her” Cash said, giving Shimmer a knowing nod that confused the Lunar a bit, for she did not remember when Cash had once been almost killed during a wyld hunt, only to be saved by her despite his pleas to let him die.

A few hours later Cash had applied enough mind control charms on the woman that she was comfortable with staying alive for the time being. In this new state of being, she told of how she had ended up as some kind of still-living spy gadget built into the wall, Cash translating for her: “She says that she was once a lesser servant to the empress’s court here in the palace – an impossibly great honor, to serve those who waited upon and anointed the goddess. However, one day she did something wrong – won’t say what exactly – but this was her punishment… apparently a very common punishment: To be peeled, scraped, lobotomized and augmented, turned into a servitor”

Using his charm of disassembly on some of the gold-embroidered silken sheets and upholsteries in their quarters, Speaker acquired the materials needed to fashion new clothing to the woman – though she was still absolutely terrified to leave the quarters, dreading that she might be caught and punished again. The circle promised her that no such thing would happen – and took steps to ensure it.

At their next meeting with Fire Orchid the circle was told that she had been disconnected enough from the throne infusion apparatus that could move around on her own – her limbs had similarly regrown sufficiently to allow her to walk, albeit slowly. This suited her just fine, though Cash was very quick to request that Fire Orchid came to their quarters first, instead of wherever Fire Orchid wanted to go.

“But I… no that’s ok – it will be good with a test walk before heading outside” Fire Orchid conceded, walking with the circle to their quarters, though the trail of cables still socketed into the long row of implants going from her head down her spine still made going anywhere quite slow. It also didn’t help all that much that two dozen of the great golden-armored warriors followed her everywhere, along with a throng of those cyber-technicians who, quite frankly, really did appear more machine than flesh whenever their black and white-checker bordered red cloaks would catch on anything.

This made for quite an entourage – it also made it hilariously difficult to get some privacy with Fire Orchid, but that was mostly resolved as she was able to order her golden custodians to keep all the others out.

It was thus that Fire Orchid finally managed to speak somewhat privately with the circle – and they inquired about these servitors. Her response was one of resigned sorrow: “That’s just one aspect of how messed up my people have become. During my absence the machine intelligences that once operated many things here rebelled, and after that my people became deathly afraid of such things – replacing machine minds with mortal minds stripped of flesh. It will take me centuries, if not millennia, to fix all this and broker peace again with all the other star-faring races that my people managed to alienate and wage war upon…”

Sullen Hoof nodded to Fire Orchid: “I guess they thought they could do anything as long as they had a living goddess’ light guiding them?”

“And a fanatical clergy egging them on – I can already imagine the uprisings and insurrections that’ll come the moment I demand my legions stop their attacks on peaceful aliens and pursue diplomatic relations” Fire Orchid groaned, slumping into a couch clearly built for a much greater being than herself, the locals being much taller than a pony.

The ex-servitor woman burst from her hiding spot, seemingly unable to contain herself. She threw herself on the floor before Fire Orchid, prostrating herself quite fiercely: “My goddess – you must not speak such heresy!”

Fire Orchid rolled her eyes: “See what I have to work with?”

“Forgive me my goddess! Cast me to the flames, make a servitor again if you must, but you cannot say such things!” the woman cried out.

As Cash translated, the rest of the circle got the vibe of just how deep the xenophobic religion built up around the worship of Fire Orchid had become. Fire Orchid explained that Dark Horse’s use of alien mercenaries and his alliances with other alien forces during his crusades had given her clergy all the excuse they needed to preach a dogma that anything that wasn’t them, was bad – even anyone simply not submitting to their faith, or looking funny: “It’s all purge the heretic, the mutant and the xenos with these people now adays – back when I led the legions it was actually possibly to broker friendly relations and trade with some of them”

“As much fun as it would be help with brokering peace here – then we are also needed back home…” Cash noted, elegantly trying to change the subject away from Fire Orchid’s horrible description of the society she now ruled again, mainly because he actually seemed to understand how vast a task doing that would be.

Sunrise bid the woman rise and face Fire Orchid: “Orchid, Cash is right – you know we can’t say here forever – we have a duty to Creation first, a mandate from heaven”

“I know… that’s why I’m not coming back, but I can send you home” Fire Orchid said after drawing a deep breath.

The woman looked around confused as the circle glared at Fire Orchid, her looking mainly at the still human-form Cash for an explanation: “What did the goddess say? Are you all now also shocked at the things she says?”

Walking over to the woman, Cash nodded politely to her: “We are shocked, but not for the reason you say – now how about you sit over here, then we’ll have her figure out what to do with you. You won’t get punished or anything, that much I can promise you”

Quickly returning to the circle, Cash joined in the rather spirited discussion as Fire Orchid firmly held on to her position. Having been vested with the powers of space king, she was needed to lead these people – and to reign them in: “Without me the astronomicon will go dark, and interstellar travel will become impossible – each world will be left isolated, and they will fall to their enemies if left alone like that”

“Pish tosh – we can find way to pass what you got to someone else” Sunrise insisted.

Speaker shook his head: “Maybe – but I’m not sure that’ll help. Fire Orchid, exactly how long were you stuck in that machine?”

“Too long… millennia – hey, girl, what millennium is this?” Fire Orchid called over to the woman waiting patiently.

The woman was quite startled at her goddess speaking to her, but politely replied that it was the forty-thousandth millennium. Fire Orchid’s eyes went wide as she relayed this to the circle, with the added context that she had appeared in the thirtieth millennium.

“Well, that settles that – I guess aging works differently in this reality, or maybe it’s the essence infusions, or what that space king gave you – but if you are that old now, then you will likely turn to dust the moment you return to Creation” Speaker said, quite sad at having to leave Fire Orchid behind like this.

Sunrise refused to accept this: “No – Speaker you regrew her body! She even looks young again! We can’t just leave her here! Creation needs all of its Solars!”

Fire Orchid got up from the couch and embraced Sunrise: “I know, I’m sorry – I wish it could be different – but I do not intend to leave Creation short an exaltation either”

It tuned out that Fire Orchid, in her millennia of solitude, when she had been awake, had not only constructed a plan – but closely examined the power she had been given by the space king. It was what had let her pierce the immaterium and bring the circle to her, though she had waited until the rest of the circle had gathered on its own – and she had even found a means to send the circle back home, but before that she would need three things done: “First, we will need to somehow turn Cash back into a pony…”

“Oh, I can do that easily” Shimmer said, remarking on the sorcerous shapeshifting solution she had come up with back the first reality she had ended up in.

This was performed, Cash relieved to be back to his four-hooved self again. “I so missed being able to wear my proper shoes” he said, waving around one of the claws extended by it.

The months it took Fire Orchid to organize everything in preparation of the circle’s return, were not wasted by the rest of the circle. Sully worked with legion procurement officers to device a new highly nutritious combat ration for the imperial guard, one that could be easily sourced across many worlds, while Speaker worked with hundreds of various maimed but venerable war veterans who had previously resigned themselves to that of pilgrims to the holy throne. Sunrise and Cash aided Fire Orchid in a series of empire-wide reforms, planting the seed of justice and wisdom in a civilization that had greatly declined since Fire Orchid had been connected to that accursed throne, following her last battle with the one she called Dark Horse.

These reforms didn’t go down quietly – the theocracy that had spawned around Fire Orchid’s cult of personality reacted very poorly to their now living goddess telling them that they weren’t doing things right. Uprisings across thousands of worlds had to be put down, but with Fire Orchid back at full power then travel across the stars had become safer, faster and far more reliable – the powers of the space king flowing through her properly once more.

Indeed, Speaker spent a lot of time examining Fire Orchid with his essence sight. So did Sunrise and Shimmer – and they all agreed that what Fire Orchid had been gifted was not unlike another exaltation… one that seemed to fight the solar exaltation for its place within Fire Orchid’s soul. It was because of this that the circle understood why Fire Orchid was willing to give up her solar exaltation, even though it was a had pill to swallow.

“What will we tell your mother?” Shimmer wondered, thinking that explaining to the leader of Lookshy that her daughter – once lost, now found again, is lost once more would be quite upsetting.

Fire Orchid sighed, looking across the circle at the dinner table they all sat at: “Sunhill showed me more love, understanding and appreciation than my birth-family ever gave me. She, all of gens Karal, had their chance – but since the dragons didn’t exalt me, then I was discarded like so many other veterans, even if kin. Here countless billions look up to me for guidance, for there are cruel things out among the stars… here I’m needed, and it is not a burden I would want to pass on to anyone else”

Cash and Sunrise had also tried, but none could talk Fire Orchid out of staying. Speaker found it deeply ironic: “Even when you do find somewhere you belong, you still have to leave again… to metaphorically die to the world that knew you”

“The would-be king and her army of should-have-beens, as you told me the old saying from the first age about me went. Maybe its fate?” Fire Orchid wondered, gazing longingly out the window showing the horizon-spanning sprawl of temples, office buildings and residential structures that ostensibly took up the entire surface of the planet they were on. It was raining.

Of all the things Fire Orchid had missed the most, in her many thousands of years of effective entombment on her throne, it was seeing the sky and the sun again – it brought tears to her eyes.

When the day came for the circle to be sent home, Fire Orchid dazzled the circle with many gifts before they left. Holding court, as a true empress, in a beautiful and cavernous mile-wide hall adorned with finery from supposedly every world in her empire – to the point that the banners hanging along the walls were layered thickly – Fire Orchid called up one circle member at a time: “To Last Shimmer, the old friend I know the least, yet share the most with: I grant to you this bracer of wraith bone, of alien make. I understand that it can flow and change shape, though how I do not know. The aliens I got it from use it for both their weapons and their armor, so its strength is quite impressive – I hope you can make use of it”

Several clerics in attendance had to stop themselves in order to not cry out in protest, for their empress and goddess was handling heretical xenos artifacts. Shimmer graciously accepted the bracer, which indeed seemed to slip on to her right forehoof and resized itself. It had a pale white color, with a bright smooth ovoid blue gem set in it.

“To Sullen Hoof, I have had my best archivists compile the largest compendiums of cooking recipes in the empire. It took far too many scribes far too long to commit it all to writing, but I fear that a data-slate might not work back in Creation” Fire Orchid said, passing a tome a little bigger than Sullen Hoof which was set on a gilded trolley, to Sullen Hoof, who strained himself and his essence to haul it off. Shimmer helped him by folding it into elsewhere.

With a gesture towards Cash, Fire Orchid summoned the master diplomat and statespony to stand before her: “Cash Charmer, what can an empress offer a stallion who has everything? Money? Land? Titles? I do not know what I can give you, so I would have you choose your own boon”

Murmurs throughout the court rang out, as a blank check – a boon granted without limit – was quite unheard of, even before Fire Orchid’s fall. Cash quickly considered his options, bowing gracefully: “Thank you your highness. Considering your boundless power and reach, yet how little of that would be of any true value when we return home, then I understand your hesitance. I would ask of a single vial of your blood, drawn from your heart”

An uproar thundered through the court, thousands of courtiers unable to reign themselves in – a xenos, this strange horse being, asking for the blood of their empress? This could not stand! Never mind that they didn’t seem to recognize that Fire Orchid too was in the form of a pony.

Fire Orchid smirked, and with an imperious gesture had her great golden-armored guards hold back the court, many a rabid courtier being struck down. She then called for servants to bring a suitable vial, and bid Speaker approach to oversee the blood drawing.

Speaker abided, and while he filled the vial – seeing that Fire Orchid’s blood now glowed with a golden aura – Fire Orchid offered the solar healer and artificer his gift: “Thank you. Bright Machine Speaker, my gift to you is a puzzle. I am told that this is called archeotech, for it is technology from a bygone age that is little understood anymore – from the dark age of technology. I hope that in time you will unlock its secrets and find use of it”

A servant brought forth a sturdy lockbox big enough to contain a large watermelon. Its content didn’t rattle, but it was quite heavy. Speaker accepted the gift graciously, passing the sealed vial of blood to Cash. He wasn’t quite sure what Cash had in mind with it, but he trusted his friend not to do anything too stupid… though it being heartsblood made Speaker suspect that Cash had something lunar in mind, for it was such heartsblood that they used to learn the shapes of others.

Finally Fire Orchid bid Sunrise Glow approach, gifting her a large painting featuring the whole circle: “Your greatest strength has always been keeping us together, so I would give you this to remember us by – and to show my next incarnation how close we were”

Sunrise struggled mightily to keep back her tears, but failed beautifully as she put the painting away elsewhere.

With the gifts given, Sunrise had the circle gather up. Engineseers and techno-clerics of the martian priesthood arrived to set up special devices around the circle, as Fire Orchid martialled her powers. The circle observed carefully and curiously, using essence sight for those who could, to see the Fire Orchid using her new strange powers.

At first the material world around them weakened, and one ring of the containment machines around the circle came on. Speaker heard the term ‘Gellar field’ mentioned repeatedly by the cyber-enhanced technicians. Moments later strange creatures began appearing around them, Sunrise identifying them as what passed for demons among the locals – and indeed, they weren’t exactly friendly – but the instant they detected the presence of Fire Orchid they quickly fled, leaving but a rent gash in reality which Fire Orchid slowly manipulated and opened wider. As the hole in reality engulfed the circle, the last ring of machines came on and the grand gilded and banner-laden court of the empress faded from view.

The transit back to creation was a lot more comfortable than when they had been brought to Fire Orchid, the circle even able to converse calmly during the whole trip. Sunrise noted that she could tell that Fire Orchid’s essence was strong and vibrant this time around. Cash nodded: “Oh and Shimmer, that heartsblood I got – would you be able to use this to assume Fire Orchid’s form with this?”

“Sure, at least temporarily – it won’t grant me her form permanently”

This seemed to please Cash, as he explained that it was as a means to give Karal Linseed, Fire Orchid’s mother, a proper farewell. He even had a written message from Fire Orchid to her mother, which should work as a script for Shimmer while in Fire Orchid’s form.

“That’s very thoughtful of you Cash” Speaker complimented.

Cash said that it was the least he could do: “My own father died while I was out with a merchant caravan… and Fire Orchid isn’t dead, just…. living somewhere else – but her mother still deserves a proper sendoff”

Sully agreed, adding that this should ensure that the relations between Looksy and Sunhill wouldn’t be strained much if at all by this.

Moments later, or perhaps days later – it was hard to tell – the circle reappeared within a dark cave… and Shimmer instantly shrieked in terror.

Chapter 52 Treasonous Alliances

The Ill Lily Stylist poisons your soup by punching it. You will die in three days.

…

Leaving Sand, the circle journeyed towards Cripple Creek, taking great care to not go too fast or get too shiny: With at least four different legions from four different houses fortified around the place, then sneaking up on Cripple Creek from the air would be next to impossible.

With a map from Sand, the circle navigated their way through the summer mountain foothills on the eastern side – staying well out of view of any legion lookouts on the western side. Waiting for the dead of night, Cash landed the yeddim and instead sped along the ground with it towards a location marked on Sand’s map: A jackal camp not that far from Cripple Creek, one meant to be a collection point for runaway slaves and crippled miners exiled from the placed.

At this camp the circle learned that it wasn’t just Sand’s forces who had been making merry time raiding the caravans going in and out of Cripple creek. While Speaker healed the jackals from the ailments that had seen them exiled from their tribes to begin with, the rest of the circle were informed of how both cannibal underground-dwelling sand ponies had been raiding slave caravans going to the mining operations, and strange pony-sized and clothing-wearing insect people had been doing hit and run attacks on caravans and lumber operations on the east side of the mountains. It certainly seemed that the four – no, scratch that, five – imperial legions at the place had their work cut out…

…never mind that they all seemed to be jockeying quite aggressively for exclusive rights to escort the jade caravans leaving the place – for the one who controlled where the wealth went, was the one who got to choose who’s pockets it went into.

The jackals readily admitted that while tempting, then those jade caravans were always heavily guarded – and always with troops from at least three different legions, because none of them trusted each other enough to let the other do solo-escorts – hell, it was a miracle that the legions weren’t simply attacking and killing each other to gain exclusive control of the place.

The circle thanked the jackals for the information, who in turn thanked the circle greatly for the healing they had received – several of the new arrivals at the camp, previously maimed or crippled mining workers, admitting that they were very much so considering returning to Cripple Creek to keep working there… for every tiny nugget of jade that they could filch, would be a massive payday if they could smuggle it out.

Considering the powder keg nature of the place, Sullen Hoof suggested they perhaps contact Nazri the zebra sidereal, to ask for information? Cash asked if that was really necessary, pointing out that the south was supposed to be neutral ground for sidereals… well, it’s supposed to be.

“The wealth coming from here could easily determine who becomes the next emperor or empress – I will eat my cloak if there aren’t sidereals here guiding the threads of fate” Sunrise stated confidently.

A magical message was sent – a response arrived within the hour from Nazri’s secretary: He was busy dealing with Gem.

“Oh right… Gem, and the demons – shit, that’s a thing too” Cash mused, looking at Speaker who didn’t look all that surprised.

Sullen Hoof and Cash left for Cripple Creek, leaving Sunrise and Speaker with the yeddim at the jackal camp. With their stealth and disguise charms it would be a lot easier for the two of them to sneak in – or to pass as prospectors.

Hours passed and the early morning sun rose, though the summer mountains shielded much of Cripple Creek from the touch of the daystar – this also allowed Speaker to spot the golden anima flare… oh boy – that meant that Cash was in trouble and needed help!

A very crude ‘horn’ of mud and stone was stuck to Sunrise’s forehead and a cloud was conjured – nobody should question a unicorn flying in… and thus Speaker and Sunrise rushed off to the aid of their friends.

It wasn’t difficult to find Cash – it was just a question of following the trail of troops rushing towards the same place.

A very recently built structure – a tea house from the looks of it – stood surrounded by troops, but also appeared fortified by troops just the same, spears pointing out of every window and door opening.

Sunrise guided the cloud in to land on the roof, but someone counter-spelled the two – leaving Sunrise and Speaker to fall instead… it seemed that the unicorns of Cripple Creek weren’t shy of messing with each other to the point of letting you fall to your death, especially considering that counter spells couldn’t be traced.

Of course, neither Speaker nor Sunrise got hurt as they landed on the flat roof of the building – their shield charms taking the impact of the fall, and being out of sight, nobody saw the golden shells of essence around them.

Inside the thoroughly wrecked tea-house, Speaker and Sunrise first had to fight their way past some very clearly mind-controlled realm soldiers – not exactly difficult, though they did have to be careful not to use any magical martial arts that might alert the ponies outside that someone not quite a unicorn had arrived.

Finding Cash on the second floor of the building, Sunrise quickly asked: “You can’t even go for tea without making a scene, can you?”

“Oh, my friends – so good to see you. No, I was just walking towards the vermillion legion encampment down the road… then someone bloody recognized me!” Cash exclaimed; his frustration quite palpable.

Speaker wondered what a unicorn who had travelled enough in the east to know what Cash looked like, would be doing in Cripple Creek – but Cash shrugged: “Hello, it’s likely sidereal pretending to a unicorn? Sully is still hidden somewhere, but I have no idea how to get out here… or how to avoid detection once out”

“I think I can aid us all here – call over some of the soldiery you’ve commandeered” Sunrise said, having Cash instruct the mind-controlled soldiers to take off their uniforms.

Cash chuckled as he put on the uniforms, while Sunrise carefully wove essence into the occult knot-pattern the Hidden Self upon him. It took her about ten minutes, during which the troops outside trying to storm the place twice – but the mind-controlled troops held the place, plus Speaker patched those injured up in no time.

Once the spell was cast, a complicated illusion rendered Cash quite impossible to recognize, granting him not just a new face but also altering the color and look of his mane and tail.

Speaker then used his singing staff down in the basement to quickly dig them a tunnel away from the tea house, Cash leaving the troops with instructions to surrender after a while – ensuring that his grip on their minds would fade when they did that.

Emerging well beyond the tea house in an alley behind some very dubious looking bunkhouses, the trio was almost immediately found by Sullen Hoof – who true to form looked nothing like his true self, having used his own illusory disguise charms and his magical helmet to appear as a filthy and work-worn miner.

“How in the… how did you find us?” Speaker wondered, looking quite perplexed.

Sully put an ear to the ground: “This is a mining town. Nobody cares for the sound of digging in the underground here… but your music still stands out from all of that”

Satisfied with the explanation, Speaker accepted the outfits that Sully had stolen to help disguise himself and Sunrise so they weren’t all dressed as soldiers – though seeing Sunrise in immaculate sky-blue robes was rather amusing.

“I’m not shaving myself bald for this” Sunrise quite said as she adjusted the robes.

Sullen Hoof shrugged: “Shouldn’t be an issue, these are lowly initiate robes – they don’t have to shave – just keep your hood up, now let’s go”

Guided by their night caste circle mate, the four walked towards the vermillion legion encampment. Enroute Sully spotted the unicorn who had recognized Cash on a palanquin being carried out of town.

“Well, he looks like… any other realm unicorn ponce” Speaker noted, not finding the black-maned unicorn with his rich purple silks looking all that interesting.

Cash grumped: “I’m just curious how a realm scion recognized me – but who cares, we’re here”

The vermillion legion encampment was surrounded by a mix of crude stone and earth-works, mixed with sturdy palisades. Compared to the other fortifications for the other legions, it looked quite crude and… cheap – but it clearly worked as intended, because the only way in was the big main gate – and there circle had to cook up a really damn good excuse why a bunch of nobodies, and pony dressed as a soldier from another legion, should be let in.

Luckily, Cash was the unbridled master of bullshit, and thus twisted the ears of the gate guards to the points that their heads spun.

Inside the camp, finding Roseblack’s tent wasn’t difficult: The sound of her shouting was hard to miss.

“What do mean they had nothing left? The hell do those idiots expect me to feed my troops with?” Roseblack clearly shouted from inside her tent, a very sorry and apologetic quartermaster leaving moments later.

The murderous glare that the circle got upon entering Roseblack’s tent was a little funny, but it was clear that the realm general was having issues. Cash instantly shed his illusory disguise upon entering, tossing his soldier uniform just the same, to reveal his heavenly silks.

Speaker wondered where Cash had learned to strip off his clothes that quickly – but ok, it seemed to have worked as intended: Roseblack’s expression went from a “Who are you and why are you bothering me” to a “Holy shit I know you – how did you get here” look.

Sunrise stepped aside, casting a sorcerous spell that ensure that nobody outside the large tent could hear what was said inside. Roseblack appeared to recognize the spell, staying her tongue until the spell was cast.

“Well shave my dragons and slap me silly, I had not expected to see you again” Roseblack opened up with, once Sunrise gave the sign that it was safe to talk.

Cash smiled broadly, while Speaker and Sullen Hoof both simply appeared pleased with the greeting. Sunrise drew down her blue monk-robe hood and asked: “We wanted to know exactly what you’re planning and how what you’re asking of us and Lookshy fits into that”

Taking a step back and sitting down onto the stool next to her work table, which was a mess of scrolls, papers, maps and writing implements, Roseblack sighed deeply: “Well, I hadn’t planned on committing treason today – but here we are”

As the realm general explained things, then Lookshy’s reading of her message was fairly spot on: Port Calin was currently garrisoned by two of the house Sesus legions, and house Nelens was raising three legions via local levies: “And that’s the funny thing – Sesus and Nelens don’t really have any major official ties – but if they can muster five legions at port Calin, they can make a run for the imperial city of Canterlot – can’t have that – and putting the squeeze on imperial trade to Greyfalls would greatly diminish the influence house Nelens and Ragara has on the isle”

“Very well… and you’re serious about organizing an invasion of the river provinces after you get the throne?” Sullen Hoof inquired, his head shimmering briefly as his orichalcum helmet shed its illusion.

Roseblack didn’t look apologetic as she slowly nodded, but her expression was one that communicated how serious she knew that such an event was: “Armies have been raised across the empire – I have to find something to use them on, lest they become part of a rebellion led by other houses that won’t accept my ascent to the throne. Idle hooves are workshop of Malfeas”

“You’re willing to send who knows how many tens of thousands of realm subjects to their deaths for this?” Speaker said accusatorily, not quite sure if he liked what he was hearing.

Shaking her head, Roseblack shrugged in her green jade armor with its black jade floral inlays: “How many are dying every day over the battles fought on the isle right now? Every month news of more villages razed, more lands scorched… the blessed isle is turning into hell – and part of my idea with the forewarning to Lookshy and you lot is so you can crush those legions without having to kill anyone – just rumble the officers, take their arms and send them back home”

“Oh, I get it… give us time to ready targeted strikes against leadership, because it’s only the generals and their senior officers who are really a threat to you” Cash said, seeing the logic of Roseblack’s plan.

With a sigh of relief, Roseblack turned to her desk and the papers on it: “Exactly. I’m not asking you to muster forces for pitched battles – but if you know they’re coming, send Lookshyan rangers or… whatever passes for that in Sunhill and the rest of the river provinces, to decapitate or humiliate the legions coming to you. Send them packing in disgrace, so their leaders lose any political support they had on the isle. I get my peasants back; my foes lose their champions… real question is what can I offer you in exchange?”

“I can’t help but note that you didn’t say anything about offering something to Lookshy” Cash added with a sly look.

Speaker handed Roseblack the scroll tube from the Lookshyan general staff: “That’s because she clearly already paid them – somehow – here, this is their reply”

Roseblack threw a brief glance at Speaker before grabbing the scroll tube and opening it. A stack of tied up jade coins – realm obols – fell out and hit the table with a heavy thud, for pure jade was quite weighty. A scroll was tied around the roll of coins.

Cash had to raise both eyebrows at the tied up coins: “That… is a lot of money – I mean… that’s jade, not plain silver dinars”

With the greatest of smile, Roseblack read the scroll: “That’s a little counter-intelligence trick I picked up from my grandfather – and you’re right Speaker, I paid Lookshy with the information of several hidden weapons caches left after the last realm invasion. In fact, I paid them so much I also requested change”

“Clever, anyone who intercepted your message probably wouldn’t have been able to send back a fortune like this with a reply… interesting way to check for the authenticity of the reply” Cash mused.

Having read the scroll, Roseblack nodded and put the paper down: “I have to be careful – anyone trying for the throne has to, especially when I only have one legion to keep me safe. Honestly, right now I’m just trying to keep the peace and wrap things up here enough that I can pack up my legion and return to the isle… but it’s not easy”

“Indeed, we heard you when we came here – what’s going on?” Speaker wondered.

With the greatest of sighs, Roseblack explained how the other legions in the area were basically trying to bully her into leaving. Right now, they were buying up all the supplies coming to Cripple Creek, leaving the vermillion legion with next to nothing to eat – but it was also other supplies they were messing with. Any delivery Roseblack’s legion placed either got delivered to the wrong legion, or never came, or got waylaid by jackals or sand ponies due to intentional lack of escorts.

“Look, I’m trying to set things up here so that the local Governor Peleps Howdarn can actually control the place properly – but any judge I help him set up has a funny habit of getting killed. It’s as if the other legions intentionally want this place to remain lawless. I can’t leave here in good faith until we have some kind of neutral policing and judiciary system set up, but something like that wouldn’t benefit the other legions who want to stab everyone in the back and take the place over – it is exactly this kind of self-serving corruption that I want to root out as empress” Roseblack lamented.

The circle recognized Roseblack’s dilemma. She was, if nothing else, a patriot who didn’t want to see the realm dissolve into chaos – and right now this chaos was what she was trying to curtail.

“I believe I can be of assistance with that” Sullen Hoof said, stepping up.

With a snort and a pained grin, Roseblack looked at the helmet solar: “How? Will you make them behave with your cooking?”

“Yes” Sullen Hoof quickly replied, as if stating the most obvious of facts.

Roseblack buried her face in her hooves, groaning: “I am in no mood for jest…”

“And he isn’t. Sullen Hoof has served platters of shit before guild factors, cooked so well that it addicted them – leaving them begging at his hooves for the recipe while drowning themselves in latrines in attempts to mimic the flavour. You won’t believe how nice your greatest of enemy will get, when you hold the key to their greatest addiction” Cash said, smiling like a drug dealer trying to impress upon the legion general that the product being offered was the best on the market.

Looking at Cash and Sullen Hoof, Roseblack’s expression changed from annoyance to hopefulness: “That’s not exactly what I saw you do in Thorns… you gave hope to a whole city via a feast”

“I know – my orichalcum chef style of magical martial arts let me attack the soul of those who eat my fare. I can grant hope, nourish the soul, but also ensnare and trap it. Once made an assassin eat himself. You just invite the other legion generals for a dinner, you’ll be amazed what I can pull off” Sullen Hoof proudly declared.

It thus came to be that the general of the vermillion legion conspired with the Lords of Sunhill, and Lookshy, to see a realm satrapy invaded. In return, Sullen Hoof remained with Roseblack for a few days, to assist her in ‘managing’ her local peers.

The first miracle Sullen Hoof did was turn what little food the hungry vermillion legion had to feed itself into a bountiful feast. Soldiers wept as their herb-boiled lard and posca – a sour brew of water, vinegar, herbs and salt – suddenly tasted amazingly. To Speaker’s surprise, then Cash was actually able to assist Sully a bit in doing this, having evidence learned at least the basics of both cooking and the cooking-based martial art a while ago, back when Cash had helped Sully commit the style to writing, so others could learn it.

With the spirits of the vermillion legion thusly raised, Roseblack found herself with renewed vigour to handle the bullshit of the other legions. Speaker, Sunrise and Cash were given escorts and a ride in a covered wagon that they could safely leave Cripple Creek without being accosted or identified.

Chapter 53 The Sunhill Blitz

The Jade Mountain stylist is a rock upon which bad soup splashes harmlessly, and is a rock that crushes evil waiters.

…

The trio returned to Lookshy, relaying what they had learned. The general staff was happy to have their own strategic analysis confirmed, and once again agreed that Roseblack’s reputation for anti-corruption and nepotism policies would make her an ideal candidate for the scarlet throne – even more so with her forewarned invasion plans, Lookshy already thinking up strategems and plans.

The circle stayed in Lookshy a bit more after that, for there was business to be done there: Part of their plan for Port Calin and a wider anti-invasion defence involved ensuring that the Sunhill legion could be deployed closer to Lookshy, so the light-rail network had to be expanded – and coordinating that with Lookshy took a bit of time, though not much thanks to Cash Charmer’s expert negotiation skills, and the merchant houses of Lookshy eagerly buying into the network to fund the expansion.

It thus came to be that Sunhill began expanding its light-rail network towards the west. This came with no small amount of drama as the guild saw its trade network threatened by this new and very speedy logistics system, one that threatened to completely undermine its own system.
This required many of the west-ward rail pillars defended by Lookshyan garrisons, to prevent guild mercenaries from capturing or destroying them – but ultimately the guild knew well enough that it couldn’t stop Lookshy from doing anything outright… though it no doubt soured Lookshy’s relationship with the guild even more than it already was.

The rail expansion also gave the circle an easy access point to Port Calin, for to avoid too much heavy guild opposition they routed the westward expansion of the network along the northern shores of the Yellow and Yanaze rivers – and put the last pillar before crossing to Lookshy near Goodharbor, the largest non-realm coastal city and the last major port of call for ships going to Port Calin.

Linking up Sunhill to Goodharbor meant that grain and rice merchants across the east would start coming to Sunhill to quickly move their wares to Goodharbor, for shipping it off to the rest of creation where prices for such products were much higher – part of why the guild found the idea of the light-rail network not being under their control to be such a threat to their economic power.

Goodharbor was also located some four-hundred miles from Port Calin, and the moment that the rail pillar to Lookshy connected to its Goodharbor counterpart across the many miles of broad river, troops started flooding in.

The merchant princes that ruled Goodharbor weren’t exactly thrilled to see a sudden influx of Lookshyan troops arriving at their doorstep – but the pillar for their city was set outside of their walls, near the coast – and the Lookshyan commanders that arrived shortly were able to smooth things over, politely explaining that Lookshy had no quarrel with the city state, merely wanting to ensure that nobody else used the new connection for a sneak attack to Lookshy.

It was also during these negotiations with Goodharbor that Sullen Hoof arrived, having made many a mountain-crossing leaps to cross the distance from the south-east to get to Lookshy, and from there via the rail network to Goodharbor. He told a glorious tale of messing with realm generals, stealing all manner of fun personal effects and helping Roseblack organize quite the little blackmail scheme – while also cooking up a storm that saw many of the senior officers of the other legions around Cripple Creek bend the knee to Roseblack: “She hadn’t expected to be able to leverage my aid into a recruitment drive – but I was able to profile several unicorns sympathetic to her cause, while those who would move against her I left addicted to snacks that would entice them to abandon their posts to seek out more of the stuff… it was very fun to orchestrate”

Satisfied that things with Roseblack were ready, and that Lookshy was mustering troops within striking distance of Port Calin, the circle gathered and prepared their attack on the Port Calin: They just had to make a big enough mess of things, that when Lookshy arrived to take control, they wouldn’t be opposed… which meant dismantling two imperial legions and whatever other local troops and dragonblooded unicorns that were present there.

One thing the circle had agreed upon, was that a ‘proper’ declaration of war had to be made – it had to be known that this was Sunhill attacking Port Calin, not Lookshy – for diplomatic reasons.

To this end, as the circle landed with four dozen Sunhill legionnaires as their honor guard via flying yeddim, on a ridge near the hill-town of Abundant Waters, Speaker ignited his ruby pinions and flew off on wings of golden fire to announce Sunhill’s intentions.

Abundant Waters, a town set up in the hills some three hundred miles from Port Calin, was known for one thing: Its namesake. This came in the form of several water aspected demesnes, which had been capped with manses that provided a constant flow of clean drinking water. Hundreds of miles of aqueducts fed the farmlands around Port Calin and all of its territories, as well as supplying drinking water to all the towns and the port city itself.

This also meant that there was a fortress next to the main aqueduct junction, to protect this eastern-most fringe of the Port Calin satrapy and its vital water supply.

It was late evening, twilight setting in, as Speaker arrived like a blazing comet. His wings of golden fire and his flaring anima left nobody in doubt that a solar anathema had just flown in over the battlements.

As alarm bells were rung all over, Speaker flew straight to the flagpole over the keep within the fortress, felling the thick wooden pole with a single strike of his hoof.

Being up on the roof of the keep, it wasn’t exactly easy for the local troops to get up and stop him – his shield charms meant that archers wasn’t an issue, and the few troops that came up to him via ladders he carefully disarmed and knocked out, before moving to the edge of the roof, to make his declaration:

“Look, up on the roof!” many a soldier cried out, terrified as they scrambled to find more ladders or other means to get up and catch or kill the anathema in their midst.

Satisfied that he had everyone’s attention, especially the few unicorn officers he could see down among the teeming troops, Speaker flared his anima once more: “Harken realm lackeys – the lords of Sunhill, all chosen of Celestia, has designs upon Port Calin and its lands. This fortress will be the first fall to our might – the realm’s presence in the river provinces is at an end!”

As expected, the officers in earshot weren’t stupid – a messenger was quickly dispatched, though as Speaker saw the messenger head for the aqueduct junction where all the local water manse pipes flowed together, he was a bit surprised to see the messenger jump on a hidden boat set in the aqueduct… though it made sense: The speed of the flowing water would ensure that the messenger would reach Port Calin much faster than a series of relays of galloping ponies. Just as planned.

Flaring his anima thrice, Speaker signalled to the rest of the circle that the messenger had been sent. It was time to take the fortress. This was initiated by Cash Charmer kicking in the main gate of the fortress, the thick metal-braced timbers shattering quite spectacularly to his magical martial arts.

Cash, Sunrise and Sully all moved in to great fanfare. Speaker kept throwing his chakrams, to cut the spears of their troops mustering – leaving them effectively disarmed. Cash focused on taking out unicorn officers, striking them down and knocking them out as quickly as he could find them, while Sullen Hoof sent a dozen rolling pins orbiting around him and then galloped almost faster than a mortal eye could track him, pummelling and knocking out at least of the garrison before anyone had a chance to see what was happening.

Sunrise wrapped up the assault, by using her silencing technique. To the remaining troops of the fortress, suddenly being unable to hear the cries of help from their fellows, or the orders of their officers… or even their own words - oh that sowed panic in ways that no other charm could. Sunrise followed this up, by making her voice the only sound heard, as she loudly cried out: “Surrender, or face the wrath of Sunhill!”

Trapped within the walls of the fortress, against foes for which arrows just bounced off, two thirds of their numbers already downed, the remaining troops quickly surrendered. A few unicorns tried to mount valiant last stands, but Cash pulled each of them before him with his extended claws, dominating their minds with the most potent of his mind control charms.

By dawn, it was the banners of Sunhill that flew over the fortress of Abundant Waters.

“So… can we turn off their water supply?” Cash wondered, looking at the aqueduct.

It took some careful inspection of the water manses, all of them built as temples to Da’Naad, the elemental dragon of water. Speaker found that disrupting or damaging the manses enough to stop the flow of water would cause a catastrophic buildup of essence, which would result in some very ugly explosions… and the villages near the fortress, which all seemed to live off businesses that supported the fortress, such as laundry, gambling parlours, brothels, taverns and blacksmiths for maintaining weapons. It would be completely destroyed as part of the manses blowing up. Speaker would not permit that kind of needless destruction.

“Right, good thing I brough a lot of laxatives” Sullen Hoof noted, ordering Sunhill troops to bring him a couple of barrels from the yeddim they had arrived in. The stuff was slowly poured into the aqueduct, while Sunrise prayed to Resplendent Buttflow that all of Port Calin feel his generous blessings.

The Lookshyan occupation troops arrived later in the afternoon, reporting that Lookshyan spies in Port Calin were hearing of a fun mix of panic from the messenger who arrived overnight, that the Sesus legions stationed outside the city were digging in and readying the city’s siege defences, plus that a curious outbreak of rampant diarrhea had broken out in the city.

“Yes, we poisoned their water supply – should reduce how many soldiers they have who can actually put up a fight” Cash Charmer cheerfully informed the Lookshyan commanding officer.

With Abundant Water taken, the next target was Sweet-tree – a crossroad hub for all the orchards, plantations and farming operations in the region. It was basically Port Calin’s food supply. Its defences was a mix of strategically arranged rice paddies, the muddy rice fields set up to seriously hinder any troops marching towards the town – or forcing such a force to funnel onto the main roads, either way making them easy targets for the archers on the fortress guarding the place – but it wasn’t set up for defending against foes arriving via air.

Of course, they were on guard, alerted by the messenger who had come through via the aqueduct – but the blacksmiths of Sunhill had been busy: They had fashioned steel armor plates for the yeddim Cash flew around on – it didn’t allow for ramming anything, but it made it very difficult for archers to do much to the great beast.

This let the circle fly straight into the fortress, repeating much of the same tactics applied at the previous fortress, though by flying Sunrise in right from the get-go, she applied her silencing immediately, resulting in many a confused troops wandering out into the fortress courtyard, only to find the rest of the garrison either clobbered or surrendered.

Once again, the circle had to wait for the Lookshyan occupation troops, keeping the surrendered and captured troops in line until the Lookshyans arrived. After Sunrise shouted the head off a soldier who tried to stab her with a hidden blade, the rest appeared to stop trying to overpower their captors. The lack of unicorn officers at the fortress made handling the local leadership quite easy, Sullen Hoof learning through interrogations that after the messenger arrived the few unicorns at the fortress had left with part of the garrison to join the defence at Port Calin… oh.

That explained why the nearby immaculate monastery had also been cleaned out – it seemed that the local standard siege response was to uproot and seek refuge in the city.

“Strange, because the locals don’t seem to be doing much of anything” Sunrise noted, looking out over the battlements of the fortress.

Cash breathed deeply, staring down a group of captive soldiers who were starting to look just a little too hopeful about either trying to escape or overpower their captures: “This is a realm satrapy – realm policy on serfs and peasants is... well, it tends to be very utilitarian, and they’re not really valued much. They can always open their borders to refugees who seek the stability of realm-controlled land – for peasants the peace and stability offered by the realm can be very tempting”

Sullen Hoof leapt up to the battlements to join Sunrise, briefly flaring his caste mark as he used some kind of charm to assess the actions of the peasantry in sight: “Yup – the peasants aren’t fleeing because they know they’re be turned away at Port Calin. Though it looks like a lot of peasants are trying to burry stuff here and there, likely whatever money and valuables they have, so it’s not looted”

“I would go out and preach calm and understanding to the peasants if not for the fact that they would likely run off screaming the moment my caste mark flares – plus if any one of them did heed my word, they would likely be punished later when immaculate priests and monks return to the area” Sunrise said, sounding none too pleased.

The next day the Looksyhan occupation troops came marching, taking over the handling of the captive enemy troops and setting up proper prison camps for them. The plan for captive troops had always been to just let them return to the isle, but only after the fighting was over.

This left the road to Port Calin wide open. Speaker felt no small amount of trepidation – their element of surprise was gone, and now they wouldn’t be going up against small garrisons, but two whole imperial legions. Cash was optimistic – it had been a while since he’d had a proper fight, and Sunrise looked quite confident in her ability to sway masses of troops once their unicorn officers were taken care of.

With two days of prep time, there was no telling what kind of tricks the two Sesus legions would have ready – and House Sesus was known for being the single most martially inclined house in the realm, to the point that Cash joked that it was less a house and more a military organization that occasionally dabbled in politics.

Heading west, the circle soon arrived at the outskirts of Port Calin – they could at least see the city walls from the hill they had landed on, but Cash dared not move any closer: A realm skyreme was circling above the city, and their yeddim, while armored, wasn’t suited for airborne artillery duels – mainly on account of there not really being any weapons mounted on it.

“Speaker, I want an essence cannon or lightning ballista on this thing when we get back to Sunhill” Cash idly mused, as he waited for Sully to finish his survey of the landscape.

The twilight caste Solar could only smile when Sullen Hoof suddenly spoke up: “They’re clever – they’re not dug in to repel a major attack, but they’ve set up a lot of small hideouts to ambush us from. I’ll bet they’ve got those places filled with immaculate monks”

Cash asked for Sully to point these hideouts out, but they were well camouflaged, so Cash couldn’t recognize what Sully told him – but they trusted each other, so Sully knew that Cash would be careful upon their approach, and Cash knew that Sully wasn’t likely to exaggerate something like this.

“So… do we just walk up and demand their surrender?” Sunrise suggested, sounding as if she was seriously considering doing so.

Cash had to chuckle: “You know, that would be hilarious if it worked – but let’s be honest here… it’s a bad idea. We know they’re setting up ambushes. Let’s just go flush them out, take those out one at a time”

“Honestly, not a bad idea – except we’ll be bombarded with their siege weapons once we come in range” Speaker pointed out.

Sunrise made an arcane gesture, a sizzling pattern of essence briefly flashing around her right forehoof: “That shouldn’t be an issue – I can provide cover, I learned a spell recently from the book of three rings for something like this, only problem is that I can’t move while channelling the spell”

A bit of quick thinking, and borrowing a tower shield from their honor guard, plus Speaker doing his usual crafting charm magic, saw Sunrise parked on a wheeled shield so she could remain motionless but still be brought along. Well, it wasn’t necessary for her to mount up and cast her spell until they got to the base of the hill they were on, when the first ballista bolt landed a bit under a hundred yards from them.

Rearing up on the shield and crossing her forehooves into a defensive posture while wielding her sorcerer’s staff, Sunrise conjured hundreds of surging mystical bands of energy that spun out around her – only to fade a moment later. Cash was actually a bit disappointed: “Oh come on, I had expected that you’d conjure some strange arcane shield or something”

That was when a bolt from a lightning ballista struck Sunrise head on – but the bands of mystic energy caught the bolt, it sizzling and sparking in the air for a brief second, before being launched right back at battlement and the magical siege weapon that had fired it – which exploded quite spectacularly.

“Oh, now we’re talking!” Cash burst out.

Speaker could only shake his head, hoping that the siege weapon crews would stop firing – no sense in them getting hurt, while he pushed the makeshift shield-cart along to make sure that Sunrise was up in front of the group.

Sullen Hoof had drawn Cash a map of the hideouts he had spotted, while he himself had of course snuck off, leaving Speaker and Cash to actually deal with the immaculate monks as they drew close.

At the first hideout – which turned out to have been a dugout clever made under some trees and bushes to hide the entrance – five immaculate monks leapt out, a perfect elemental circle: There was one unicorn for each element, though the instant they leapt out the fire aspected one launched a massive fireball at the circle, which Sunrise reflected right back, killing the unicorn outright.

The four remaining unicorns just looked in disbelief as their peer keeled over, the remains of her head looking like an ashen twig, smoking with cinders.

“This would be the part where you run off screaming” Cash said, without a doubt using a smattering of mind control charms while at it.

The earth aspected unicorn, a stoic looking stallion with a jawline truly chiselled, called out: “Do not mock us with your petty tricks anathema!”

“You know, that would have sounded a lot more convincing, if your three buddies hadn’t just run off” Cash said, fighting to resist the urge to laugh.

It was painfully clear that the stallion was struggling to not look back – but he could hear the galloping of his peers having abandoned him. He was shaking in fear as Cash calmly cantered up to him, his grin wide and smarmy: “Stay back foul anathema!”

“You say that… and yet here I am. You know, I met Pasiap a few years ago – and it would sadden him to see a righteous and pious stallion like you throw his life away so senselessly” Cash explained, deftly tugging at as any of the monk’s heartstrings as possible.

It would have been amusing to see the unicorn’s will and resolve erode away if not for the simple fact that every moment the circle tarried, was another moment for archers, ballista-crews and other siege weapons to be loaded and aimed at the circle.

Leaving the dumbstruck and seemingly pacified unicorn behind, the circle advanced on Port Calin, its city walls rising over the next ridge. Two additional ambushes handled later, saw the trio of solars but a couple hundred yards from the city walls of the mighty coastal city.

Being that close meant that it was easy for archers to just launch volley after volley, but due to Sunrise’s magic that saw projectiles reflected back from whence they came, then there were few souls left who actually wanted to shoot at her or the circle – it was just too damn risky. This of course endlessly aggravated the various junior officers up on the battlements trying to focus their respective units of archers at the circle. Even at the distance they were at, the circle could hear the angry voices of officers shouting the ears off archers who were refusing to lose arrows at the circle.

With little to no viable ranged options remaining, the gates to the city briefly opened – letting out several squads of unicorn. Some of them were in sky-blue the garb of immaculates, but most were in military unicorns with medium to heavy plate armor.

It was clear that Cash had hoped to engage these new unicorns in a duel on words – but they weren’t interested in talking, so a brutal melee ensued. Sunrise quickly dropped her sorcerous protection spell, under the idea that while fighting the archers up on the battlements wouldn’t lose arrows down upon them, plus she wouldn’t have been able to maintain her arcane posture while defending herself.

A few archers did try their luck – but Sullen Hoof was up on the battlements in the blink of a eye, having galloped up the walls, while wreathed in a whirlwind of rolling pins. It sounded like bells ringing out as he sped down the battlements whacking ponies on their helmets, knocking out every soldier he would gallop past.

Down in front of the gate, several unicorns were learning the very hard way that while blades could be parried – then parrying a shout wasn’t all that easy… so many of them were finding themselves constantly knocked over or tossed around – Speaker helping just the same, grabbing, wrestling down and tossing up into the air anyone he could grab. Cash in turn lined up mighty strikes on every unicorn as they came down, for down they came, hitting them with furious impacts that saw them slammed into the city wall.

Only a the most heavily armored, or toughest of the unicorns were able to get up again after such a treatment – and with their numbers whittled down as such, the circle was able to engage them one on one.

Cash quickly moved to engage a burly mare in heavy armor – mainly because the armor didn’t look magical… and with an armor-shattering strike, he saw a shower of rivets and plates plink and clatter off the city wall behind her. Completely stripped, the unicorn mare stood quite surprised and horrified, while Cash briefly admired her beauty and commented quite openly on it.

Meanwhile, Sunrise was not as much fighting her foes, as she was wearing down their minds: With her charms she forced them to deeply commit mentally to every blow they sought to land on her, slowly leaving them in a state where they simply couldn’t raise arms against her – and this gave her time to set up a grand performance: For while Speaker had learned impossibly potent crafting charms, Sunrise had similarly found ways to enhance her singing in ways that would draw even tears from stone with her aria.

With music wrought of her own essence, a haunting chorus and instrumentation that slowly built up, Sunrise sang to the heavily fortified city wall around Port Calin.

The stone wept – and the horrified troops up on the battlements saw to their terror as the stones under their hooves began to move, the very wall yielding open as if it had a will of its own! The city gates needed not open now, for the wall itself had parted ways – revealing… oh…

Three jade warstriders – a blue, a black and a green one – each in the process of having a unicorn fitted into their pilot seats.

“Speaker, they have striders!” Sunrise quickly announced, as she braced herself against a ballista bolt fired from the green warstrider’s enormous oversized bow.

Seeing the sudden development, Speaker quickly disengaged from the unicorn he had been tussling with – flinging Homage to bash that unicorn over to Sunrise. He then quickly stated a choice selection of the magical Five Hundred Words of War, and spun about himself, his hooves quickly tracing an essence lattice around himself, drawing in sunlight that made the lattice burst with bright golden fire.

Cash effortlessly noticed the development, and moved quickly to prevent his foes from targeting Speaker in an attempt to interrupt the spellcasting. From up on the battlements, a sorcerer cried out “My counterspell isn’t working, what is this?” while hundreds of least gods from everything from the torn rivets of the shattered armor of Cash’s foes, to the bricks of the city wall, all streamed to Speaker and forged themselves into beautiful orichalcum armor plating, building themselves upon the lattice into a mighty golden warstrider.

The three warstriders inside the city walls stood silent – for it could easily take a few hours to socket a pilot in properly, especially if done by inexperienced support crews. It had only taken Speaker ten seconds to conjure his warstriders – so he quickly moved to rush the hole in the city wall, smashing every large bit of siege weapon he came in range of, before reaching the three jade warstriders and plucking the squirming pilots from their still open control-cages.

Speaker managed to yank one unicorn out, and had to squish the other one, for the third pilot managed to gain enough control of his warstrider to bring up a limb to block and parry Speaker.

A duel between warstriders ensued, and local property owners in that part of Port Calin no doubt wept – for an unarmed duel between warstriders is very destructive to its environment.

His sorcerous warstrider’s large size also made him an easy target: Many of the siege weapons that had been turned away from the circle out of fear of magical return fire now turned towards him, though not even steel-tipped ballista bolts were able to actually harm the thing, making them little more than an annoyance and distraction.

For Speaker, fighting in the warstrider wasn’t that much different that fighting normally – the warstrider moved as he would move, allowing him to perform all of his usual magical martial arts, which he put to great effect, slowly whitling down his foe.

The jade warstrider in turn was clearly being piloted by someone not quite used to using it – and the unicorn seemed even less used to fighting without a weapon, which gave Speaker a massive edge to begin with, but the unicorn wasn’t stupid – and was able to improvise a pair of warstrider-sized daggers from bolts plucked out of the remains of a broken ballista.

This made the fighting a fair bit more dicey – to which end Speaker leveraged the only other advantage he knew that he had over any unicorn as a solar: He had more essence to burn. Disengaging from the fight, Speaker instead ran roughshod through the troops gathered in the square at the city gate, wrecking wagons with weapons and generally making for as much chaos as possible. The jade warstrider pilot would run out of essence soon enough, while Speaker’s main goal was to weaken the city’s defenders as much as possible.

The led to the two warstriders chasing each other around, levelling no small amount of the outer merchant district of Port Calin – Speaker trying his best not to step on anyone, though it did look like the ponies of the city had evacuated from the city blocks nearest the walls in anticipation of a bombardment. Local fire fighting services were also on point, with plenty of ponies near the city’s canals with buckets ready to toss water up at anything that caught fire – which happened, as warstriders thundered through structures with lit fireplaces, oil lamps or candles.

Seeing this destruction around him pained Speaker – it truly did – but he knew that on the blessed isle the fighting was likely much worse. Still, he had trashed pretty much all of the city’s emplaced siege defences at that point, so he finally turned his attention to the jade warstrider… which wasn’t there, because the inexperienced pilot of it had found himself greatly too exhausted by the great strain of piloting a warstrider, while Speaker had wisely used charms to negate that same problem…

Of course, this meant that Speaker found the warstrider in the process of switching pilot – allowing him to politely ‘discourage’ the unicorn trying to fit herself into straps of the control cage, followed by picking up and jamming a large half-crushed copper cauldron into the then empty pilot seat, preventing anyone else from using the thing. Lookshy would likely be overjoyed to take command of a couple of realm warstriders.

…maybe it would also offset Lookshy’s expenses in having to oversee the reconstruction of the city.

Speaker made his way back to the area around the gate. He found it full of troops that had laid down their weapons – and screaming unicorn officers who couldn’t get through to the troops. It looked like Sunrise had done her mind-control magic… but where were they?

The unicorn officers trying to rouse their ensorcelled troops quickly turned on Speaker – but Speaker was in a giant golden warstrider – so they couldn’t really do much, and he couldn’t get near them without stepping on someone.

Sensing that his need for a giant magic suit of armor had ended – there wasn’t any more siege artillery shooting at him, for he had destroyed it all, Speaker enacted countermagic upon his warstrider – it dissolving back into the lesser gods it had been forged from, who quickly flitted back to their humble domains.

Back down on the ground, Speaker spent the next hour or so chasing down junior unicorn officers – him quickly finding that using Gift and Homage to lob off one or two of the unicorn’s legs was a great way to make them stop running – and most of them behaved when he promised to reattach those limbs afterwards.

Cash showed up as Speaker was patching up the last batch of no-longer-amputee unicorns, explaining that the fighting had moved to the satrap’s palace: “Me and Sunrise had a lot of fun in the satrap’s court… Oh I don’t think I’ve seen her really wring someone’s mind out like that in quite a while”

“Good for her – has the fighting stopped then?” Speaker said, maintaining his focus on his last patient until he was done, the unicorn quickly shuffling off in shame of having been defeated and then healed by anathema the moment Speaker had finished.

With a half-nod from side to side, Cash didn’t quite seem to know if he wanted to smirk or sneer: “Sort of – depending on what Sully pulls off we might be under siege pretty soon”

“I’m sorry, under siege by who?” Speaker had to ask, though he instantly caught himself for of course he knew the answer to that.

Cash briefly jumped up into the air – much higher than what a normal pony could from a standing position – and in doing so did a quick headcount of all the troops in the area: “There’s barely a third of a single legion’s worth of troops here, and a lot of them are city guardsponies. The two Sesus legions camping north of the city never planned on defending the city from us… they wanted us to take it, and then they’ll come and take it back instead – almost as if they were ready to lay siege somewhere, like the imperial city”

“Ah yes, the good old liberate the innocent ploy – I guess it’ll also conveniently let them install a new satrap of their own choosing, say a Sesus unicorn?” Speaker said, as he saw how Cash was nodding at him.

It was with the greatest of sigh that Cash explained that Sunrise was still wrapping things up at the satrap’s court, all the lesser nobles there needing some polite talking to – and probably a bit of mind control – in order to accept the idea of rejecting the realm: “The real problem is that we don’t have any troops to helm the walls and repel the Sesus legions when they come at us in force – and Lookshy won’t be here in time either, nor will they be equipped to repel something like that”

“That shouldn’t be an issue – I’ve gotten most of the legions to pack up and head to their transport ships” Sullen Hoof suddenly reported, as he came in and landed from an impossibly high leap, making it appear as if he almost flew in from the west end of the city.

Sullen Hoof had apparently been having fun using his disguise charms to impersonate some of the high-ranking legion officers the rest of the circle had slain at the gate, giving all kinds of orders to the legions camped north of the city – orders like pack up and get to the ships quickly before the anathema get to them.

“So… you sent two legions towards the imperial city then? That’ll wreak havoc with Roseblack’s plan – we specifically wanted to avoid that” Cash bemoaned, his expression one of wondering whether this whole lightning campaign against Port Calin was now all for nothing.

With a few clicks Sully removed his orichalcum helmet and then he whacked Cash over his head with it, before putting it back on: “Sent them there – yes, but they’ll never get there. I sabotaged the ships first. They’ll start taking in water after a day or two, and then their rudders will start breaking. Some of them might manage to repair it, but they’ll all have to turn back to here… Into the open arms of the Lookshyan troops manning the coastal essence artillery”

“Oh… clever, I like it – but ok, let’s go check up on Sunrise” Cash said, motioning for Sully and Speaker to follow him into the city towards the Satrap’s palace.

Chapter 54 Strangers In Strange Lands

The night breeze stylist pins all solid bits in her soup with expertly tossed needles, making for tasty snacks

…

Moving through the city of Port Calin was strange. The city guard had been largely pacified – though there was still the odd patrol trying to keep the peace, and the trio of solars did pitch in more than once to help stop looters.

At a burning house Speaker rushed in, his elemental immunity charm on, hauling out two trapped ponies – much to the adoration of some nearby onlookers, at least right up until they realized that Speaker’s caste mark was glowing.

The instant they saw that, their cheers turned to jeers and fearful shouts of “Anathema!” – but Cash was on them in a heartbeat, eloquently pointing out the heroism of Speaker’s act. He would have gone on to rewrite their minds so that they were at least neutral on the topic of solars and lunars, but that was when Sully spotted something passing at a nearby intersection.

“Cash, isn’t that the unicorn you said outed you at Cripple Creek?” Sullen Hoof said, not sounding entirely sure, but enough to warrant inquiry.

Speaker looked, seeing a large cart loaded with scrolls, tomes and other books – and the large group of immaculate monks huddling around it, for it appeared that their cart had broken or hit something, which prevented them from moving on. Among them was that unicorn they had seen at Cripple Creek, the same black-maned unicorn with his rich purple silks.

The biggest difference this time was that the unicorn did not look happy at to have spotted the circle – oh he looked terrified.

Cash quickly ignored the ponies he had been talking to, instead turning for the unicorn and monks: “Oh hey you – I’ve got beef you little shit!”

Of the monks, only a few were unicorns, and they were pushing and pulling with all their might – which was strange, considering immaculate doctrine regarding striking down anathema… so what were they trying to make off with, that was so important that it meant ignoring the anathema who were in sight?

Cash cared less for the content of the cart, instead chasing after the unicorn noble in his fancy purple silks – who was galloping away as quickly as possible, dodging Cash’s launched hoof-claws to the best of his ability.

Leaving Cash to chase after the unicorn, Speaker and Sully instead approached the cart and the monks – of course, the monks seemed to know what the two were, so they were terrified. The three unicorns among them also seemed to be struggling to muster the courage to defend their peers, one of them appearing to be desperately chugging the content of a gourd-bottle, while the two others were arguing about who should go first.

“We don’t have to fight, you can go in peace – but we would like to see what’s in the cart” Sully said calmly, sounding quite sincere, like a no-bullshit chef talking plainly to kitchen staff without a hint of deceit.

Several of the mortal monks took the offer, running off, while what appeared to be a handful of true believers stayed on, along with the unicorns. Speaker figured that Sullen Hoof had the unicorns handled, so he went for the cart, opening a chest that turned out to be loaded with scrolls and even more books.

The two mortal monks tried to stop Speaker, but he barely had to put effort into wresting them to the ground – and at that point, simply giving them a stern “Stay down” was enough to make them cooperate. Leafing through the scrolls and stacks of papers, Speaker first observed that quite a lot of the documents appeared to be very old – like, many centuries old.

It took a bit of effort, and no small amount of essence, to accurately date the oldest of the documents, which made Speaker curious at what was actually written in them: “Sully… these are genealogy records – and the oldest pieces here are almost a thousand years old! This stuff dates back before the great contagion, before the fall of the shogunate!”

Looking over to Sullen Hoof, Speaker saw him politely talking with two of the unicorns – the third one was apparently missing, but there was a uniquely unicorn-shaped hole in the wall of a nearby building.

Cash returned a bit later, looking quite annoyed: “I chased the unicorn down to the docks – he had some kind of first age or shogunate era magic ship he got on, sped off before I could catch him… he did impress me with his swearing though, that was quite impressive”

“A shame – I would have liked to have known how he knew who you are – but the way, did you see if the rest of the legions had sailed of yet? Or have they figured out the orders I gave were false?” Sullen Hoof said, taking a brief pause in his conversation with the two unicorn monks.

Thinking for a moment, Cash nodded: “They were boarding the ships – the troops didn’t look happy about it, but it seems that your trickery at the legion command is working. They should be gone in a few hours”

“Excellent, then we just need to hold the city until Lookshy shows up – Speaker, can you message them to encourage them to hurry up a bit? And Cash, it looks like they were guarding some really old genealogy records, what do you make of that?” Sullen Hoof said, sounding satisfied in hearing that his trickery had worked out, but also eager to wrap things up.

Looking over the two unicorns Cash had been talking to with inquisitive eyes, Cash’s caste mark lit up – and that was when his expression changed, as if he had just spotted a honey-lathered prostitute sitting on a massive chest of silver: “No way…”

The unicorns shied away from Cash’s hungry eyes, as he quickly dove into the cart and its stacks of books and scrolls. Speaker looked on curiously, as Cash withdrew an ancient scroll that contained a family tree with names, basic descriptions of what noble houses the listed unicorns were from, plus a few notes in the margins: “Speaker, do you know what this is?”

“The genealogy records needed to trace the bloodline of the late shogun up to today?” Speaker said, having had the time he needed to fully piece together the implications of the information he had read himself.

Cash nodded eagerly: “No wonder these idiots were trying to run off with this – if we can track down the heir to the shogunate… oh this is huge”

“Lookshy would love to get these records” Speaker mused, trying to think of what other parties would be interested in this information.

It honestly surprised Speaker when Cash whacked him of the head: “No! Whoever can be found via these records would have the single most legitimate right to the imperial throne”

“I know – but Lookshy, the seventh shogunate legion, their last standing order was to protect the river provinces and await further orders from the Shogun” Speaker said angrily, giving Cash a look that clearly communicated that he didn’t understand why he had been struck.

Sullen Hoof pulled the cart harness over himself and gave the whole thing a yank, sending Cash and Speaker tumbling off the cart: “Cash, behave – Speaker, Cash has a point. Whoever this heir to the shogunate is, would have a legitimate right to rule over both Lookshy and the realm – and I’m pretty sure it’s not any of us, which means this heir would be a threat to all of us if such an heir turns their power over the realm and Lookshy against us. We cannot let this information get out, not to the realm, not to Lookshy – honestly, we should just burn it”

“No, you mustn’t – its priceless historical records!” one of the two unicorn monks, a skinny pony who did not look happy at all that solars were bickering over whether to use or burn the things he had spent his life protecting.

With a mix of an aggrieved shudder and a sigh Speaker simply nodded: “I get it, whoever this heir might be would have a lot of power, if they could seize the realm throne and get Lookshy to agree to its leadership – but what then? Should we seek out this pony and turn them to our side?”

“No, we should burn this and be done with it – letting the possibility of such a revelation be is foolish! There is no way that finding this mystery heir would benefit us” Sullen Hoof argued, appearing to operate from a very immediately utilitarian perspective.

Cash – already spotless thanks to his self-cleaning collar – cleared this throat: “No, we find whoever this is, turn them to our side, which would let us control the future emperor and leader of Lookshy – we can turn Sunhill from a city state to an empire overnight! We would be foolish to abandon this. See it like a long- term plan!”

What annoyed Speaker the most was that Cash wasn’t wrong – being able to control the legitimate heir to both the realm and the seventh legion would be a hilarious boon to Sunhill… or anyone else who had that information.

That made Cash somewhat curious at why these monks had been sitting on the information – and he needed but a glance at them to learn that it was because they were quite sure that such information would only destabilize the realm further, especially since the heir’s bloodline would predate any current major realm noble house… but the two unicorn monks did not look happy to see their secrets laid bare by the anathema before them, though they were also helpless to stop it.

The three finally resolved to bring the matter to Sunrise, Cash sure that she would support his point of view. Repairing and hauling the cart to the satrap’s palace, the trio found Sunrise still speaking at the satrap’s court, lecturing the nobles and courtiers there. Speaker quickly picked up on the charms she was using, instilling in the court a shared desire to reject the realm and work towards their own independence.

While at the palace, Cash organized proper steel-reinforced oaken chests for the genealogy records, Speaker using his mending and repair charm upon the records to restore them where the ancient documents had crumbled, imbuing them with the permanence of his latest and greatest crafting charm, that the documents would no longer decay – ensuring that they could be easily read in the future.

Sunrise came to the circle once she was done, finding Cash looking quite satisfied with the sturdy jadesteel locks that he had gotten fitted on the chests. A quick explanation of the discovery later, Sunrise agreed that Sunhill could without a doubt benefit from keeping this information – though she understood Speaker’s reluctance to wield the information against Lookshy: “I understand. Your love for your homeland is admirable, and Lookshy is already a great ally. Equally, Roseblack is looking to hopefully become a reasonable and fair empress – so perhaps it is not needed to use this information at all, if we’re lucky”

It was strange to hear Sunrise speaking of not using power now that they had access to it, but it fit her own understanding of power, following her ascension to solar circle sorcery: She wasn’t afraid of power, but her relationship to it had also become more relaxed and cordial – she did not feel the need to exercise power simply because she could. Cash had to agree to this, saying that they could keep the information as a backup in case Roseblack turned out to no be friendly.

Over the next two days, before the Lookshyan occupation troops showed up, the circle rounded up the city’s city guard and put just enough mind control upon them, that they would keep working as normal and keep the peace until relieved by Lookshyan forces. Sunrise similarly handled the civilian population, ensuring that the peace was maintained and that Speaker wasn’t obstructed while he went around and committed rampant acts of building repairs and restoration, applying his repair and crafting charms left and right, restoring much of what he’d trampled with his magic warstrider.

A curious thing that Cash discovered regarding the genealogy records they had captured, was that on the second day while talking with the unicorn monks about their involvement with the records, both of the previously shy and demure unicorns suddenly seemed to… flip? It was as if entirely different ponies had suddenly emerged, and Cash found himself in a desperate fight against two immaculate unicorn monks he had not prepared himself to battle.

The fighting first stopped when Sullen Hoof suddenly appeared, wrestling down one of the unicorns. In the absolutely smashed up – and partially on fire – office within the satrap’s palace, Cash quickly moved to strike down the grappled unicorn, but then the other one cried out: “No, don’t!”

The two unicorns surrendered, but Cash couldn’t help but see how the two unicorns before him were completely different than the ones he had talked to earlier. They were bitter, argumentative and quite angry – not just at him and Sully, curiously enough, but at the pony they claimed had put spells on them, to bind and constrict their minds, rendering them meek and quite agreeable, in order to pack up and make off the with precious genealogy records they had sworn to protect.

“The unicorn in purple silks we caught you with?” Cash wondered, quite curious.

The unicorn monk glared at Cash with murder in her eyes: “That anathema scum – he might have looked like a unicorn, but the charms he used on us certainly were not…”

“Really? Can you describe the charms he used?” Sullen Hoof inquired, eager to know more about this strange foe.

The two monks couldn’t say much – only say that it wasn’t normal for a unicorn to be able to so thoroughly trounce and dominate the minds of others, especially without even saying much: “It wasn’t as if he talked us into anything… or hypnotized us – he just walked up to us at a small manse shrine outside the city a week ago and then… then we couldn’t think freely until a few moments ago”

Reporting this to Sunrise and Speaker, the circle agreed that this reeked of abyssal or perhaps even sidereal dickery. Would explain how the same ‘unicorn’ had recognized Cash in Cripple Creek.

They all agreed that if spotted again, this pony was to be either killed or captured.

When the Lookshyans came marching and demanded that the city gates be opened to them, the citizens of Port Calin didn’t quite seem to know whether to cheer or grieve – it wasn’t realm relief forces, but it wasn’t anathema either. It was rather amusing, at least for Cash, to see the conflicted expressions in the faces of the locals.

Before the circle left, their work ostensibly done, they learned that the Lookshyans would be permitting the resumed trade between realm river-merchants and the oceanic merchant shipping going to the blessed isle – though they would be levying a quite frankly hilariously oppressive tax upon cargo going through the city’s port to the blessed isle – and Lookshy didn’t seem afraid to confiscate anything that looked like weapons or military supplies being sent to the isle. The three warstriders the circle had captured during the battle for the city were also gladly received by the Lookshyans, though they were a bit surprised that Sunhill didn’t want to keep at least one…

Returning to Sunhill, with their cargo of historical genealogy records and their honor guard which had kept their yeddim safe outside the city, the circle breathed a sigh of relief. On the flight back they wondered if they should check in with Shimmer.

What they found when they returned was a messenger from Lee, The Bodhisattva of the third breath, waiting for them.

“Ok… we just have to find a secure way to hide these things away, then we can go chat with Lee – any suggestions?” Cash said, looking mainly at Sully and Speaker.

Speaker’s immediate idea was to use his singing staff to bury the large chest into the stone roads of the city – there would be no visible trace or marker, and only he would know where the chest was hidden, and the solid stone roads didn’t exactly permit anyone to dig around without someone noticing.

“That sounds a lot better than my idea – go for it” Sullen Hoof quickly said, leaving Speaker to do his thing.

The next day the circle zipped to Great Forks via the light rail network, finding Lee of the Third Breath at his office once more.

“Ah my friends, good to see you” Lee proclaimed, his office looking quite… packed up. Everything was either in crates, or being taken down and put into crates – no shipping crates Cash noted.

“Nah it’s just for local storage – I’m planning on go away for a while, to aid An-Teng, and that’s where I need your help” Lee explained, saying that he needed the circle’s help moving a large amount of mercenary troops he had organized, to An-Teng, to help them liberate the place from realm control.

“Ok, that’s not the worst of ideas – your part-demon buddies there calling on you?” Sullen Hoof asking jovially.

With a content smile, Lee said that such was indeed the case: “It has proven exceptionally difficult for them to recruit forces for their rebel army while avoiding detection. The ponies of An-Teng are brow-beaten and cowed… and are being worked too hard in their rice-fields to have the spare energy to run off into the jungles”

“Very well – that is certainly a worthy cause that we would gladly help with – seeing as we have nothing better to do at the moment. But tell me, you’re not doing this just out of the goodness of your heart – what are you getting for this?” Cash said, having sensed something else.

Pulling out a notebook, Lee leafed through some pages: “Here – the circle with the strange demonic appearances, they have been trading notes and believe to have useful information on the topic slaying primordials – and I’m thinking I can use that to terminate the neverborn. That what I’m getting from them”

“Interesting – but why the rush to help them now? Has something changed?” Sunrise inquired, recalling what Speaker had told of Bitter Copal’s cult and rebel activities.

Pulling out a note from the notebook, and unfolding it to reveal a map of An-Teng, the fire mountains to eastern territorial borders and Gem far to the south via that mountain chain, Lee groaned deeply as his brows furrowed: “Bitter Copal and the others there feel that they must move soon, lest other forces beat them to it: The demons that took Gem have apparently started to move – or are preparing to move, towards An-Teng… and they’re equally worried that local realm leadership will ask for more legions to be brought to combat that, which will complicate their bid for freedom greatly”

“With how the civil war on the isle is getting worse, do you think anyone will send more legions to An-Teng?” Sunrise wondered, finding the idea of one of the larger houses sending legions away from the isle to be rather silly.

Pondering the question for a brief moment, Lee considered his answer: “Oh certainly, because control of An-Teng would be a good consolation prize for a house that loses the bid for the throne – especially with the demons that control Gem, because then it could become an excuse to move on Gem… and if a realm house takes that, then… oh dear”

“Right, that kind of money would be difficult to pass up on – and the excuse to invade Gem would be right there” Sullen Hoof chimed in.

It was thus decided that the lords of Sunhill would aid Lee and An-Teng, but Lee was quick to point out a problem: If the circle was to help him, then he would likely quickly run into problems with the guild mercenaries he had hired for the operation.

The circle agreed that this was an issue – but Cash was quick to ask: “Lee, between you and Speaker, you two could probably train up the An-Teng rebels in no time – why do we even have to bring mercenaries?”

Lee could only refer back to his notes and the messages he had been sending and receiving to Bitter Copal: “I suggested that myself initially, would have made this much easier – but in the coded messages I have gotten from these rebel leaders, then they claim that they can’t organize or squirrel away enough rebels to form an army on their own – the realm overseers are keeping everyone on a tight leash, especially in the rural districts they would like to recruit from”

Ok, that actually made sense – but Cash still looked doubtful: “Oh come now – why not simply ask us to do our managerial magic for that? I can make a hundred ponies do the work of five hundred – that should easily let us set up a hidden army in the An Teng jungles”

Speaker wasn’t quite sure if Lee had engineered the situation so that Cash would present such a suggestion himself, instead of making Lee make it – but it seemed that Lee was quite happy to accept the proposal regardless, plus it saved him a fortune in not having to hire an eastern mercenary army.

It certainly made setting up transit down to Admiral sand a lot easier.

Lee did require a few days to basically cancel the contract he had signed with the guild mercenaries – and they were of course quite upset to later hear that Sunhill had basically sniped their bid, as much of the money Lee had budgeted for them were instead spent on buying rail pillars, to fully extend the rail pillar network down south along the Gray river. It was no small amount of money, but the way Cash set it up then as an investor Lee was going to be collecting percentages on the fees and tariffs from the traffic moving along that line.

Cash had apparently been planning extending the rail network down to Admiral sand, but Sand hadn’t been able to muster the funding – nor secure transport for transferring such funds – to Sunhill, for investment into the network.

“Hold on – wouldn’t it be faster to fly all of us to An-Teng on your yeddim?” Lee wondered, as they packed up their luggage and kit, along with quite a few crates of weapons and armor on a yeddim in Sunhill.

Cash said it would make sense when they got there: “…it’s all part of a greater plan we have – but these network expansions are expensive, no doubt about it – and sadly we can burn through such funds much faster that Sunhill’s economy can handle”

Lee did not look terrible impressed.

“It also permits us to call in troops much easier if we can set up a rail network connection to where we’re going – you’ll be able to ship in mercenaries by the pram-load once this is set up, if need be”
Lee accepted this – plus he liked the idea that if the network could reach An-Teng it would permit trade with the east, bypassing the realm-patroled waterways otherwise required to get there.

All of this didn’t mean that Sand hadn’t been preparing for the rail networks arrival though.

At a large river-side clearing, upon which a large stone platform had been constructed well in advance – an ideal location for a rail pillar – the circle arrived, along with Lee, on their flying yeddim to a welcoming party consisting of Admiral Sand, who stood alongside a mix of jackal troops and… half-bug half-pony creatures.

“Ah my friends – good to see you, and it looks like you brought a friend” Admiral Sand announced loudly, as the circle came in to land.

Lee of the third breath, who did not know fire-tongue, couldn’t understand Sand, but Cash and Speaker were able to translate.

Sand had apparently been having a grand old time influencing the pandit caste priest kings of the Varang city states, to the point that he had been able to request a number of predictions – such as when a light rail pillar would appear at this very choice location, letting him know when to be ready with payment for pillars to spread the network west over the summer mountains.

Once all of that was explained to him, Lee of the Third Breath found himself quite perplexed – but also positively surprised – finally understanding why he had only been asked to fund the network expansion down south, but not westward.

This led to the introduction of the insect-creatures that Sand appeared to be hanging out with: “May I introduce the venerable Grandmother Whami”

Whami bowed her head politely, her half-insect half-pony form appearing strange but you could at least still read her face. Flashing her changing moon caste mark, she revealed herself to be a lunar: “It is an honor to meet the esteemed lords of Sunhill – I am certain that my people will have many goods to trade with you from here”

Cash was already looking giddy at the prospect of a new strange trade partner, as Sand invited the circle and Lee to join them for tea.

What the circle hadn’t quite expected, was that this tea was served within a city cleverly hidden within the south-eastern jungles. It was built mostly underground, though through clever use of giant lenses and prisms of amber and glass, did these underground cities spread a pleasant warm light around everywhere inside of it.

The citizens of the city that the circle was guided to, was entirely made up of insect-people, creatures that Whami had bred forth from local bugs, augmented and enhanced through her lunar breeding charms to give them intelligence and nice things like thumbs to enable tool usage – and under the jungle canopies the city was a bustling hive, complete with space for flying insect people or other flying things to land on, such as a yeddim.

“Fascinating… a whole civilization of bug people” Sunrise marveled, looking at the various shrines they passed on their way from the landing platform. It seemed that the local divinities of choice were the usual fare of fertility, good health, harvest and fishing, nothing out of the ordinary if it had been a pony city, complete with old-looking insects dressed as monks and priests.

Admiral Sand appeared to have gotten used to the bug-people of the United Chimerates long ago, speaking well of the quality of their woven rugs and other wicker products as they crossed through a market area: “It’s still a bit of a challenge to get my jackals to accept their presence – but they enjoy their products just fine, and for me these people are the trade gateway to the wealth of the east”

Whami in kind appeared to be well aware of both the risks and benefits of having her people connect to the light rail network: “We are largely self-sufficient, but there are several city states along the grey river not that far from our territory – and right now they have no idea we exist. Joining the networks will expose us to the rest of creation… and based on what I’ve heard from river merchants coming down the river, then at every pillar you set up a merchant haven blossoms, which will attract attention to here from far and wide, not just our neighbours”

The circle could see how revealing such a civilization could be troublesome, though Shimmer was quick to ask exactly why: “Are you afraid of your neighbours attacking you, or of your own ambush plans being ruined?”

“This place was originally a thousand streams project meant to set up expendable self-replicating forces to destroy the realm presence in the satrapies in this region… but I grew to love them” Whami freely admitted, as they headed into a well-built if not odd-looking tea-house, though all the structures they had seen appeared made from bricks of ground and baked mushroom pulp and thick locally sourced resin used as mortar.

Speaker found the local architecture quite fascinating, for it was clearly inspired by whatever local resources that were available – and yet he could see several products made from the same baked mushroom material, including lanterns and candle-holders, making him think that the stuff was fire-proof, perhaps a bit like baked clay: “I can see why you grew to care for them – they are clearly more than just warriors”

With Whami expressing worries of what her immediate neighbours might do, once they learn of her bug-people, the circle negotiated and advised her on how to mitigate these challenges, Sand pitching in here and there. Whami’s greatest challenge was that her various bug-people species were quite specialized, as insects tended to be – there were a lot of worker insects, of course, but also speedy messengers, strong and tough warriors, expert swimmers used for fishing in the great lake bordering the northern edges of their territory… but while each species were very good at certain things, then they each also had their shortcomings, case in point her warrior species would need to eat quite a lot and rest for days after a fight, to restore themselves after their exertion: “This makes it difficult to move troops around for me, because they are slow walkers, but can fly – which equally tires them”

“Sounds like you need some light rail pillars to facilitate moving troops around to defend your lands” Cash said, his salesman spirit undeniable.

Sullen Hoof poked Cash a bit “You’re not getting a proper read on the locals, are you”

“They’re a bit hard to read, but if Sand vouches for them then I’m ok with this” Cash casually replied, sipping his tea.

Sullen Hoof, who’s profiling charms were much more powerful and direct than that of Cash Charmer’s charms of social cue detection, could only sigh: “I’ve checked dozens of these bug people we’ve walked past on the way here – they are terrified of us, terrified of what the rest of Creation will do to them once they learn of this place”

Looking to Whami, the old-looking bug lunar could only shrug: “I have tried many times to broker relations with nearby jungle tribes – but it’s been rough… and the hostile responses from the primitive tribes have coloured the views of the Chimerate populations quite hard”

“I’ve been using jackals – well trained ones – to act as intermediaries when selling Chimerate wares. They are very afraid of ponies and what they might do, so it’s difficult for them to send out trade delegations” Sand commented.

Sunrise put down her cup of tea: “The rail network will let you move troops around to defend your territory – making friends with your neighbours, or trade relations with parties further afield, that’s something they’ll have to learn on their own. Alternatively, we can simply route the rail network south around your territory towards the Summer mountains”

With an expression that spoke of much inner conflict, Whami ultimately agreed to have the major cities of the Chimerates connected via light rail – and to have her nation connected to the greater Sunhill network. Sand was pleased as punch, promising funding for a further network extension west over the Summer mountains: “I have spices and glass from Chiaroscuro, goods that I know sell well throughout the east”

It took several weeks to clear pillar locations throughout the dense steaming south-eastern jungles from the Grey river to the Summer mountains. Local Chimerate work-crews that looked an awful lot like termites grown to the size of ponies, chewed through the dense undergrowth while Sunhill work crews laid the foundations. The greatest hurdle for each pillar was moving the heavy carved stone pillar segments through the jungle to the pillar sites.

The circle aided as best they could – Cash using their flying yeddim to carry pillar segments around, but each pillar had to be quite tall to reach above the canopies, so the quarries around Sunhill worked hard to produce enough rock fast enough, Speaker using his singing staff to meld the pieces together into singular pillar segments.

In the end, Grandmother Whami – a title she bore not because she had a lot of grandchildren, but because at certain times she would retreat to the spawning pits of the Chimerates, and shapeshift into a heavily gravid bug-people female, and lay quite a lot of eggs. Apparently, the hatcheries of the Chimerates were busy places after each of her visit, which was how she kept their population afloat, as they didn’t breed fast enough on their own to sustain their population.

This came as a bit of surprise to the circle, their first assumption being that the bug people couldn’t reproduce on their own at all. Whami quickly explained upon her return: “Oh heavens no, they breed as they’re able – but it’s their lifespans. That’s the problem”

It turned out that the average life expectancy of the bug people were around three or four years. It was a ‘quirk’ of having been made from charm-enhanced insects, which usually had lifespans measured in days, weeks or months. To her great shame, Whami lamented: “It is the biggest flaw of my design – one I am working hard to rectify. I’m breeding them more and more long-lived, but it’s not a process that goes quickly… because it takes longer and longer to see which of my broods carry the most long-living modifications, which I would then mate with to make the next generation”

“You know, we met another Lunar not that long ago, who goes by the name of Crashing Wave – crab totem – he is working on creating mindless plant people who can replace the east’s endless hunger for slave labor – he’s doing a lot of work in genesis crafting new life forms. You and him should compare notes, I’m sure he could help you in your quest to grant your people a full lifespan” Sunrise commented, finding Whami’s quest quite admirable.

Whami was quite happy to hear of this, even more so when informed that Crashing Wave could be found at the recently liberated Sperimin campus.

Chapter 55 Jungles of Desperation

The seafaring hero stylist leads a pirate raid against the port of soup, and makes off with all the soup on his ship.

…

With the final rail pillar set up in the foothills of the summer mountains, construction of the network became much easier, as the jungles receded and let Sand’s Jackals properly aid the Sunhill construction crews.

With the stone and gem-carvers back in Sunhill sending pillar segments and the crystal anchors for the pillar tops via the network, the circle no longer needed to assist the effort directly, permitting them to finally mount up and head west at speed.

Sand thanked the circle and Lee profusely, saying with the rail network reaching his people, then his grand plans of challenging the guild’s stranglehold on trade in the south could finally be realized. The lords of Sunhill were quite pleased to aid in this, Cash thinking that with this new and much faster trade route from the deep south to the heart of the east, then the guild would have to stop hounding Sunhill and instead accept their existence, that they might finally be permitted to have their own legions of merchants move goods through the network.

Flying across the dune sea of the deep south was quite an ordeal. Sand had said that with the rail network connecting his jackal settlements, he would finally be able to move fresh water around quickly and easily, the circle in kind quickly learning that even when flying at the greatest of speeds, then the heat of the south was merciless – and the stores of fresh water they had brought were quickly drained.

Only being able to fly during the night, for the far south was scorching during the day, it took the circle three precarious days to cross the glitterflame-desert – the endless molten dune sea close the pole of fire, and by the second day they were all quite thirsty – well, Cash and Sullen Hoof were, for Speaker and Sunrise both had the right elemental immunity charms to enable them to completely ignore the oppressive heat they were passing through.

“Good heavens… look at that” Cash said, pointing south on their hopefully last night in the deep desert while Speaker worked his crafting charms to shape the surrounding sand into a quite opaque glass dome over them, that they might shelter under it to escape the burning heat of the day.

Cash was pointing to the eternal fires of the south, where molten sands gave way to pure elemental fire. It looked quite beautiful, hauntingly so, the light sparkling in the red jade dusts blowing in on hot winds.

The following night the circle started seeing lights in the horizon. Based on their navigation they knew it to be Gem… though as they approached, they could clearly see that there was a lot more activity there: It was a grand siege.

Sullen Hoof leapt down from the yeddim on high, returning shortly thereafter, reporting that it was quite the coalition that had assembled to retake Gem: Realm forces from the Lap, Saddle-Arabians from Chiaroscuro, even forces from Paragon and the Varang city states: “…but most telling of all was that I was approached by this sidereal who introduced himself as Nazri, said that Speaker and Shimmer know him”

Speaker perked up at the mention of the southern sidereal. He remembered him well from having effectively saved them from Anys Syn earlier during Speaker’s journey to bring Shimmer back: “Well, what did Nazri have to say?”

“That it’s a shit-show down there. The demons are quite content holding Gem, building their forces there and slowly corrupting the essence flows of the place utterly – though, he basically also confirmed what you Lee said, saying that the demons have begun mining and road-building towards the north-west, not really splitting their forces, but preparing for an exodus…”

Lee sighed, looking tempted in the dim light of the lit caste marks to simply leap down into Gem and start slaughtering demons: “I’m guessing from your tone that the demons splitting their forces won’t change much – they’re legion, and I’m guessing they’re summoning just as many daily”

“That’s what Nazri said. He was being very busy organizing the few other Sidereals under his care to keep the siege coalition together, and keep the demons from infiltrating and corrupting its generals – he probably won’t mind getting some help, which begs the questions…” Sully said, looking at the rest of the circle with his unstated inquiry.

Sunrise nodded: “If we should down-prioritize An Teng and focus on Gem instead?”

“I say we stay the course. I know it sucks, but based on what Speaker said, then if we do not aid An Teng, then Bitter Copal and the other half-demon mutants we sent to help him would ultimately just summon their own demon armies and swarm the place… turning it into a second Gem spread out over a much larger region. That would be much worse” Cash pointed out, speaking as if he had given the topic a fair bit of thought.

Lee reluctantly agreed, the circle nodding just the same.

Flying off, the circle arrived at the outskirts of the southern-most An-Teng jungle fortresses a bit before noon – now that the circle had cleared the desert, it was possible for them to fly during the daytime.

“Alright Lee, where are we supposed to make contact with this demon worshiping cult?” Cash inquired, not sounding terribly keen on simply flying into the nearest city of An Teng and landing in the middle of the place – the local realm garrison might take offense and whatnot.

Using the correspondence that Lee had received, the dawn caste solar was able to guide Cash in steering the flying yeddim low in over the jungles, so that they stayed well out of sight of the realm garrisons fortifying the southern stretch of An Teng lands.

“Say, what are they defending against here? The jungles south of An Teng are largely unclaimed lands, aren’t they?” Cash wondered.

Lee went through his notes: “The… here we go, the silent crescent tribes of the Banyan jungles aren’t all that nice towards tengeese expansion, but I’ll be honest… based on what little I could see when we flew near the last of those fortresses, then it looks like those jungle tribes have been on the war path recently. Maybe something is riling up the jungle natives?”

“Could be the demon army pushing in from the mountains in the south-east” Speaker noted, imagining terrified tribals trying to migrate away from incoming demon outriders.

Lee and the circle agreed that such sounded quite likely.

Some distance outside of what Lee’s map said was the city of Prosperous Garden, far enough that the thick jungles obscured them well, Lee guided the circle to land at a small and isolated village of buildings built on stilts – ostensibly due it being in a river valley that would flood every season of water.

Looking around, Sullen Hoof quickly spotted fresh tracks down in the mud that led him to a cave entrance… but there was nobody there, only a small boat and some hunting gear, with its owner ostensibly off hunting in the surrounding jungle – not much of a welcoming committee.

“Lee, you’ll have to forgive me – but I expected us to be able to meet someone here” Cash mused, looking out over the village from atop the yeddim howdah.

With a frown, Lee quickly went through his correspondence: “Where is it… where is… here – we’re to hide away whatever means we arrived in, maybe used one of the barns, and then wait for nightfall”

Doing as instructed, the circle found a dilapidated barn that Speaker quickly repaired, the giant yeddim first fitting inside after Speaker had used his singing staff to raise the foundations of the barn, so that it was no longer on stilts – but stood solid on a small hill of earth and stone.

In passing the time until nightfall, the circle and Lee explored the seemingly abandoned village. Whatever had caused the place to be abandoned had happened in an orderly fashion: There wasn’t anything of value left behind, only barebones wooden structures. It was Sullen Hoof who spotted the wooden plaque nailed to the village’s public house: “Hey, what’s written here?”

Lee had prepared for the journey by learning seatongue, but Cash beat Lee and Speaker to the well: “It says that the village was ordered abandoned by the imperial satrap, after repeated outbreaks of disease – it also warns anyone reading this to get out and not drink the water here”

Speaker gave the well a suspicious look, examining the local river water with his medical charms: “There is no disease in this…”

“Well of course not, but we had to come up with some kind of excuse to have this place cleared out” a somewhat familiar voice said.

Everyone turned to see… someone who couldn’t really be seen: The transparent flesh of her body made Ashi of Six Wheels, the demon-bonded pony the circle had met a while ago at Lee’s office in Greatforks, difficult to spot at first glance.

Lee instantly moved to greet the demon-pony, Ashi greeting him in kind: “Good to see you – but I’m not seeing the army you promised us”

“I brought something better – I brought the lords of Sunhill, they have taken on several armies on their own and won – and can help train one up here” Lee replied enthusiastically.

Ashi guided everyone to an underground hideout dug under the village. It was cleverly hidden, using strong sorcerous illusions to cover the entrance. The hideout turned out to be surprisingly vast, being part weapons arsenal, stockpile and underground summoning facility.

In the great meeting hall, ventilated by the distant flapping of great demon insects, and lit by glowing demons crawling along the ceiling, the circle, Lee and the newly recently formed coven of demon-bonded ponies met for the first time.

Here the circle was introduced to Bitter Copal and the rest of the demon-bonded ponies, though they now went under a different moniker: For while the three that the circle had helped get to Bitter Copal hadn’t really gotten the full formal training and indoctrination that their would-be demon masters had envisioned, then Bitter Copal had – even though he wasn’t exactly a demonic loyalist anymore, which had allowed them to check each other’s notes so to say, allowing them to formally introduce themselves as “Green Sun Princes” to the circle.

“Oh, that’s just great…” Speaker couldn’t help but comment.

Cash raised an eyebrow at Speaker: “Come now, we’ve met abyssals who reeked of death and helped them no problem”

Explaining the moniker’s implications in that it would essentially make them demonic nobles, beholden to the lord of all demons, Malfeas – who’s fetish soul was Ligier the Green Sun – Speaker struggled to understand how the yozis had made their own exaltations, but then again they were peers to Autochton, and probably had abyssal exaltations to reference.

It was the purple coated Shirin, her eyes pure black orbs and her teeth sharp needles, who quickly perked up at hearing Speaker say that: “You could also call us warlocks – that’s a term used a lot by the demons back in Malfeas for us… but we know how our exaltations came to be – the yozis loved to gloat over how they got that done and tell that tale”

The whole circle and Lee listened close, as Shirin explained that after the usurpation – when dragonblooded legions had trapped the solar exaltations in a container made of malfean porcelain, the shadow of all things, the Ebon Dragon, conspired with the neverborn: “He struck a bargain, being able to track the malfean porcelain container… for it was an undead deep-sea monster that broke it – and while they had hoped to grab all of the exaltation shards for themselves, then they couldn’t…”

“And good thing they didn’t – but how did the yozis then corrupt the shards they got?” Sunrise wondered.

Shirin stroked her many brass piercings: “Who knows – but once the yozis got the shards, the conspirators split them between them and corrupted them… and then started finding hosts, like us”

The semi-transparent Ashi sighed: “And who knows what their criteria for selecting us were – they weren’t looking for heroes, that’s for sure”

Sullen Hoof found that statement to be quite odd: “What do you mean?”

Diminutive demon servants served drinks in cups made from brown firmin resin, while Ashi presented her theory: “Well, Bitter Copal was chosen after having his leg chopped off, left for dead in the ocean – the rest of us weren’t in that much better a situation… well, Fallen Twin might be the odd one out, but even then… none of us were chosen at any moment of glory”

The circle recalled the story that the burly and brawny Fallen Twin had told them back in Lee’s office, about how his twin had originally been chosen as a green sun prince, but he had sacrificed himself and somehow ensured that his twin brother would get the demonic exaltation instead. Twin nodded: “It was the only way he could ensure that the magical indoctrination he was getting wouldn’t corrupt me… he could feel himself slipping – agreeing more and more with the demon’s plans for conquering and corrupting creation”

“Same for all of us – we realized that the demonic taint we had already gotten was bad enough, and what they were putting in our heads would only make things worse – and none of it would ever help Creation” Ashi chimed in.

With that particular topic settled, Bitter Copal called attention to himself by reshaping his mutagenic replacement limb – the leg he had gotten as a replacement for the one cut off – as he reshaped it from that for a normal pony limb, to a crab-limb with a giant claw. The sound of the shapeshifting was sickening, with joints snapping and popping, and new growths of thick crab shell covering the limb.

“You wanted to say something?” Twin commented, not sounding even remotely phased or intimidated by the display.

Bitter Copal sighed, speaking in a very broken rivertongue: “You said that Lee would bring an army – instead he brought us solars… how will this help us?”

Lee quickly replied: “We will train an army out of the locals – that was part of your plan anyway, wasn’t it? To show creation that the tengese are strong enough to fight their own battles, and win their own freedom?”

Copal nodded begrudgingly: “We’ve tried that… they’re too tired, too over-worked. The Satrap is hoarding rice and demanding greater and greater shares of the harvest – soon the tengese will be too hungry to fight”

“Sounds like you need someone to help teach them some more efficient ways to do their work – which is exactly why Lee brought us along” Cash stated confidently.

The coven of green sun princes thus listened, as Lee and the circle presented their plan. It was vague and had of broad strokes – and the circle knew this, but as a preliminary plan it wasn’t that bad: First the circle would infiltrate the major cities of An Teng, to get a read on the situation. In doing this, the local community leaders of the tengese would be identified and targeted for night time visits.

Speaker had brought a sack full of loaded dream-catchers, each with a dream wrought by the goddess Dreamer of Dreams of Victory, one of the three ruling gods of Great Forks. These dreams would be implanted into the tengese community leaders, subtly influencing them into being more accepting for resisting imperial rule – as well as being more open to spreading that message.

“Not a bad plan – put those dreams into the grandmothers of the royal houses and we’ll be halfway done already” Bitter Copal mused.

The next step would be to visit each of these dream-gifted places and having Cash work his charms, ideally to free up workers that could then be spirited off to training camps where Lee and Speaker would train them with their solar military training charms.

Meanwhile, Sullen Hoof would identify key targets in the satrap’s administration – something that the coven had already worked on, so that list wouldn’t take long to finish.

Finally, when it was time to strike, then Twin, Sunrise, Speaker and Lee would each lead tengese troops at key targets, while Copal would be on standby with a legion of summoned sesseljae demons – the stomach bottle bugs, which can mend flesh as easily as they can swim through it, to heal the wounded. Sully and Ashi would carry would kidnappings of family members of key administration officials, to ensure their cooperation during the transition government – and that… that should be it.

This idea of four simultaneous strikes against key targets the coven found quite fitting, for the four largest cities of An Teng were prime targets, so that part of the plan fit perfectly with the reality of the situation. However, one aspect of the plan that the coven wasn’t entirely pleased with was the circle’s steadfast opinion that realm forces should be allowed to leave in peace, assuming that they could be made to stand down – Bitter Copal wanted the realm oppressors to suffer: “I want blood in the streets for the millennia of oppression we’ve endured!”

“And that will impress An Teng’s neighbours how? The realm certainly won’t think highly of you, if you do that – it would make you no better than the arczeckh horde back east, or the lintha pirates here west, and both are put down like wild animals whenever caught” Cash quickly argued, not at all being shy of tugging at Copal’s obvious desire for his people to gain the respect it deserved.

Bitter Copal seethed for a moment, but then composed himself: “Very well… but you cannot enter tengese cities looking like you do. Ashi, you’re good with disguises – help them”

Sullen Hoof’s disguise charms handled his cover just fine, but for Cash, Speaker and Sunrise it was a bit more tricky: The average tengese pony looked very similar to that of the natives of the blessed isle: Flat black manes, and eyes with that distinctive extra fold – Speaker’s mane could somehow pass for that of an old tengese stallion, but it was difficult to alter his eyes – same for Cash and Sunrise.

Cash was indeed a bit confused at why he couldn’t just pretend to be a foreign merchant – but Ashi quickly shut down his idea: “If you don’t want to squint all the time, then the best we can do is dress you up as river-folk… but nobody trusts them either, so you wouldn’t exactly be that much better off”

“I still don’t see why we can’t present ourselves as foreign merchants – that works just fine back home” Cash mused,

Ashi shook her head and sighed – her semi-transparent form jiggling: “The satrap and the legion garrison commander both monitor all ships that come in. There are no over-land trade routes to Gem or the Lap from An Teng – you would have to come in via ship, not appear out of nowhere inland. It would be a mess to have to forge you travel papers everywhere you go”

“Please, you don’t think we can fly out to a merchant ship that will soon come to an An Teng port, and convince the captain and crew that we were along the ride from the Lap?” Cash admonished, not terribly impressed with the warlock’s lack of imagination.

Bowing her head, Ashi conceded, saying that doing so would solve the problem of getting the circle legitimately into An Teng from Port of Dragon’s Jaw – and from there they could travel down the river of queens to the city of Salt-Founded Glory where the lowland prince lives, and from there further in the river delta to the City of the Steel Lotus, seat of Satrap Ragara Soras Jor’s residence and administration. Futher up the river would then be Prosperous Garden where the midlands prince resides, Adorned with Wisdom as a Saphire and finally Jade Plum Citadel where the highland prince lives.

“Ok… so we go to these places and dream-seed the elders of the royal households, great. We still need to find ponies to form an army” Sunrise commented.

Ashi motioned for the circle to follow, leading to another room, one lit with strange green-flamed candles, lined with racks of barrels and shelfs with bottles: “Wait here a moment”

Shirin arrived not long after, telling Ashi that Fallen Twin was keeping Copal busy at the arsenal testing the latest batches of spears.

“Good grief – keeping him busy? What is going on here!?” Cash flat out stated, annoyed that he wasn’t able to get a read from the two warlocks with his charms of social cue detection.

Shirin first tensed up, then slouched, emitting a tired groan: “Do you have any idea how difficult it has been to reign in Biter Copal?”

“If he is a hardline nationalist and would-be militant patriot as Speaker told us, difficult I assume” Sullen Hoof said, happy to sense that more pieces to the puzzle his profiling charms had left him were about to be revealed.

Ashi agreed: “Oh you have no idea. Look, Copal would love nothing more than to swarm all of An Teng with demons to liberate it from the realm – but he also wants An Teng to be recognized as more than just submissive minions…”

“We know – Speaker told us of this demonic implanted urge” Sunrise chimed in.

Shirin floated out one of the bottles from the shelves, bit the cork off with her needle teeth and then chugged half the content of the bottle in one go: “He is obsessed… and the three of us have been working very hard to keep that under control while also working on fermenting the actual rebellion – that’s part of why our progress has been so slow”

“Yes, about that – I would have thought that the four of you would have made a lot more progress than just dig out an underground complex here” Lee said, not sounding happy that he had to state the obvious, but he also wasn’t terribly impressed.

The two warlorcks both agreed that progress had been slow. Ashi lamented: “We can’t exactly show ourself in public… and quite frankly the three of us are not all that keen at learning more demonic charms, which seriously hinders what our options are”

Sunrise approached Shirin, putting a calming hoof on the purple pony’s shoulder: “Not learning charms? That’s… why would you not use your powers?”

Ashi threw off her robes, revealing her gelatinous looking semi-transparent body: “This is why! We look like freaks already! None of us can parade around in public unless we use charms to disguise ourselves – and if we try to learn more potent charms… well… let’s just say that learning the ways of demons makes you all the more amicable to the ways demons do things”

“I take it that Copal has less of an inhibition with this regard?” Speaker asked, finally getting the big picture.

The two warlocks nodded, Shirin passing the bottle to Ashi who emptied it. Shirin elaborated: “A lot of the infernal charms we can learn – and oh there are so many – change you. To internalize and learn them, you have to fundamentally alter your own essence to make them work. You can gain great power, but the price is that you’re not really a pony anymore”

“We know the god of exaltation, Lytek, personally – I’m sure he would love to have a crack at helping you. The exaltations in you were originally solar shards, that much I can tell. We’ve found a reliable way to redeem and purify abyssal exalted, the undead deathknights – no reason we can’t help you just the same” Speaker said, wanting desperately to help.

Shirin and Ashi welcomed the offer, saying that Fallen Twin would likely accept it just the same – though they were weary, for the circle was honest enough to say that to their knowledge Lytek had never worked on an infernal exaltation before. Shirin stated the obvious: “We would prefer not to be the first test subjects for such a process, I hope you can understand”

“Completely. Let’s get this rebellion rolling, shall we? Sunrise, we’ll need a cloud and a ride out to sea – should be in a generally north-western direction from there” Cash quickly stated, sounding eager to – if nothing else – wrap this whole mess up, before Copal ended up doing something stupid.

Lee offered to remain, to assist in handling Copal – but also to get to know him better: “As righteous as his cause is, I need to know if he’s more of a risk than an asset to it – I can also help judge the infernal charms that everyone here seems worried about, considering my own experience with being corrupted by darkness”

“Oh… he’s still useful – we’ve made sure that he never delved into any charm sets that would corrupt him wholly – and it’d be nice to have an outsider’s view on thing” Shirin said, whatever she had chugged finally starting to take effect on her.

The circle thus prepared to leave. During their preparations they got a quick list of the things that Bitter Copal and the rest of the coven had managed to set up: The underground facility they were in wasn’t unique – far from it. There were underground staging grounds set up all over An Teng, well out of sight of the realm’s secret police or the realm garrison. Each had demons bound there, manufacturing weapons of the highest quality from steel-hardened firmin resin. All that was needed was an actual army to use the weapons.

Flying off and spotting a ship sailing under a chiaroscuro merchant flag wasn’t hard. Making the captain and crew ‘remember’ the circle having boarded near the Lap, was even easier.

After that it was several days of slow travel as the ship neared Dragon Mouth Bay. It gave the circle plenty of time to reflect on what they had learned so far.

“So… bug people east of the summer mountains, and a demon cult rebellion brewing west of the fire mountains. Good grief” Sullen Hoof summarized, sounding almost amused by the bizarre situation.

Cash found himself agreeing: “Could be worse… but I will say, Speaker your assessment of him wasn’t far off. A desperate and bitter nationalist who wants his people free – no matter the cost…”

“Even if it costs him his people?” Sullen Hoof commented, before Speaker could get a word in.

Speaker couldn’t help but nod to Sully’s comment, adding: “And now a circle… or coven… mainly trying to reign him in from doing anything stupid. I guess we arrived just in time to prevent something truly terrible from happening”

“Absolutely. But it doesn’t chance our plans – the dream implants are still our best bet to manipulate the royal houses, we just have to figure out who to target. That’ll be up to Sully, then we just need to get Speaker in near them for the dream finagling” Sunrise said, though at the end of her sentence she appeared suddenly lost in though.

Cash instantly spotted Sunrise’s distracted expression: “What is it?”

“The shoreline… I think I remember it, from the first age. The shape of it, I’m sure… but it’s still so different” Sunrise said, trying to sort out her memories.

Speaker agreed, saying that he recalled a great and prosperous An Teng – and that the coastline of it was very different: “The alluvial soil of the coast lands used to crank out five crops a year – that’s on par with the blessed isle in terms of productivity”

Sullen Hoof pointed out the obvious: “I am not seeing anything even remotely like that from here… I’m seeing mangrove swamps and…” taking a strong sniff: “…brackish marshes – that’s not anything you can grow food crops in”

“I’m just going to guess that the shogunate couldn’t quite maintain the first age agricultural infrastructure the solar deliberative set up here… the great contagion probably didn’t help either” Speaker said, shuddering at the thought of how much work it would be to restore such farmlands.

Several days later, the ship pulled into the Port of Dragon’s Jaw. The circle disembarked and found lodgings for traveling foreigners, and spent a few days in town to get a read of the place – and scout out of the fortress where the realm garrison is set up. Sully handled the fortress, quickly reporting that the commander was a house Ledaal unicorn who seemed to be mainly focused on earning money via setting business with local merchants and preventing the house Ragara satrap from doing much of anything.

“Amazing… anything else?” Cash groaned, poking at his food in the restaurant they were eating in.

Sullen Hoof smirked – the illusory disguise he had on via his magical mask making him look like a perfectly generic tengese pony, with the flat black mane and extra eye folds: “The legion stationed here is barely half strength, commanded by a General Ledaal Shuri, known as Shuri the Scarlet – and that’s it, that’s all the realm has here… well, officially – depending on how many realm unicorns are here hiding from the civil war, there’s no telling what kind of personal retainers they brought with them”

“And we won’t learn any of that here – Dragon’s Jaw is for storing, loading and unloading bulk goods – all the merchants whose goods are being loaded here operate out of Salt-Founded Glory, further up the river delta. The only point of interest here is the legion coastal fortress” Cash noted, sounding quite disappointed with what he’d learned.

Sunrise smirked at Cash, leaning in order the table: “Well then you clearly weren’t looking at the right places: I visited the local temples, spoke to the priests and monks… I learned a lot of things”

“I’m surprised you got anything out of the locals – the coven was right about how good the tengese are at stonewalling foreigners” Cash noted.

Quickly checking to see if anyone was looking at them, then turning her attention back to the circle, Sunrise explained: “I talked to the local immaculate monks, they were from the isle. They’re not terribly happy you know… turns out that despite centuries of immaculate preachers running themselves ragged here, then the tengese still worship the Golden Lord and the Pale Mistress – sure, they’ll pray to the dragons, or pretend to… but the monks said that it’s an open secret that every tengese pony prays to these two gods – and in a lot of places the temples to those two are much bigger than the immaculate temples, if there even is one and not just a shrine”

“That fits with what we’ve heard about tengese quiet defiance” Sullen Hoof noted.

Sunrise agreed, adding: “It’s more than that – the monk I got talking to was quite tired, easy to milk for information. He said that while he rarely does so, then all of An Teng listens when the Golden Lord speaks to them. He apparently shows himself to the three princes that rule An Teng once every decade or so, and it’s been eleven years since he last revealed himself”

“Oh… a god sanctioned uprising – that sounds like something we could use” Cash said, sounding very intrigued.

Chapter 56 Change of Plans

The crimson pentacle stylist keeps his foes at a distance and gathers up soup with long swipes.

…

At the next major tengese city on their list, Salt-Founded Glory, the circle had more planned than just looking around: The royal house of the lowland princedom was seated there, so Sullen Hoof instantly left to seek out and identify the house elders.

Cash equally sought out the tengese merchants headquartered in the city, leaving Speaker and Sunrise somewhat high and dry – bereft of purpose.

“I say we verify some of the things the coven told us. Our entire plan is based on what they said, but I would like to hear it from the locals” Sunrise mused, looking around at the bustling city that appeared to have more canals than streets.

With a slight grimace, for the city reminded him an awful lot of Nexus in how it was laid out with its canals, Speaker shrugged: “Sure – how is your seatongue?”

“It’s not – you’ll have to be the interpreter” Sunrise noted cheerfully.

Speaker paused for a moment: “Ah…. That’s why you talked to the immaculate monks back at Dragon’s Jaw – you found someone you could actually talk to”

“Exactly” Sunrise said unrepentantly, heading down the pier from the ship they had arrived in.

Across many a canal bridges, through the various wards of the city, the two solars didn’t have to look long before Speaker identified a building that looked very similar to something he had seen in the City of the Steel Lotus: “That… looks like a tourist information service, let’s go”

Without really lying, the two presented themselves as part of a foreign merchant’s retinue to the tourist information agent: “My god friend Sunrise here is curious about the ways of the Tengese, for we come from the far east, so I was hoping you could explain a few things for us”

The young mare at the particular booth that Speaker and Sunrise had walked up to, looked very much like a local tengese pony, while also appearing quite bored. She gave the two a quick look-over, with glances at their foreheads – seeing no horns – to which end she just barely bothered to sit upright and point to a sign. The sign read “Fifteen cowrie fee for information”

Quickly checking their belongings, both Sunrise and Speaker quickly realized that they only had eastern silver coinage on them – Cash probably had some, but he hadn’t given them any spending money. A quick visit to a nearby money lender saw currency exchanged – likely at a rate that would have made Cash froth at his mouth – after which the tourist information agent was finally paid, to which she simply said in seatongue: “Alright, what do you want to know?”

Sunrise fumed – finding the young mare’s attitude quite disrespectful. Speaker wasn’t exactly impressed either, but he didn’t have charms to force the mare to behave – and with the language barrier Sunrise couldn’t really use her charms very effectively.

“We’re curious about the ways of the tengese. We’ve been told that the elder mares of families are the ones who wield all the power. Is that true?” Speaker asked earnestly.

The mare rolled her eyes – as if to say ‘such silly foreigners and their stupid questions’: “No. But the man of a house or a farm only rules it with the permission of his wife, or more likely his wife’s grandmother. Families here are matrilinear, and that’s actually our definition of a tengese pony: Someone who can trace their family back to ponies who have lived here for many generations and done great things – if you have no family, you’re by definition not a true tengese pony. Anything else?”

Sunrise didn’t have any follow-up questions, while Speaker inquired into the prince of the shorelands, wanting to know more about him.

“That would be his royal highness Prince Laxhander of the glorious reign. As per instructions from his court, prince Laxhander of the glorious reign has a standing invitation to all visiting realm unicorns, with an offer to entertain them at his court” the young mare said in a notably deadpan tone, sounding not terribly keen on having to recite all that, as she rattled off the clearly well-rehearsed monologue.

The two solars left the bored information agent, contemplating the information they had gained. The next day at the house Cash had rented them, Cash finally showed up, reeking of fancy perfumes, sex and fine drink – his saddlebags laden with coin, gem and far more valuables than what he had arrived with in An Teng.

“I’m just going to assume that you had fun – did you learn anything useful?” Sunrise said, looking not at all surprised.

With a chuckle, Cash fiddled around with his saddlebags, retrieving his collar of dawn’s cleansing. It snapped on instantly as he put it to his throat, resizing itself properly and with a stroke of its magic Cash’s funk was all gone: “There we go… oh I learned plenty – but you first, I need to unload”

“Sure. We didn’t learn much, but found a tourist information service that told us that the local prince has a standing offer to entertain visiting realm unicorns” Speaker said, raising an eyebrow as Cash just kept pouring money and gems out of his saddlebags onto the table next to him as if there was more space inside the bags than what their outwards appearance would indicate.

Cash finally managed to shake the last of the cowries, silver and gems out of his saddlebag, giving the pile a quite appraising look – his caste mark flaring for an instant: “There we go, all there… and that fits with what I learned. Prince Laxhander with the silly self-chosen epithet is trying to have his family birth a dragonblooded pony who’ll exalt and link his family to a realm great house by blood. His mother doesn’t like what he’s trying to do though, so I think she’ll make a good candidate for our dream heist”

“So, it’s in an attempt to shore up the power of his house – trying to force an alliance with a realm house? I can see how that might upset the nationalists… and if his mother is already against it, then we might not have to influence her much” Sunrise commented, as she tried to push Cash’s money pile together a bit, so nothing would roll off the table.

Quickly starting to float coins of various sizes around, sorting the money pile with charm-enhanced speed, Cash agreed – to a certain extent: “Could also be that the prince himself should be the target. A good nightmare to show him the error of his ways, maybe framed as an omen of the gods warning him not to lead his house astray?”

“I can rework a dream to look like that – the dreamweaver left most of the dreams we got quite open-ended, expecting us to customize them for their targets” Speaker said, seeing the logic of Cash’s alteration to the plan.

Sullen Hoof showed up later in the afternoon, Cash having entertained Speaker and Sunrise with the stories he had learned from the tengese merchants he had partied with: “Hey there you are – I was just talking about how the merchants I stayed with, are not shy of bragging of how they dodge realm tax collectors, or how they fence pirate booty from the lintha”

“I’m sorry… you mean the demon-worshiping cannibal pirates, working together with tengese merchants?” Speaker wondered, having to do a double take.

Sullen Hoof didn’t look terribly surprised: “I spotted several lintha ships at Dragon’s Jaw, unloading goods – but they were flying under merchant flags. I checked a few of the ships, their ledgers were very good forgeries. They seem subtle enough about it to not attract undue attention”

“Well, they have to fence their stolen goods somewhere – it’s too far to Coral from here – the merchants I talked to say that doing so also means they do not attack tengese shipping” Cash noted, sounding quite amused.

Speaker wasn’t entirely sure what to think: “So…. they don’t prey on tengese shipping? What about the realm merchant ships going around the rivers here?”

“The realm patrols the rivers of An Teng – they’re safe enough, but once out at sea its anyone’s game” Sullen Hoof pointed out, having seen the realm patrol vessels docking at Salt-Founded Glory or passing it by.

With that somewhat out of the way, Sullen Hoof confirmed Cash’s information, and supported the idea of inserting a dream into the local prince – not any elder – for the prince’s mother already seemed to on board with working towards independence.

To this end the circle began planning how they were going to track down the prince – which according to Sully would require traveling to the City of the Steel Lotus, because prince Laxhander apparently spent a lot of time there, in and around the satrap’s court.

Journeying to the City of the Steel Lotus didn’t take long, being located less than a hundred miles up the river of queens from Salt-Founded Glory. Arriving there, the circle at first discussed where to find lodgings.

Cash insisted on Speaker trying to contact his one-night stand Ledaal Asina, but Speaker wasn’t sure how she would react.

“Come on Speaker – we know that the commander of the legion garrison in An Teng is a Ledaal, and you said that she was easily well over two hundred years old. She will know a lot of useful information, I guarantee it” Cash insisted, find Speaker’s hesitance rather annoying.

Sunrise at least seemed to understand Speaker’s reluctance: “Cash, what if she uses that connection to the garrison commander to sick the local realm forces on us? We should at least let Sully scout her out first, to see if she’ll be friendly or not”

Sullen Hoof quickly sought out the Ledaal estate, while the rest of the circle camped at a café so they could pony-watch. Cash appeared to greatly enjoy seeing the various realm unicorns and their entourages going about the city. The three spires of the central government palace, the house of the satrap’s government, could be seen above the many low rooftops. Charming their waiter, Cash was able to get the waiter to explain to them that what they were seeing the spires of the Palace of Threefold Magnificence.

As they still waited for Sully, the three solars walked the tourist circuit. This brought them to the aforementioned palace. It was replete in gilded teak, lapis and mother-of-pearl. It looks quite beautiful – but around the royal district, where the palace was at the centre, were all the noble estates, palaces and villas. It was among them that the Ledaal estate stood resplendent, appearing much grander than most of its neighbours – it was apparently quite profitable to be the family controlling the local realm military garrison.

Around this ring of estates, was a second ring of neighbourhoods made up of middle-class residences and shops that catered to the wealthy tourists, which appeared to make up the market district. Outside of this ring was the final ring of the city: A halo of swampy slums, where all the poor local workers lived in mud up to their hooves.

“This place will be a vital target to seize when the fighting starts – where do you think the city’s realm garrison is based?” Sunrise said, looking across the canal from the Market District, towards the outer slum wards of the city.

Cash shrugged, noting that they hadn’t really seen much of a military presence throughout the city: “…but all the realm estates around the royal district were walled compounds – each their own little fortress, but their defences seemed to mainly be good against riots”

“True – there’s no real city wall, and not that many canals inside here either, so they can’t block enemy troops at canal bridges either” Speaker pointed out, wondering if there were troops hidden somewhere.

“Each realm estate has at least fifty or sixty ponies at arms – assuming that they can be combined into a single force, then they can field a small army pretty quickly” Sullen Hoof said, having appeared next to the circle, sounding ever so slightly out of breath.

Cash laughed: “Fat chance – they would never be able to agree on who should be in charge, unless that Ledaal Shuri comes to take charge – but that’s probably the idea”

“All the more reason to get to Shuri through Asina – and I think we can talk to her. I found her private journal. She’s been making discreet inquiries into eastern events, angling for news about Sunhill, but they don’t even seem to have heard of Thorns having been liberated yet” Sullen Hoof explained.

“That’s great – but while we visit Asina, could you go scout out the prince and look into how Speaker can get in for a dream implant?” Sunrise said, Sully quickly nodding and leaving for the royal palace.

The three remaining solars made their way to the Ledaal compound, the carved stone and wrought-iron railings surrounding the compound making it easy enough to see the wealth on display inside, but the curly and pointy iron bars made it very difficult and painful to climb over for any intruders. At the gate, Cash strolled ahead of the circle and informed the guards that Lady Asina’s eastern storyteller and his friends were hoping for an audience.

A small tengese foal was sent off as a messenger, and not that long after did a well-dressed older stallion – his mannerisms, mane style and fashion marking him as being from the blessed isle – come to inspect the would-be visitors.

Speaker recognized the stallion as one of the house servants of the estate, and the stallion seemed to recognize Speaker just the same. He simply nodded at Speaker and turned around, walking off.

“I think he recognized me – let’s see if we get attacked by a wyld hunt, or greeted with open arms” Speaker said tentatively, not sounding quite sure what they were about to get.

It took a bit longer, but another well-dressed servant arrived at the gate, asking for the circle to come to the tea bungalow. Cash shot Speaker a very pleased look: “So… you think you’ll have to shag her before she’ll cooperate with us?”

“I’m still worried whether she’s gathered a bunch of immaculate monks for an ambush – there’s no telling how she’s rationalized our encounter after Shimmer and I left” Speaker worried, following along as the circle ventured into the Ledaal compound.

It was all still beautifully carved and decorated teak buildings, replete with lapis and mother of pearl – very similar to the royal palace, perhaps the same architects now Speaker had something to compare it to. Cash greatly enjoyed the south-western architectural aesthetic and the many trophies taken from sea monsters on display had Sunrise comment: “I’m not seeing many land animal trophies here – they must prefer their big game hunting at sea around here”

“I hadn’t thought about that… but it makes sense – if An Teng has been a realm satrapi for centuries, then the forests have probably been picked clean of any big game predators worth hunting” Cash figured, eliciting nods of agreement from the rest of the circle.

In a stately building one was meant to call a tea salon – for the Ledaal estate was comprised of multiple single-story bungalows, the circle was ushered inside. Cash quietly remarked that the tea and cake table on display would probably have told Sully something interesting: “…but honestly, all I’m getting is that servants lining the walls are on edge. I guess Asina had them set this up pretty damn fast”

“That explains why we were led the long way through the trophy gallery part of the garden” Sunrise commented.

Ledaal Asina entered, her beautiful embroidered silken robes of the finest and latest blessed Isle Canterlotian fashion, her mane braided and done up expertly, her jewellery resplendent… and yet when she saw Speaker, her carefully maintained facade of noble superiority faltered for but a split second. She quickly composed herself and continued to the table, but Cash managed to learn all kinds of fun thing from that little gaff.

“Well, if it isn’t Bright Machine Speaker – and you brought friends – to what do I have the honor of hosting you here? And please, have a seat” Ledaal Asina stated in high realm, her eyes going back and forth from Speaker to Cash and Sunrise, but always back to Speaker.

Speaker nodded to Cash, who made the introductions while Sunrise and Speaker sat down: “Greetings Lady Asina. I am Cash Charmer, master of coin and lord of Sunhill. My two peers here, you know Speaker, are also lords of Sunhill, with Sunrise on my left being our high priestess. We were summoned here via an acquaintance in need of aid – so right now we’re touring An Teng to get a lay of the land”

“That is quite impressive…” Lady Asina said as Cash sat down, the elderly unicorn mare sitting down and pouring herself some tea. It was clear that she was taken a bit aback by Cash’s bravado and bold introduction, but to Cash it was all just because she hadn’t been able to read him – she had no clue what the trio wanted from her.

Sunrise cleared her throat: “Indeed, but so are our goals here. Last Speaker was here, before leaving, he and our fellow lord Last Shimmer managed to talk a rebel organization out of using summoned demons to swarm and liberate An Teng – we are now here to aid them, to ensure no other missteps in the transition of power”

“Transition of power? You make it sound as if the uprising already happened” Asina replied, sounding a bit surprised, but also smirking for such a statement clearly amused her.

Cash shrugged and smirked in kind: “With us here it might as well be – when the lords of Sunhill have a goal in mind, things tend to happen, fast”

As Asina once again appeared to ponder whether she should feel intimidated or not, Speaker felt thankful that he had learned high realm from Cash back before first traveling west, to better aid his old cover story of being the scion of an exiled realm noble – if nothing else it let him follow along in the conversation, but now he felt the need to join in: “Some salient examples could be how over the last four months we’ve done away with two more deathlords since last we met, so please don’t underestimate the power we can bring to bear – we came to you seeking cooperation for a peaceful transition of power, ideally to avoid bloodshed, for these rebels mean business”

With what was being asked of her somewhat clear now – though the specifics had yet to be stated – Ledaal Asina found herself in a very strange predicament: “Is that so? That certainly explains some of the latest news I’ve heard come out of Thorns – I couldn’t quite believe that a circle of Tepet unicorns could defeat a deathlord on their own, but now you’re asking me to… what exactly? Have my niece order her troops to stand down?”

“That’s one possibility – you simply summoning General Shuri so we can have a chat with her could also be of great help. Either way this rebellion is going to happen, the real question is just how many ponies have to die before it’s over. We have done battle with undead hordes, changelings, multiple realm legions – so a single half-strength legion spread out over An Teng is no match for us” Cash stated quite firmly.

Lady Asina processed what she had been told – and she was no fool: She had sent agents far and wide for information on Sunhill, having learned of both what the guild, Lookshy and other eastern power brokers thought of them – and now they were at her doorstep… not just one, but at least half the circle of powerful solars she had heard so much of, basically telling her that they were planning on taking over the country she lived in.

It was clear for the three solars that the unicorn mare before them was thinking hard and fast – and they understood that their request was a heavy one. Lady Asina floated over some tea-cakes to herself, gesturing for her guest solars to help themselves: “Realm legions – as in, plural?”

“We are a city state openly ruled by a circle of solars. The realm has thrown quite a few forces at us – both directly and indirectly. Let’s just say that house Sesus hasn’t as much lost legions to us, as had legions politely ejected from certain places by us, with them losing quite a lot of very expensive weapons and artifacts in the process – along with their pride, especially since they then had to seek safe harbour in Lookshy-controled ports afterwards” Cash said, sounding endlessly pleased that he was able to spin their victory at Port Calin into something useful, without giving away that it was at Port Calin or why the circle had attacked the place – indeed, now he hoped that Asina thought the two realm legions had attacked Sunhill instead, and then gotten chased off to somewhere Lookshy controlled.

Being over two hundred years old, Lady Asina knew damn well the martial reputation of house Sesus – but she could just as well easily imagine a couple of Sesus legion generals trying to pull a single target invasion of a scavenger land city state, if they could veil it as a grand wyld hunt: “That sounds like Sesus alright. But surely, you must understand that the realm isn’t in the habbit of ceding land willingly”

“The realm is in a civil war right now – a succession war. It’s not thinking about An Teng at all. We have seen dozens of unicorns milling about here already, who seemed perfectly happy using An Teng as a hiding place to stay out of the fighting. We don’t mind you doing that, the only real change would be that the three princes no longer answer to a satrap or a missing empress – and you’ll likely have to start paying your staff better, if you want to keep your servants” Sunrise pointed out, speaking her truth to the realm’s future lack of power in the region.

Lady Asina took a deep breath, appearing quite aware that her bold little statement had been utterly revealed as naught but a paper tiger: “Fair enough… it’s not as if the armed guards that the local princes and their nobles have were ever enough to pose a threat to our garrison – never needed that many troops to hold this place, mainly to guard it against coral pirates”

The circle accepted the explanation, but still, Asina was no fool either – she might not have planned to negotiate for her very life and ability to remain in An Teng that day, but by the dragons, if that’s what she had to do, then that’s what she was going to do!

The negotiations that followed took most of the day. Lady Asina appeared quite well read on what Sunhill could pull – though her information was a few months old, so Port Calin’s capture was unknown to her, and there were certain details about Thorns she hadn’t understood correctly. Still, she seemed to recognize that with the realm as it was, then it wouldn’t be possible to call in additional legions to defend An Teng if the lords of Sunhill were about to organize a proper nationwide uprising – especially not with solar-trained troops

To this end, she negotiated on behalf of all house Ledaal operations in An Teng. She understood that once realm control was gone, the guild was going to come and set up shop – competing with realm merchants for tengese goods, though with how the circle explained their adversarial ‘relationship’ with the guild, then the guild might not want to officially do so, at least not if the lords of Sunhill’s involvement in the uprising became public knowledge. Cash and Speaker equally told of the Sunhill light rail network, talking about how they were basically outcompeting the guild when it came to moving goods around for much of the east, and their plans to expand that to south-west, across the dune sea, assuming that they could organize the funds for it.

“And you’re assuming that the new government of An Teng would commission Sunhill for that?” Lady Asina wondered, still sounding quite impressed at Sunhill being able to produce such first age infrastructure.

Sunrise gave the unicorn mare an earnest look: “We see no reason why they wouldn’t want to – it would open up all of the eastern markets to them, and let them bring goods there to sell at a fraction of the time it would take to sail there – without having to dodge pirates or realm fleets. It will bring An Teng a level of wealth previously unimaginable! They could sell fresh fruits during winter in the east, or bring eastern goods here for western markets as a virtual monopoly”

It was a bit strange for Speaker to hear Sunrise talk a bit like Cash – but he could see her logic, and agreed with it fully.

The negotiations continued: Asina knew that she couldn’t negotiate officially for the businesses and operations that other realm houses controlled, but she knew that she could set some basic rules and terms for the transition, to allow realm staff that wanted to, to leave unharmed with their personal belongings and wealth. If any realm scion helming a local merchant house or plantation was too stubborn to take that offer, they would have to stay and compete in a free market for labour and local services – without being able to order tengese serfs to work for them for next to nothing.

Asina equally agreed to summon her niece – the local legion garrison commander, General Shuri. The circle promised not to assassinate her, though Asina did warn them that Shuri considered her posting in An Teng a well-deserved vacation and reward for decades of loyal service to the realm, so she wasn’t terribly interested in leaving. The circle didn’t mind that, as long as Shuri could be made to stand down – but again Asina warned that Shuri’s pride would likely prevent that.

“Lady Asina, I will be very honest with you. Between the myriad of powers that the lords of Sunhill have at their disposal, then this General isn’t going to get a choice here – the main question is just going to be how and perhaps why her troops will stand down – but my promise to you stands, we won’t kill her” Cash said, trying to sugarcoat the less than pleasant fact that the circle didn’t really have time for a single unicorn getting in their way.

The old noble-mare recognized the polite warning, and seemed to accept it without protest.

Come dinnertime the circle was invited to stay overnight, though Sullen Hoof’s sudden appearance and his report that the prince was both in the city and possible to reach – sort of – meant that the circle politely had to leave Lady Asina for a short while, though they would be back a bit after bedtime.

Ledaal Asina wasn’t stupid – she knew that the circle was probably going to do something relating to the rebellion they were trying to set up, but she also seemed more than aware enough that if she tried to stop them then she wouldn’t get to do much other than get buried the next day – she did find it rather surprising that this Sullen Hoof was a local tengese pony though. Sully didn’t correct her.

At the Palace of Threefold Magnificence, late at night, Sullen Hoof pointed out the wing of the palace where the braziers were lit and the banners flew high – that was where the prince was staying: “He’s in the highest of the towers there – he hates to sweat while he sleeps, so the humidity down at ground level at night bothers him”

“Sounds like he’d also have to sleep with open windows then” Speaker mused, in an attempt to connect Sully’s factoid to their overall plan.

Sullen Hoof agreed completely with Speaker, saying that this was how he was going to get Speaker in – by floating out a rat in a small bamboo cage, the being quite busy trying to gnaw its way out.

“Sully, what’s with the pet?” Cash simply had to ask.

Looking up at the high castle tower, Sullen Hoof weighed the caged rat on a hoof: “It is a lot easier for me to stealthily carry a sleeping rat in cage into a castle, than having to haul Speaker up there in person – and his flaming wings would draw a bit too much attention”

Nobody could argue with that – so under the cover of darkness, Speaker put the rat to sleep and used his dreamwalker kata to enter the rat’s dream. To Cash, Sunrise and Sully it looked as if Speaker simply disappeared into a puff of silvery vapor that quickly slipped into the rodent.

Sullen Hoof quickly raced off with his sleeping passenger, using a mix of charms that let him walk on walls, ceilings, run silently, run very fast, and jump quite far, to quickly and quietly scale the castle and avoid being seen by any of the castle guards.

Now, for Speaker, this was the first time he had truly used his dreamwalker kata – but he found to his great pleasure that he still had a sense of the surroundings around the rat he was in. This let him know exactly when Sullen Hoof had magically picked the lock on the balcony door to the prince’s bed chambers, Speaker exiting the rat right on cue – happy to be out of the dream of endless cheeses.

The dream implant was just a question of walking over, poking the sleeping prince once with the right dreamcatcher, and then leaving again – at least to anyone who didn’t have essence sight.

Leaving the castle was done a tad less subtly than how the two solars had entered – namely because Speaker had Sullen Hoof use a charm or two that let him toss Speaker all the way across the dark night sky right into the Ledaal compound’s swimming pool. Ledaal Asina was scared absolutely shitless as her otherwise calming midnight swim was brutally interrupted.

Speaker, glowing with a golden light from his shield charms that had prevented him from getting hurt by the watery landing’s impact, could only smile sheepishly: “Oh come now – I wouldn’t want to visit An Teng and then not pay you a private visit”

The old unicorn mare, quite naked as she had been swimming, glared at Speaker: “Anyone else pulling something like that – even my own children – I would have seen them flogged and quite possibly executed…”

“A unicorn mare did order me flogged a couple of months before we met for the first time – didn’t quite work out that well for her” Speaker mused as he swam to the edge of the pool.

Lady Asina joined Speaker, helping him out of his soaked clothes: “I’ll let it slide if you do that thing with your tongue again…”

Chapter 57 Shameless Behavior

The fivefold shadow hand stylist consumes soup. Maybe. You will never see or hear it, nor would you survive catching one in the act.

…

The next morning at breakfast, the circle and Ledaal Asina continued their talks. It seemed that Lady Asina had gotten a more personal retelling of the circle’s adventures in Thorns and how they had inadvertently done away with the Dowager in the Noss Fens the previous evening while snuggling, giving her a much more nuanced understanding of what the circle had pulled off.

“I would like to start off by giving my condolences for your loss of Lord Fire Orchid – she sounded like a good and brave soul” Lady Asina opened with, looking legitimately sad for the loss of a powerful fighter who stood against the undead.

Speaker nodded, but seemed hopeful: “She will reincarnate, given time”

“Indeed, but thank you Lady Asina” Sunrise added, giving Speaker a slightly disapproving look for not having actually accepted the lady’s condolences – as much as Shimmer might have claimed that Speaker’s abilities to talk properly had improved, then Sunrise certainly felt that there was room for improvement still.

Either ignoring or not catching Sunrise’s look at him, Speaker followed up: “I also learned several very interesting things from Lady Asina last night – if you would tell the others, please”

Gesturing for a servant to bring forth a large tome, which was brought in on a trolley, Lady Asina began to leaf through it. Sparks and other elemental effects – such as puffs of green vapor, or small gouts of flame, burst from the various pages as they were flicked through: “Last night Speaker tried to tell me how you won your victory in Thorns – but it was very difficult for him… he kept mentioning key allies that I simply kept forgetting”

The rest of the circle instantly realized that Asina was referring to the various sidereals that had aided them in Thorns.

Lady Asina finally got to the page she was looking for, appearing quite pleased: “Here… yes. Now, in order for him to tell his story right, Speaker announced that he was making me a formal aid to his work as an agent of heaven, to the convention of deathlords – whatever that is. Upon him saying that, I suddenly started remembering things… lots of things, and I’m seeing in my family history book that I am right in my recollection”

As the unicorn mare explained, then the history of house Ledaal – which began with the scarlet empresses fourth foal which lived to adulthood – had always had very good advisors, suspiciously good ones actually.

“You don’t think… sidereals?” Cash simply had to ask, finding this revelation far too juicy.

Lady Asina looked Cash straight in the eyes: “Oh without a doubt. Ledaal herself had a tutor according to the records here, and I am quite convinced that this ‘tutor’ was a sidereal – likely one that her mother, the empress, set her up with”

“So, the fortunes of House Ledaal are due to sidereal guidance?” Sullen Hoof wondered, suddenly worried that a house so influenced by what sounded like the bronze faction, would aggressive fight back against what the circle was doing in An Teng.

Lady Asina told of how house Ledaal, aside from basically owning all of the large port cities along the southern coast of the blessed isle as their holds and thus profited off the taxes and tariffs from trade goods coming in there, then the house itself was one of scholars and sorcerers specializing in first age lore – to the point that according to Lady Asina, house Ledaal was the only realm great house that had officially recognized the enormity of the threat of the undead from the instant Thorns fell, and had spent almost all of their resources since then researching the deathlords – much to the ridicule and scorn of the other houses, most of which considered such efforts a waste while the realm itself was in turmoil.

This pursuit of lore and combating the undead was mainly expressed in how quite a lot of house Ledaal sorcerers and scholars apparently worked outside of the blessed isle, seeking ancient texts and tomes, with most of them over the last many years operating in the scavenger lands, trying to understand the deathlords and their dark anathema.

“I get the impression that the convention of deathlords probably got a lot of their intelligence from Ledaal unicorns mapping out shadowlands and investigating early abyssal sightings” Speaker added.

Cash instantly saw where this was going, which put, Sully’s worries to ease: “So a bunch of realm sorcerers and scholars researching the undead for means to combat them – in the east… advised by sidereals – so they’re basically minions of the gold faction”

“From how Speaker explained heavenly politics, probably – or at least partially. House Ledaals second greatest source of income is via the sale of the ancient manuscripts and artifacts we recover to places like the heptagram, or other buyers in the realm. One of the primary investigations has been looking into how first age sorcery could be a solution to the undead problem – we’ve found no small amounts of texts, murals and other records that said that solars could make shadowlands go away – and then you lot show up, actually able to do that according to Speaker” Ledaal Asina said, looking at Sunrise.

Speaker nodded: “The long and short of it: How does offering House Ledaal access to the book of three rings sound, in exchange for them throwing their support in for Roseblock as Empress – and of course all Ledaal operations fully cooperating with the change of power here in An Teng? And maybe even them allying with Sunhill for fighting undead in the east?”

“You’re willing to present such an offer to your house leaders? Conspiring with anathema can be quite a hard sell” Cash said, looking intently at Lady Asina.

Her face turning quite serious, Lady Asina briefly had elemental lighting fizzle around her horn and mane: “House Ledaal is a house of sorcerers and scholars – not immaculates. We have all read the texts, we know damn well that half the books in Heptagram talk about Solars very differently than how they’re talked about in immaculate scripture. If you can offer my house access to the heavenly glory that is the Book of Three Rings, then you will find yourselves with powerful allies willing to join you in both politics and battle”

“It’s not just that – Lady Asina told me that a lot of Ledaal sorcerers in the east never attended Heptagram, but were apprenticed and trained in-house, which is actually quite illegal in the realm. They’re used to breaking imperial rules in their quest for knowledge, especially when working so far from the realm” Speaker elaborated, Lady Asina having told him of this the previous night.

The discussion went back and forth a bit more, focusing on how the circle could provide evidence of what they had to offer – and what house Ledaal could give in return, but all that was absolutely and completely derailed when Sunrise finally heaved and pulled her copy of the book of three rings from elsewhere, having spent the twenty minutes needed to recall it from that extra-dimensional storage.

The book itself was big, a large tome that looked to have countless pages. Lady Asina, having never seen anyone pull anything from elsewhere – for the terrestrial exalted did not have such powers – was quite surprised.

“I am not willing to give this to you, but perhaps you could somehow document it?” Sunrise suggested.

Looking at the large tome on the vast breakfast table, now sitting between orange jams and what had originally been freshly baked spiced morning breads, Lady Asina perked an eyebrow: “What am I looking at?”

“My full and complete copy of the book of three rings” Sunrise stated plainly and directly, sounding quite proud.

Lady Asina drew in a sharp breath, lightning once more fizzling around her horn and mane: “That… that’s the book of three rings?”

Floating it over to her, Cash pulled out his recorder of everlasting glories: “If you have one of these, you could document what’s in it – at least leafing through it a bit… should be more than enough proof to your house elders”

The unicorn mare eagerly accepted the book and began to leaf through it, marvelling at the seemingly endless font of sorcerous knowledge held within – but after a bit her expression changed, ultimately turning into one of perplexed confusion: “Wait… these spells here – this is impossible for a unicorn to do”

Peeking at the page she was on, Speaker nodded: “You’re in the section for adamant circle sorcery – only solars can learn that. Lunars and Sidereals are limited to sapphire circle sorcery, while unicorns can only shape spells of the emerald circle”

Lady Asina’s head spun: “Fascinating… but still, there won’t be a unicorn of my house who wouldn’t pay a fortune to just sit with this book for a day, transcribing spells and information!”

Another servant was called to bring the big jewellery chest, from which Lady Asina retrieved her own recorder of everlasting glories – the hologlyphic scanner and projection artifact recording clear images of the pages she leafed through in the tome.

Once Lady Asina was done, Sunrise noted: “Oh I’m sure many would love to read my book here – but this one is mine… I don’t intend to share the footnotes I’ve been scribbling. They can get their own if they’re serious about this”

The lightning around lady Asina, an elemental expression of elated mood, seemed to instantly zap down her body and ground into the stone tiles as her glee was replaced by great annoyance: “You cannot be serious – you possess what might be the only known full copy of the greatest source of first age sorcerous lore in existence!”

Speaker put a calming hoof on Lady Asina’s shoulder: “No, what she means is that we can make more”

“Make… more?” Lady Asina slowly and calmly stated through gritted teeth, appearing quite unsure of whether she should be upset or confused – or both – from such an impossible statement.

Nodding to Sunrise, Speaker said: “In order for Sunrise to learn the spell that let her clear shadowlands – like at Thorns – we had to first gain access to the book of three rings. We did so at the source: We found and liberated Spirimin, the ancient first age university, from its mad lunar queen and her army of half-caste apes. I am the new Chief Librarian of Sperimin, and Sunrise is the head of the college of Sorcery”

Again, the lightning of joy returned to Lady Asina – but this time far more intensely: Her anima flux erupted fully, small dragons of lightning circling around her playfully. The servants in attendance fled the room, knowing how lethal this flux was, while Speaker just put on his elemental immunity charm as Lady Asina’s chair was incinerated to dust from the lightning, letting her effortless turn and approach him: “You are the what!?!”

It was the late afternoon before the final negotiations had concluded. Lady Asina’s head spun, but she was certain that once she left An Teng for the blessed Isle, to the family stronghold in Arjuf, then she would be able to sell on them the idea that secretly cooperating with Sunhill for access to Sperimin, to THE book of three rings, and to all the lore still left in the colleges there would not be a difficult sell – even if it meant forging a secret alliance with Sunhill.

The only thing Lady Asina had to do first was basically sell off all the Ledaal holdings and operations in An Teng – this would take a while, though she was quite pleased when Cash offered to let Sunhill buy most of the operations – all under a shell company he would set up so it wouldn’t be too obvious what was happening at first, him retrieving a chest full of silver and gem from elsewhere which more than paid for most of it up front, much of that being what he had earned in Salt-Founded Glory. There would still be a question of drafting up the paperwork, having it notarized, but Cash equally helped create the sales documents in no time at all via his charms of lightning fast calligraphy.

All of this took a few more days, Cash, Speaker and Sunrise remaining in the city of the steel lotus for the duration, while Sullen Hoof left to continue their plans, going to spy on the midlands prince in the city of Prosperous Garden, which was but a few hundred miles upriver from the city of the steel lotus.

By the time Sullen Hoof returned, Cash and Lady Asina had finished their paperwork, it had been notarized, and messengers had been sent to the plantation, paper and lumber mill managers across An Teng to notify them that they had new owners – and would likely soon get new instructions on how to proceed, but that they should other keep on doing business as usual for the foreseeable future.

Sullen Hoof’s report from Prosperous Garden was also a good one: “We don’t have to implant dreams here – Prince Kiotaran there is a nationalist already, who will leap at the chance to support a free An-Teng”

This meant that the circle’s next stop would be either Adorned with Wisdom as a Saphire, the college city set on an island in the river of queens, or Jade Plum Citadel where the highland prince had his palace.

“I also discovered something interesting – which matches with what I found at the royal palace at Salt-Founded Glory: While the princes don’t have much in the form of ponies at arms, mainly just a few hundred bodyguards, then they have magical masks” Sullen Hoof added, sounding quite intrigued.

Sully’s own curiosity quickly infected the rest of the circle, Sully explaining that the few records, murals and other things he’d seen indicated that the princes each had a collection of magical artifact masks – masks that would let even mortals take commands of all the nearby animals that the mask represented, such as tigers and elephants.

“Interesting – that’ll make organizing a rebellion much easier, if we can draft jungle animals to fight for us” Sunrise mused.

Bidding farewell to Lady Asina, and hoping that her attempt to sell the house Ledaal leaders on what Sunhill had to offer would work out, the circle left on a ship up the river of queens.

“What about General Ledaal Shuri? If Asina leaves, what will we do about her?” Sullen Hoof asked, as the circle beheld the endless farmlands and plantations along the river.

Cash had a good answer ready: “Asina fixed that for us – sort of. Her official job was to oversee and manage all house Ledaal business here in An Teng, because they aren’t exactly known for uncovering ancient ruins or manuscripts here all that often… Shuri, aside from being the legion commander, was tasked with basically using the garrison as a way to prevent other houses from gaining undue power here in An Teng, but that’s going to be a non-issue now… so Asina left Shuri the Ledaal Compound, and wrote to her that Shuri should retire her commission and just live there in luxury instead”

Speaker found that to be a reasonable-sounding solution, except the general might not be all that reasonable: “But remember what we talked about yesterday – what if the general’s pride prevents her from cooperating?”

“Asina clued me in on that too. Shuri was forced in military service by her family due to her… carnal appetites. She is a horny unicorn, so all we’ll have to tempt her with is telling her how well the local brothels are stocked in the city, and tell her that she’s not needed to protect her family’s interests anymore for the time being” Cash said, sounding as if he had it all planned out.

Sunrise chuckled: “Oh really? And what will happen if Shuri does that, and then An Teng revolts?”

“Then Shuri will have to start actually paying to use those brothels – or return to the blessed isle and use house Cynis brothels instead – Asina already wrote and sent a letter saying all of this to Shuri, I just helped write it and added a few spicy charms to it, to ensure that she’ll do it” Cash explained, enjoying the feeling of a good plan coming together.

Not sensing anything worth objecting to, Speaker only had to ask: “Ok, So Shuri will retire or take leave – fine – what about the half a legion at Dragon’s Jaw?”

“I could show up, as Shuri, to mess with them – worked fine in Port Calin” Sullen Hoof suggested.

Speaker liked that plan.

A few days later the circle arrived at Adorned with Wisdom as a Saphire – which turned out to have the most first age architecture the circle had so far seen in all of An Teng. There they found more than a dozen schools, teaching all manner of subjects. This certainly fit the description of what Bitter Copal had talked about, it being a place of learning, where new ideas were discussed eagerly by young tengese – tengese who were far from their controlling families, allowing them to express their own opinions for the first time.

It wasn’t difficult for the circle to see how such a place was a breeding ground for trains of thought the realm might not want to see flourish – it was far from the realm garrison and the satrap, and there weren’t really any dragonblooded attended the place, only a few realm scholars perusing the old libraries there, but since they weren’t trying to dominate the place, then they were on very good terms with the local students and faculty, staying well out of any politics being discussed.

Inquiring into Bitter Copal revealed little: What he had said about his own academic record was verified, and the circle was told that he had gotten along well with the few unicorns he had met – which also helped explain why he had become so bitter following the absolute betrayal and ill treatment he had gotten during his job as a ship surgeon’s assistant.

Traveling further up river, which took a good week and a half by ship, the circle arrived at Thousand Dragons Lake – at the foothills to the fire mountains. A tributary river going south led to Jade Plum Citadel, a large city by eastern standards, though by tengese norms it was just a town – Cash estimated the population to be around three quarters of that of Great Forks, while Sunrise quickly remarked that it seemed that the highlands appeared to have as many hashish plantations as Greatforks did, if not more. A few cursory inhalations of the local air confirmed a latent sweet scent, the smell of smoked hashish – and Cash wasn’t slow to note that the locals seemed quite mellow compared to the midlands and the lowlands.

Sullen Hoof’s investigation into the local prince in his palace of darkly gleaming onyx, returning to inform the circle of a unique opportunity with Prince Josei of Notable Genius.

“Please tell me that’s just another silly title, like the one from the first prince?” Sunrise groaned, wondering if all of the tengese nobles had silly self-styled titles.

With a calming gesture, Sullen Hoof was about to explain, when Cash cut in: “I read the records back at Saphire – every tengese noble who can afford it sends their children there to study, but in the case of Josei then his monicker is not a self-styled one like the lowland prince: Josei is some kind of savant, a life-long scholar”

“True, and his latest pursuit is crime scene investigation and forensics – because a year ago Josei’s now late wife Dawning Snow fell down some stairs and died. No witnesses, but Josei suspects foul play. I got a good read on him: If we can conclusively prove to him what happened, murder or not, we’ll have his ear, his gratitude and his cooperation” Sullen Hoof quickly stated.

Speaker found that to be a worthwhile pursuit – certainly kinder than just messing with the prince’s head to ensure his cooperation in the uprising.

Cash managed to arrange an audience via the prince’s daughter Midnight Pearl, presenting the circle under their cover of him being an eastern gem merchant, with the rest of the circle being his various aids and retainers – Speaker specifically being introduced as Cash’s doctor and assayer.

“What exactly is an assayer?” Speaker had to quickly whisper to Cash, as they stood outside the office of Midnight Pearl, while the princess – who was the apparent manager of the royal administration – was processing Cash’s request.

Cash briefly considered his answer, so he could word it in a way that would make the most sense to Speaker: “An evaluator – someone who checks and verifies the quality of the goods I buy and sell”

A servant came out of the office, calling the circle just as Speaker nodded in understanding.

Midnight Pearl was a beautiful young mare, appearing to be roughly the same age as Sunrise – but her eyes were wise and her appearance stately: She wore jewellery befit of a kingdom where plenty of gems and precious metals were mined, and her office was replete with shelves full of scrolls and ledgers: “Cash Charmer, your request states that you wish to speak with my father regarding a bulk purchase of uncut gems, particularly large sapphires – why is that?”

The voice of the princess was beautiful and soft, but her words carried authority and demanded respect – this was clearly a young woman who knew how to wield power. Cash responded in kind, his charms lending a harmless air to him: “I have clients back home that will pay me a king’s ransom for good sapphires, and I employ a skilled cadre of gem-cutters for the same purpose. The order I’m trying to satisfy here is big enough to warrant traveling all the way here – originally, I had planned to seek out Gem, but when we arrived at the Lap and heard of the terrible events there, we detoured here instead, seeking safer lands to trade in”

Speaker found himself nodding, knowing full well that Cash was buying the gems for the gem-cutters in Sunhill, so they could supply cut stones for the enchanted links atop the rail pillars – but he also knew what Cash was selling the rail pillars for to the various kingdoms that desired access to the network at quite a markup, so Cash wasn’t wrong regarding the potential profits.

The princess appeared satisfied with Cash’s story, but just before she was about to say that him, her expression took on the subtlest hint of sorrow – something Cash didn’t just pick up on, but had hoped to see: “Very well – but my father the prince is quite busy these days. I can oversee the gem presentations and trade negotiations with you, if you can wait a few days until I have time”

With a face that didn’t just radiate concern, but had charms piling it on, Cash replied: “Is something wrong princess? I was under the impression that purchases of the scale I’m asking for had to be overseen by the prince himself”

“It’s just… Last year my mother died – my father is convinced she was murdered. He has had little time for the affairs of state or trade since then” the princess said, Cash’s charms having subtly rendered her at ease with saying such things to strangers for the time being. She didn’t even catch herself in doing so, nor wonder why she had said all that.

Looking briefly to Speaker, Cash gave the princess a forthright expression: “Perhaps we can help? My assayer is a skilled and trained doctor to boot, quite the expert in the arts of investigation – he has helped solve more than one murder investigation both before and during my employ”

The princess appeared quite happy to hear that, clearly wanting her father to get closure to his sorrow, that he might find peace. She said that if Cash and his group could help with the investigation that would be most welcome.

A subsequent meeting with the prince got the circle a retelling of the known events regarding the death of the queen: She had been found at the bottom of a long staircase, quite dead – there were no witnesses, and the heavy stone structure of the palace meant that nobody had heard anything either – at least nobody willing to step forward.

Speaker did a cursory investigation around the staircase – of course, since it was a year since the accident then there was little left… but despite that, thanks to Speaker’s charms, he was able to detect several smears and scrapes along the walls by the stairs and its banisters that matched the queen’s makeup and hoof-paint on the day of the event.

The prince was quite impressed at this, especially at the speed that Cash was able to observe such trace details.

This let Speaker figure out how the queen had tumbled down the stairs, revealing a spinning pattern – unfortunately the stairs themselves were cleaned regularly, so any scrapes and smears on them had been lost, making it impossible to see if there were any signs of the queen having slipped, or having been pushed.

“Curses. Your aid is the best news I had heard since Dawning Snow’s death… is there anything else you can do?” the prince bemoaned, not acting terribly dramatic, just understandably disappointed.

Cash had a ponder, then looked to Sunrise: “Sunrise Glow, the priestess in my employ can pray to the golden lord. You seek justice, you seek truth, and you being left in the dark is an injustice of its own – we can try to get the gods to show us what had happened”

The prince agreed to this, but sounded resigned enough that the circle knew the prince didn’t expect much from it.

Of course, Cash had no intention of Sunrise praying to the Golden Lord – she was to send a sorcerous message to a sidereal and have them do a reading of the tapestry of fate.

“Why didn’t we just open with that? The sidereals can pull that information easily” Speaker wondered.

Cash looked around the guest quarters they were staying the night in, the nice mix of wood carvings and inlaid stone being quite pretty: “If we walked up to the prince and said that we asked heaven what had happened, and then pointed out some random guilty party, do you think he would have believed us? Right now, we’ve established that we can discover things his investigations had not – now he’ll believe what our ‘prayer’ will reveal”

Sunrise frowned ever slightly: “And what sidereal should we message? Heath Rose is likely in the east”

“Message May Flower, tell her she can get some free tickets for my restaurant if-“ Sullen Hoof began, when a scroll tied to a raiton come out of nowhere and smacked him in the face, making for a lot of noise, feathers and bird shit.

Holding back her laughter, Sunrise finished up her messenger spell – so that May Flowers pre-emptive answer would fit the request.

The scroll contained the information the circle had just requested, along with information on where to drop off the tickets for the restaurant for May Flower. The information itself was rather simple, Cash looking down right disappointed: “Says that one of the older maids pushed her – doesn’t say why”

“I didn’t ask for a motive – I’m sure we can extract that when we apprehend her” Cash said, sounding almost bored.

Asking around for the maid in question, the circle was directed to the palace larder, where the old mare was busy doing an inventory.

“Is that her?” Speaker wondered, looking at the old mare in question. She had the usual tengese appearance: The flat mane, the extra fold at the eyes, and nice clothing as befit a senior royal servant.

The circle had deliberated a bit on how to extract a confession, Sully saying that he had just the charm – so he led their inquiry: “Are you Polished Amethyst?”

The old mare turned around, putting down the stylus she had in her mouth and the clay tablet she had been writing on: “Yes? And who might you be?”

“We are investigators working for the prince – did you kill the late queen Dawning Snow?” Sullen Hoof inquired, using a charm that would force all but the most wilful to answer truthfully.

Putting the stylus and clay tablet into her well-made saddlebags – bags embroidered with the crest of the royal household – the mare almost casually replied: “Of course I did”

…it was only a few seconds later that she seemed to register what she had said – looking quite shocked that she had blurted out such an incriminating statement.

The prince, having stayed out of sight but in ear-shot, looked even more surprised: “Amethyst, you… how could you?”

Through some very quick and careful wording, Cash had the impromptu interrogation and trial of Polished Amethyst moved to the prince’s study – mainly to make sure that only those who needed to heard anything, since the motives or names of possible co-conspirators had not been aired yet.

“Amethyst I trusted you! You’ve wet-nursed my children! How could you!” Prince Josei of Notable Genius asked, sounding understandably upset.

Polished Amethyst, standing proudly before her accusers, had only sneers for the circle – but to the prince she bowed her head: “I only labour for the honor of your house”

“Don’t you dare give me the stranger’s run-around!” Prince Josei shouted, appearing to sense what the old mare was about to do.

Cash found the display endlessly amusing, seeing the tengese method of handling foreigners by feigning ignorance and deference used on one of their own – but that’s when Speaker whispered to him: “She’s not lying – she really meant that”

Speaker’s lie-detector charm was well known to the circle – and mortals had no way of veiling their lies to it, so Cash’s mind instantly tried to discern a motive based on the statement and the fact that it seemed true to the killer: “Your highness – I believe she means that. Tell me Polished Amethyst, why did the prince’s house need its honor protected from the erstwhile queen?”

Unlike Sullen Hoof, Cash didn’t know a charm to compel answers – but he had a host of other charms that made it impossible to deny, reject or ignore anything he said, to which end Polished Amethyst appeared unhappy, but ultimately compelled to answer: “Your highness would not have known – but she was a great source of shame to your house”

Speaker confirmed again that the old mare truly believed this, which of course prompted a series of follow-up questions, revealing that the late queen had been an absolute terror to the servant staff and other suppliers to the royal court. According to Polished Amethyst, who was able to produce quite a few letters written and signed by the late queen to suppliers due to her current position as royal quartermare, then the queen had a well-known and ugly habit of being very rude and downright vicious to servants and suppliers that displeased her.

“If these letters of reprimand to the local seamstresses and bakers you have here are any indication, then her rudeness appears well proven – but tell me, what would provoke her to such extreme actions?” Cash eloquently inquired, sensing that a proper understanding of the queen’s behaviour was needed for a fair verdict.

The old mare sighed deeply, her expression to the prince pained – it appearing quite clear that she wasn’t comfortable telling such things to him… but she didn’t have much choice at that point: “She had dreams of being treated as finely as visiting unicorns – she hated the deference they had to be shown, and the demands for anything they asked of. Thus, she thought that her and you my lord, had to get even better treatment”

Speaker shared a knowing looking with Sunrise, the revelation that this bad behaviour had been borne of a dislike of foreign nobles being treated as well – if not better – than herself, certainly fit what the circle had witnessed so far.

Polished Amethyst added that in the last few weeks of the queen’s life she had even started plotting to poison the next unicorns scheduled to visit – something that would undoubtably have provoked a very negative reaction from the satrap and the realm garrison.

“Not to mention that you, in the position of quartermare, would have been a prime suspect in such a poisoning” Sullen Hoof added, having spotted the more personal angle in the old mare’s scheme.

The quartermare didn’t deny that she knew well enough that such a poisoning attempt would likely have been put on her, as master of the royal stores, or some other innocent – perhaps someone working in the kitchens. Regardless, she had found this utterly unacceptable and dishonourable, which was why she ultimately pushed the queen down the staircase when she had spotted an opportunity.

The prince of course found the idea that his wife had plotted to poison visiting unicorns quite hard to believe – but Polished Amethyst, being the royal quartermare, was able to reveal where the queen had stockpiled arsenic. Speaker verified the poison, and Cash pointed out that according to the princess’s calendar, then the first realm nobles to visit after the queen’s death were a group of Ragara scions, including one unicorn: “…and that unicorn might have been able to survive the poison – but the mortal scions? They would have been stone dead”

Prince Josei reeled at the implications of such a murder plot: “That would have been the end of my house!”

“Exactly. I did what I had to, for the honor of your house” Polished Amethyst reiterated, sounding quite certain and firm in her beliefs.

Speaker felt very happy that he wasn’t the one who had to pass judgement then and there, for the prince looked horribly conflicted.

More questioning revealed that Polished Amethyst had not told a soul of neither the poison plot, or her murder – arguing adamantly that she had not committed murder in order to be rewarded or glorified. Indeed, she seemed quite resigned to the fact that she would die for her actions… except at that point the prince didn’t really seem all that interested in ordering that – mainly because doing so would likely leave others asking why Polished Amethyst had murdered the queen, and if the queen had been as vile as the evidence indicated, then the highlands might well rise up in discontent against the prince’s verdict.

It wasn’t a comfortable conclusion – but it was a conclusion none the less. Polished Amethyst was sworn to secrecy and ordered into retirement, with a small but serviceable royal retirement-stipend to keep her mouth shut.

Chapter 58 Corruption of Designs

The mantis stylist consumes soup with both hands, so rapidly that neither ever gets wet.

…

The revelation of his late wife’s horrible behaviour, and the motivation of the killer, left Prince Josei of Notable Genius and his daughter Princess Midnight Pearl in grief, neither feeling terribly interested in doing business with the circle – but that was when Cash struck, using his charms to intuit that right then and there, in that moment of sorrow and weakness, was when to make their move: “The injustice you’ve suffered was ultimately caused by the oppression and ill treatment that the realm levies upon you. You told us yourself that your wife was from a lesser noble house, but you chose her as your bride for her beauty and her wits, lest a vacationing realm unicorn take her for a concubine and mar her virtue – she likely grew up resenting the realm, fearing that she might be taken any day”

Prince Josei just looked at Cash, not with anger or disgust – but with a resigned sorrow. He knew that Cash was right, but what could he do?

Sunrise stepped forth, joining Cash: “Last night we did not pray to the golden lord – we didn’t have to. We can see the injustice this land suffers clear as day – and we wish to help”

This made the clever prince confused. If they hadn’t gotten the information that Polished Amethyst had killed his wife from the gods, how else would they have been able to identify her and get her to confess so easily?

“In ancient times we were known as lawgivers – bringers of peace, prosperity and most importantly justice” Sunrise continued, angling for a very specific response from the scholarly royal.

Midnight Pearl felt her father’s attention slip from her and their shared sorrow in a way she knew well: This was how he behaved when something tickled his mind and reminded him of something he had read somewhere: “Father, what is it?”

Turning to the circle, prince Josei looked at them with inquisitive and sceptical eyes: “You speak of the ancient masters of An Teng, from before the rise of the dragonblooded host… the ones who named the golden lord”

Just as planned, everyone flared their caste marks. The prince and the princess both stumbled backwards in surprise, a couple of guards hearing the commotion and entering the study – only to find their lords prostrating themselves before the circle: “Your highnesses, are you ok?”

It seemed that Prince Josei of notable genius was well read into the ancient past of An Teng, back when Solars had ruled the lands and showered it with their blessings. To be faced with four of such legends of old, reincarnated – it had shocked him deeply.

“We came here at the bidding of a tengese pony we knew, one who also suffered greatly under cruel realm masters. We are here to see the ponies of An Teng free, that they need no longer bow their heads or sow flowers for foreign masters” Cash said, his words so honeyed with essence that Speaker could feel his teeth rot.

It thus came to be that the prince of the An Teng highlands swore solemnly to aid the coming revolution.

Leaving the Jade Plum Citadel, the mountain-side fortress city and capital of the highlands, the circle flew north – river travel no longer being all that possible for where they were going: No river led to the pinnacle of mercy, the mountain where the golden lord had his terrestrial residence.

“That went well” Cash said, being all smiles.

Everyone agreed, as the mountains zipped by their magical cloud. Speaker was able to recognize the landscape from when he and Shimmer had travelled to meet the golden lord – of course this time they knew to keep a watchful eye for sidereal ambushes, of which they found none.

Landing at the bridge leading to the golden lord’s palace, with the two massive statues of celestial lions guarding the way – the terrestrial manifestations of the actual celestial lion spirits that stood guard immaterially at the bridge to the palace. That day at the landing before the bridge there were no mortal supplicants, so the circle didn’t have to pretend to be anything other than their true selves.

Sunrise quickly stepped up to the lions: “Greetings. Is the golden lord presiding today?”

With charms that let one actually see and hear spirits, it was possible to witness the two celestial lions first use their own powers to sense what kind of pony had made such a bold inquiry – after which they simply nodded and stepped aside, not that their immaterial spirit forms could have blocked the solars, but it was a polite if silent way of inviting the circle inside.

Walking across the bridge, Sullen Hoof – wanting to make sure that everyone was on the level – asked: “So this god, he’s just the god of An Teng? He doesn’t have any other domains?”

Speaker thought for a moment, then answered: “He’s a celestial god – not just a terrestrial one, namely he was tasked by Celestia to be the judge and sanctioned arbiter of the exalted. I’m guessing he moved here because with the usurpation he didn’t see heaven’s bureaucracy supporting his idea of justice anymore”

“Oh, so he would be a supporter of solars taking over creation?” Sunrise wondered.

Unsure of how to answer that, Speaker took a moment to ponder. Cash in the meantime added: “I remember him as just the straight up god of judgement – the supreme god of judges… and I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely sure I’m all that happy to meet him in person”

“Are you afraid he’ll judge you as unworthy or wicked?” Sullen Hoof said in obvious jest.

Laughing off the joke, Cash replied: “Heavens no – I stand by everything I have done in this life. It’s my last one I’m more worried about. I specifically remember avoiding him and his inquiries last time around… and not for any good reasons”

Everyone in the circle knew of what wickedness Cash spoke. Lilith had not been subtle when she had laid out his past incarnation’s crimes against her – but at the same time they had worked hard to redeem those actions, Sullen Hoof pointing out: “But we got rid of all your old oaths to her. That has to count for something”

“Let’s hope so – losing Fire Orchid was bad enough, I don’t want to see Sunhill be short another solar” Cash said with a voice full of apprehension.

Sunrise agreed wholeheartedly, but also added: “Now that you say that, I think we should ask him to judge each of us – before we change the topic to An Teng – so he can know that we truly are worthy to ask for his aid”

It was an interesting gambit, and the priests at the end of the bridge found the request of what appeared to be four random supplicants to be not that out of the ordinary – though it seemed that most petitioners came for a redress of grievances, not to be personally evaluated.

The circle was about to led to a shrine where they could pray, when a group of other priests came rushing at them – it seemed that the golden lord himself had sensed the true nature of the circle, and so had demanded to see them in person.

Speaker quietly wondered if playing along with the original priests’ request that they just go and pray, would factor into the judgement they were about to receive, as they walked the beautifully carved halls of the palace-temple. The carvings on the walls showed stylized scenes of the golden lord standing tall over all things, both mortals and other gods, rendering the even-hoofed and fair judgement that he was so well known for.

In a grand hall, part throne-room and part inner temple shrine, with much of everything made of gold and polished lapis lazuli, the circle was to stand before a massive statue of the golden lord. It didn’t take many moments from the circle arriving before the statue faded, the priests present dropping to the ground in abject worship: Their god did not manifest often, but when he did, they knew that his judging gaze would be upon everyone he saw.

“Goldy you fat bastard, you owe me a bottle of celestial wine!” Sunrise called out in old realm.

For the rest of the circle, everyone’s eyes went wide, looking at Sunrise in disbelief.

The golden lord, standing two heads taller than even the tallest of ponies, clad in golden robes, appeared as a normal tengese stallion – with a massive bushy black beard and even greater moustache, looking at Sunrise with his just judging gaze: “Who would speak so disrespectfully to the golden lord?”

“You know who I am – you know who all of us are. You’ve never paid up on the bet we made last we met” Sunrise stated firmly.

Rising from his massive throne, the golden lord approached Sunrise – standing twice her height: “…oh I do remember young solar, but are you simply here to hold me to that old debt?”

“Of course not. I have no interest in that – but I figured it was the fastest way we could prove who we are, and who we were. We are here to ask you to render judgement upon us, that we might be known as just or in need of penance” Sunrise said, looking the golden lord right in the eyes.

The god’s face rippled as a smile far broader than what a mortal could produce crept across his face: “Oh there is no doubt of who you are… or what you were – and yet you seek my judgement? You, who’s last incarnation’s hubris was so great that Celestia turned her eyes from Creation in disgust?”

“Did I stutter?” Sunrise said, fearlessly maintaining her gaze at the god.

Raising a mighty hoof, the golden lord called out: “Bring forth the Mother of Princes!”

A dozen priests and monks rushed off, returning shortly with an ornate cart laden with a great orichalcum sceptre – the eponymously named ‘Mother of Princes’. Sullen Hoof noted that the sceptres of the three An Teng princes appeared to have been modelled in the likeness of the god’s sceptre.

With the sceptre held high, the golden lord gazed intently upon the circle, going from left to right: “Sullen Hoof, chosen of Celestia, of the night caste. You seek to punish the wicked and aid the needy – in labouring to ensure these actions, I consider you just”

The solar culinarian let out a sigh of relief, as the golden lord’s gaze moved to Sunrise: “Sunrise Glow, chosen of Celestia, of the zenith caste. You have done the ponies of Chung Do a great injustice, but you did great penance for it and through the support of your friends found the courage to face your own fear of misusing your power. Through this display of humility and penance I will render the judgement that you are indeed just”

Sunrise teared up, finally having gotten the validation of heaven itself that despite her earlier faults and misdeeds, she truly was a good pony. Any lingering fear she had, was gone – and she looked endlessly relieved.

The sceptre then passed over to hover above Cash, who wasn’t afraid of his actions in his current life – but he dearly dreaded judgement for what he had learned of his past incarnation. The golden lord’s voice rumbled: “Cash Charmer, you… you are not without sin, but little of what you have done falls under my purview of injustice, for I rarely bother judging vice lest it is a scale demanding my attention. Your previous incarnation though, him I would love to have rendered judgement upon – but his crimes died with him, and I have always maintained that guilt never passes over with reincarnation”

Cash looked ready to faint, but the golden lord bid him stand proud: “You should be commended. The old oaths you rendered moot could easily have led you to such excesses of unjust behaviour – but you not only resisted that temptation, I sense that the new oaths you are making are surprisingly even-hoofed and worded fairly. I can only hope that for the rest of your exalted life, that you remain this good”

Speaker smiled as he saw the almost deliriously happy Cash, with the shadow of the golden lord’s sceptre passing over to him: “Bright Machine Speaker… you have done so much good”

Immensely proud of his many achievements, Speaker smiled as the divine arbiter of the righteousness of the exalted weighed his actions: “While I see you having done much good, then your record remains stained”

It remained what? Speaker appeared quite perplexed.

“In the city of Chung Do, you once utterly mutilated a pony for no other reason than to vent your fury – you had far simpler and less abominable options available at the time, but in your rage you saw none of them. For this sin – in missing the mark for righteous action – you have yet to atone properly”

Oh, that one… that gang member Speaker had ‘disassembled’ as a way to convince her to talk. Speaker remembered how utterly traumatized she had been – how he had asked Cash to lessen the impact of the ordeal on her, but in the end, they had saved Chung Do from both starvation and from a besieging army! Wasn’t that enough?

“Your lordship – I don’t understand… we were trying to save tens of thousands of ponies, and this criminal was withholding critical information from us” Speaker pleaded, but the golden lord’s gaze was hard and harsh.

The rest of the circle seemed to remember the incident well enough, but they held their tongues.

“Your motivations can be as noble as you want – but your actions were reprehensible” the golden lord stated slowly and firmly, his tone undeniable and his expression very much communicating that this was not up for discussion.

His head bowed in shame; Speaker relented: “What can I do to atone? I have healed untold numbers, duelled deathlords for the fate of creation – what else can I do?”

Shrinking down to Speaker’s size, the golden lord faced Speaker – and bid him raise his gaze to match his: “You succinctly point out the paradox of justice. If I permit a good deed to simply cancel out an act of villainy, then those who do great things may well feel emboldened to commit equal acts of evil, simply because they knew that they can get away with it in the eyes of heaven. Ten thousand random good deeds cannot cancel out a single act of true evil – only true penance can do that… but you are right, you have done an almost endless amount of good deeds since then, and I can tell that you are more than willing to do even more”

Holding his breath in anticipation of the golden lord’s final judgement, Speaker dared not look away.

The golden lord smiled, his bushy beard lending his face a kind and sage appearance: “Your sentence is simple: Don’t do it again, and be mindful with this warning that with greater goals meant to benefit the masses, you always risk sacrificing the individuals”

Speaker’s mind raced, trying to run through the various deeds he had done over the last couple of years, trying to sus out when and where he might have hurt innocents in his actions. Thorns came to mind first, when in his conjured warstrider he had crushed a few buildings – and similarly in Port Calin. The golden lord saw this pang of guilt on Speaker’s face, and found it good: “To be chosen by heaven is a heavy burden to bear. Your guilt suits you well, that you do not become blinded by hubris. You counselled your friend Sunrise Glow when she feared that using her powers would lead to her corruption, now you would do equally wisely to remember to seek and heed the council of your peers and allies in times of crisis and doubt”

The deep thrumming of the golden lord’s voice, and the sage words he rendered upon the circle, was a humbling experience. It reminded the circle that for all their power, then the eye of heaven was still upon them – and while heaven might not move to stop them, then that didn’t equate to tacit approval of everything they did.

“Thank you, Golden Lord – it is refreshing to be reminded that even as exalts of the goddess of perfection, that we are not perfect, and will likely never be – no matter how much we labour towards that goal” Sunrise said, her feeling of vindication and elation making her hooves feel lighter and her head more easily held high.

The golden lord returned to his original greater form and sat down on his throne again, his priests carting off his heavenly sceptre: “And thank you oh lords of Sunhill, for coming to me – for long have I awaited the return of the chosen of Celestia… yet none arrived”

A table and seating arrangements were brought forth, transitioning the audience from an official judgement to more of a social visit among celestials.

Once tea has been served, Cash finally broached the topic of An Teng’s freedom: “Golden Lord, we also came here to discuss a more local matter pertaining to your purview”

With a mighty eyebrow raised, the golden lord nodded to Cash: “A local matter – one pertaining to An Teng?”

“Indeed. For we were originally summoned here by a group of ponies who work towards a goal of a free An Teng, or at least one no longer ruled by a foreign power. We have travelled An Teng, and witnessed the abuses and oppression that the realm imposes – from dictates regarding what is to be farmed, to the detriment of local food supplies, to centuries of cultural oppression – and we seek your blessing and ideally also your involvement… for it is known that you on occasion council the three princes of An Teng, which would be a perfect way to start this uprising, once the time is right” Cash explained, noting that more than half of the golden lord’s priests and other mortal servants appeared to nod along to what he was saying.

The golden lord’s expression darkened briefly – this was clearly a big ask and a touchy subject for him, but then he began nodding: “I would be a fool to reject this offer – for the ponies of An Teng have prayed to me for justice for millennia and I have waited just as long for Celestia’s champions to return and be the deliverers of that justice”

More negotiations followed – there was no small amount of minutia that had to be agreed upon – plus the caveat that the question of who was to become the high king or queen of An Teng, the ruler of three princes, had not been agreed upon with Bitter Copal and his coven.

To the circle’s surprise then the golden lord wasn’t all that surprised to hear that a demon worshiping cult had taken root in An Teng, for he knew the tengese to be stubborn and crafty – and if legitimate solutions could not be found, then it only stood to reason that darker sources of power would be sought: “…and for all her might, then the pale lady – my counterpart and fellow god of An Teng, isn’t well known for being very reliable when it comes to such things – so the tengese sought other dark sources of power to empower them for freedom”

The circle had heard of the pale lady in their investigations of tengese religious customs – she was the local goddess of death and chaos, basically everything that could be said to be the opposite of the golden lord’s purview of justice and fairness.

Of course, the golden lord was just as happy to know that the circle had helped reign in the demonic influence of the cult.

In the end, the golden lord said that he would await a message from the circle that the armies they needed had been raised and were moved into position – then he would reveal himself to An Teng and declare a time for uprising.

With this, the circle bid their farewells and returned to the coven, their new challenge being to convince Bitter Copal to retool his plans of revolution to fit with everything the circle had done during their grand tour of An Teng.

To absolutely nobody’s surprise, then Bitter Copal didn’t like the idea of the circle actually cooperating with what he called realm oppressors – even if it would make the revolution easier to pull off.

“And the lowland prince – that realm toady – he has to die!” Bitter Copal stated firmly, the disgust in his voice quite harsh.

Sunrise shot Bitter Copal a serious frown, seeing the apologetic looks from the rest of the coven – with even Lee having learned during his weeks with the coven that Copal’s stubborn hatred was quite difficult to budge – but Sunrise wasn’t having it: “He received the dreams we gave him. As a mortal he will not have been able to resist the charm-enhanced messaging in them – he will be entirely on board with the rebellion. Killing him is counterproductive at this point”

“No! He has spent years whoring out his family to the realm – we cannot let that kind of debasement of our royal bloodlines go unpunished” Bitter Copal replied, sounding less vengeful and more sad about the situation than anything else.

That was another detail that had surprised the circle: It turned out that during Bitter Copal’s studies at Saphire he had researched his family tree – an apparently quite common pursuit among noble or wealthy tengese – and he had found that he was the last descended of an ancient royal line of An Teng. This line had not just been of a regional princely family line – no, it was of an ancient high queen’s family line, giving Bitter Copal a claim to the high throne of An Teng.

That Bitter Copal fancied himself in charge of An Teng didn’t really surprise the circle all that much – for such was quite common among rebel leaders – but that he actually had a legit claim, that was a surprise. Of course, letting a demonically mutated pony take the throne would likely be a very difficult sell – but the coven had worked on a solution for that, indeed they had apparently been hard at work with Lee on puzzling out what demonic charms they could ‘safely’ use while in public.

To this end, while Bitter Copal accepted that upon his rise to the throne as high king of An Teng, that prince Laxhander of the glorious reign should simply be shamed for his behaviour, but not punished that, then the rest of the coven demonstrated the demonic charms that they and Lee had judged safe enough to use.

Shirin, the strangely purple-skinned pony with no mane. Black orb eyes and needle teeth did a seductive twirl before the circle. Her shadow reared up and covered her in liquid darkness: “We learned this for the purpose of espionage – the illusion is quite impressive, especially when improved through a mastery of eldritch secrets”

The liquid shadow withdrew, revealing Shirin once more – but now she no longer appeared as a deformed half-demonic pony. She looked like a perfectly normal pony: Her coat was light brown, her mane a few shades darker, her eyes greens and her teeth normal. Her brass piercings and the faux-mane it gave her was nowhere to be seen.

“That is… wow… I can’t even see through that with essence sight” Speaker said, trying his hardest to peer through the illusory disguise.

The rest of the coven demonstrated similar charm use, though only Ashi of Six Wheels was able to match Shirin’s mastery of disguises – for Bitter Copal and Fallen Twin their disguises could be seen through with essence sight.

“Alright – that is certainly impressive… and I can see with Ashi that you can even change what your essence appears as, both in potency and flavour” Sullen Hoof remarked, sounding genuinely impressed.

Fallen Twin agreed that the charm was quite useful, letting them move about in public and avoid detection: “Using these, we can safely lead armies across An Teng without anyone getting frightened by it”

“That’s certainly one advantage – but how long does the disguise last? And will charm use disrupt it?” Sunrise wondered, sounding sceptical. To her surprise Shirin said that none in the coven had found anything that disrupted the charm, though using too much essence would of course light up one’s caste mark and anima.

Lee was quite happy with the charm, but his almost giddy glee made it quite obvious that he had prepared more than that with the coven to show the circle.

“It all mainly depends on what Yozi is our master – we can only intuit the charms of our master on our own, while anything else has to be taught to us. I was trained under the auspices of Adorjan, the silent wind, to move silently and across all surfaces – good skills for a spy or assassin” Ashi noted, demonstrating by galloping up the walls and going around in circles on the ceiling at a speed far beyond what even the swiftest mortal pony would ever be able to match.

Speaker looked to Fallen Twin: “Your bonded demon, the unwoven adjudicator, that was a bloodhound, right? Bloodhounds fall under Malfeas’s soul hierarchy – so is malfeas your master that way around?”

“Correct, but Shirin’s is a neomah demon – though she was officially schooled under the auspice of the Ebon Dragon, as an infiltrator and source of chaos” Fallen Twin noted, explaining that the yozis didn’t mind ‘borrowing’ each-others minions if it suited their designs.

Bitter Copal, with an annoyed look on his face, noted that of their coven the only yozi not represented was arguably the one they needed the most: “We have no malefactor in our midst – the yozi title for their corrupted zenith caste exalted. Cecelyne handles them, and her charms primarily focus on marshalling and empowering a personal cult – her organizational charms would have been endlessly useful for us”

Ashi put a gelatinous and semi-transparent hoof on Bitter Copal’s bandage wrapped body: “I know – but that’s how we ended up discovering that thing, right?”

“What… thing?” Speaker said curiously.

Fallen Twin gestured to two small black flames that hovered over his shoulders. With a thought, they winked out and an impressive suit of armor made of firmin resin appeared over him: “Like this. We combined the Ebon Dragon’s manic desire for unrestricted freedom with Adorjan’s tendency to shed anything that burdens him – turning a worn suit of armor into these small wisps of black flame, and then back again – it’s a storage charm”

None in the circle found that to be terribly impressive. Fire Orchid had known the lightning hauberk gesture – which permitted her to stash a worn suit of armor elsewhere, and retrieve it on herself in an instant, without any telltale bits of black flame revealing anything.

“We understand, Lee knows that charm too – but the point is that the yozis do not know this charm!” Shirin said, sounding oddly giddy about that strange fact.

It turned out that while the infernals were able to develop new charms on their own, then doing so had to be done within the thematic auspices of their yozi master. Fallen Twin’s charms had to fit Malfeas’ dominating and brash nature – while Shirin would have to develop subtle and sneaky charms, to fit with the Ebon Dragon’s sly spiritual theme. Ashi put it well: “If we develop such a new charm – and during our training we were very much encouraged to do so – then our yozi masters would instantly learn that charm as well… but this mix of two yozi’s essence, to create a new effect… they aren’t learning that”

Everyone in the circle could sense that this information was probably important – but it was difficult for them to exactly discern why. Sullen Hoof asked the pertinent question: “How did you learn that they haven’t figured out your new power?”

Bitter Copal gestured to Sullen Hoof: “Officially I am still in good standing with my demon masters – not long after you were gone, after we had shown this charm to Lee, I journeyed to Malfeas. Officially it was to report my progress and to pick up supplies, but I also made inquiries… quiet ones, learning that these new charms were not known to the yozis”

“I hope you didn’t reveal anything about us – or the rest of your coven being here?” Sullen Hoof wondered, sounding as if he knew well enough that his question was a bit blunt, but returning to the demon realm while planning to betray them didn’t sound well to him.

Shirin nodded, joining Ashi and Bitter Copal: “I taught Copal a way out of that. There is a fun little charm from the Ebon Dragon, one that truly makes you believe any lie you say – makes it really hard for any lie detection charm to sus it out. I taught this to Copal before he left for Malfeas”

“…and they didn’t notice him using that charm?” Sunrise wondered.

As the coven presented it, then the yozis were actually willing to believe that their agents used such charms – chiefly to aid in their cover stories while operating in Creation – so they had no objections or inquiries on the topic, as detecting that such a charm was in use didn’t tell you anything about what lie it was making you temporarily believe.

“When you are being trained by the lord of lies, he not only expects you to lie – he expects you to become very good at it” Shirin noted.

Back to the original topic, the discovery of these charms that none of the yozis could detect or learn, meant that the coven had found a solution to their original worries about learning too many demonic charms that would warp or corrupt them. An example of this was Shirin pointing out that for her to master anything but the least of the Ebon Dragon’s charms required internalizing a charm… or a lesson… called ‘witness to darkness’ – and it had a price: “It lets me see in the darkness perfectly, as if bright day, but in return direct sunlight it hurts my eyes…”

Sunrise found this curious, wanting to see exactly how that worked. The luminous fungus lamps were taken out of the room, bathing the room in darkness, after which Shirin was able to perfectly tell which way Sunrise was pointing her hoof: “Up, down, up – I told you, I can see everything in here clearly”

“Impressive – but then this should actually hurt you then?” Sunrise said inquisitively, flaring her anima.

Shirin let out a yelp of pain and covered her eyes. To the rest of the circle, and everyone else present, Sunrise’s anima was but a warm and pleasant golden glow. It turned out that a while ago Sunrise had learned a charm that made her anima give off actual true sunlight, originally to help combat the undead, since they didn’t react well to direct sunlight.

“Tell me, why are we even discussing the weaknesses of your powers? I thought that your time with Lee would have been enough to find work-arounds to this?” Sullen Hoof asked, suddenly wondering what the point of it all was.

Fallen Twin quickly set the record straight: “Remember, we called you here because we felt we had to accelerate our plans – the infernals that led the demonic conquest of Gem are working their ways through the fire mountains, towards An Teng. Officially it is ‘aid’ Bitter Copal, but it would also mean a demonic land-war spreading death and destruction across all of An Teng…”

“Right, and if we need to fight them, we need to know your weaknesses” Speaker said, finally catching on.

Gesturing in agreement, Fallen Twin stated that his more powerful malfean charms were all oriented around Malfeas’s primary theme of domination: “…but you cannot dominate if you have no-one to rule. Thus, Malfeas’s more powerful charms do not work in places where nobody lives or works”

Sunrise had to give that a bit of a ponder, but in the end both she and Speaker agreed that such a strange limit made sense considering that Malfeas as a primordial invented the concept of ruling over others. Bitter Copal chimed in, saying that the more potent of charms that he knew from She Who Lives In Her Name were vulnerable to her dependency on all things being put into a known hierarchy: “If she, or even I, don’t know a charm or combination of charms being used, then they cannot be defended against – same for her offensive charms: they require known quantities”

The circle agreed that this made sense, to which Shirin said that the Ebon Dragon’s weakness was actually a bit boring compared to the others: “I mean, I remember being told that some of the charms of Cecelyne won’t work unless used within a desert – and Cecelyne is an infinite desert”

“I don’t see how that’s connected to the Ebon Dragon’s weakness?” Cash politely pointed out.

Bitter Copal huffed: “That’s because it’s not – it’s also wrong. Powerful Cecelynian charms require places of desolation, either physical – like a desert – but it can also be simply spiritually desolate places, like a family home where everyone hates each other, or a temple where nobody actually believes anything”

Shirin gave Bitter Copal frumpy look – something she was able to do now that she had used that illusory disguise charm to cover up her black-orb eyes: “Right, and that’s so much cooler than the Ebon Dragon’s weakness. I mean, it’s so basic its silly”

“Then please just tell us” Sullen Hoof urged, sounding a tad annoyed at Shirin’s reluctance.

Cash, having sussed out what Shirin didn’t want to say – and why – beat her to it: “Oh its simple, isn’t it? The Ebon Dragon – being the hollow thing that he is, cannot stand anything that truly stands for and shines forth as an exemplar of something. Meanwhile he’s not just a creature of darkness, he is THE creature of darkness – so charms that express the highest goals, the most supreme goodness of creation, that’s his weakness”

Shirin nodded immensely: “Totally – and I’m sorry, I don’t know why it’s hard for me to say it… I think it’s from my training, some kind of compulsion to not reveal Ebbie’s secrets”

“So… holy charms?” Sunrise said quizzically, trying to make sense of Cash’s verbose statement.

Shirin’s nodding intensified, looking a tad manic: “Yup – holy light and holy smiting send him packing pretty damn hard”

With that conclusion, the coven and the circle began making battle plans. They might have – somewhat circuitously – ensured the relative cooperating of the three princes, but they would still need to raise an army and get it into position to take out the coastal fortress near Dragon’s Jaw, as well as the satrap’s palace in City of the Steel Lotus.

Chapter 59 Bowed No Longer

The crystal chameleon strikes the light of the soup, fracturing its image into a dazzling display of lights and colors - letting all around marvel at the spectrum of soup - but none see the stylist afterwards, and yet the soup bowl is empty.

…

The coven quickly had to admit that when a full circle of solars – even if Lee was only playing the role of a temporary substitute for Fire Orchid – then what they were able to accomplish in but a few weeks was quite impressive.

The four dozen cultists at the coven hideout, who’s main task had been overseeing the demons creating legions worth of weapons and armor, were put under Cash’s studious tutelage. This saw their work routines transformed using first age methods – reducing their workload to the point that only three cultists were needed to fully oversee the production efforts of hundreds of demon minions.

The rest of the cultists were reassigned to Lee, who used his tiger training technique to quickly turn them into highly disciplined jungle commandos. They would form the core of a very loyal and crafty strike team that could be sent to either capture or kill enemies of future free state of An Teng.

After learning seatongue from Speaker, Sunrise journeyed to the city of the steel lotus, spending days in the outer slums of the city. It wasn’t difficult for her to find disaffected and malcontent tengese ponies there – and unlike trying to recruit in the rural districts, then nobody seemed to care much if these ponies disappeared from the streets.

It didn’t matter if they had been driven from their family farms by realm landowners who wanted to set up large slave driven plantations, or if they simply born in the city to servants who had seen the wealth of their people concentrate among realm overlords while only crumbs ever made it down to them – they were quite easy to recruit, even more so when Sunrise could truthfully say that she was labouring to organize a revolutionary force that was acting with the golden lord’s blessing.

Sullen Hoof trailed Sunrise, identifying and inviting to tea any realm spy he identified. House Ledaal might have folded up its operations in An Teng willingly, but there were several other great houses still profiteering from the serf labour of the land, profits they would likely not give up freely – so they had spies and informants aplenty, but Sullen got enough of them that what few reports that made it back were too scattered to paint a big picture.

With this influx of volunteers, and Sunrise and Cash’s reforms, the cult quickly began to change shape. Secret jungle training camps were set up outside the city, and in the morning, at noon and in the evening the ponies there were not instructed to pray to a demon lord… no, they prayed to the golden lord and to Celestia.

The coven wasn’t all that upset to see their cult reformed from a secret demon cult to a secret Celestia and Golden Lord cult – It was after all more tengese to do so, or so Bitter Copal justified the shift. It had probably helped quite a lot that Cash had subtly eroded Copal’s initial loyalty to his yozi mistress, for of all the things that Bitter Copal could do that his handlers and overseers in malfeas might detect, then a sudden drop in incoming prayers would probably be quickly spotted.

Indeed, once the last prayer reforms had been fully spread to all the major cells of the cults throughout An Teng, it didn’t take long before a new infernal green sun prince appeared – one sent to ask questions.

The unannounced arrival was heralded by the very arrival of a trio of mortal cultists from a far-off cell of the cult. They arrived under the cover of darkness to the main cult hideout, knowing exactly where to sneak in. That was at least what the local cultists who came galloping to Speaker and Copal said, their breath ragged.

“Well, it was bound to happen – they will have to accept that there is a new order developing here in An Teng, one not bound to demons, nor overseas rulers” Bitter Copal stated resolutely.

Speaker could only shake his head. Copal’s jingoism had only gotten stronger since the circle had arrived – and he was not subtle about it. Part of Cash’s way of making Copal distance himself from using demons so much, was to link the demons in Copal’s mind with the general idea of a foreign power that wanted to gain control of An Teng. This demonic cult inspector… or whatever it was… oh this was not going to go over quietly.

Following Copal along, Speaker wondered if he should put up his defensive charms in advance or not. The meeting room that the three visiting cultists were waiting in, was the nicest of the meeting rooms: The walls were decorated with large sheets of firmin resin that had been carved and painted beautifully to depict various tengese myths and legends – grand images of ponies and jungle creatures battling foreign enemies.

The three cultists stood quietly, their traveling garbs with their deep hoods covering their faces. They were dripping wet from the driving rains outside, and in the pale light of the luminescent fungus lamps Speaker beheld the new arrivals – thinking that it was a curious choice to send mortal messengers to a demon cult, especially if you were worried that the local exalted leadership might be off.

It was through this quiet observation, while Bitter Copal introduced himself and welcomed the visitors, that Speaker realized that the three ponies did not reflect any light in their eyes.

Speaker knew exactly what that meant. It was a dececanthrope demon – a demon that would poses corpses and puppet them around as living ponies: “Copal, wait – it’s a decanthrope and its puppets”

Bitter Copal instantly halted in his otherwise quite polite introduction and greeting. Looking at the three ponies, his face soured: “What is your message, slave”

One of the three drew back their hood, revealing a pony with pale skin and a mane that hung quite long – all telltale signs of a decanthrope host. It stepped back, as the two other demonhosts began to unstrap their cargo; heavy saddles laden with two massive gourd bottles each.

Silently the two demonhosts began to pour the content of their gourd bottles on the floor of the underground room: It was sand, silvery sand. Had they brought a piece of the yozi Cecelyne for the inspection?

No – for as the content of the last two large gourds were poured out, the sand came alive and began to swirl through unseen winds into the shape of a pony. The sand-pony didn’t solidify, but it was dense enough that you could make out facial expressions and even where her eyes were looking.

“I’m not talking to you like that – you’ll spread dust and sand everywhere. Materialize” Bitter Copal commanded, looking quite unimpressed.

The sand-pony nodded, but didn’t look terribly pleased: The silvery sand particles condensed into solid forms: Bones appeared first, wreathed in webs of slimy visceral cording and pulsating meat until the final layer of ephemeral flesh encloses them in its borders. Clothes materialized last, a rich garb of beautiful spun essence and otherworldly silks.

Just as the no-longer-sand-pony shook off the materialization process, Speaker sensed a telepathic ‘knocking’ in his head – he knew that Copal had telepathic powers through his demonic exaltation, and this was a very covert way of transmitting messages, so he ‘opened the door’ and let the message through. Copal’s message was quite simple and clearly underlined through a feeling of calculated malice: “Materializing will have cost her nearly all of her essence – she will be quite defenceless now. Strike when ready, but give her no time to escape”

Speaker had to smirk just a little bit – it was such an incredibly simple, but ingenious trick. Copal’s obsessive focus on cleanliness was well known – informed by his background as a doctor and alchemist. This was even known to his fellow green sun princes, so his command hadn’t surprised anyone… but to see Copal exploit that to render an unwary foe defenceless? Oh, that was quite impressive. It was clearly evident to Speaker that the lessons of warfare and governance to Copal had paid off.

“There, now Bitter Copal, can we begin the inspection?” the pony said with a south-eastern accent in sea tongue, sounding not as much annoyed, but a bit exhausted – which made sense, if she had just been completely drained of essence in order to materialize. To Speaker her accent reminded her of Admiral Sand’s – was she from Varang?

Bitter Copal nodded ever so slightly, his topaz-vapor bandages jostling more than enough from his slightest of movement to communicate his intent: “Indeed. We can begin with introductions: Silver Mirage Lakshmi, meet Bright Machine Speaker”

That was his cue. Speaker stepped up, observing the green sun prince before him – but using no charms, not wanting to reveal himself too soon: “Greetings, that is indeed my name – me and my peers have been working hard the last month or so to create Copal an army to take An Teng”

“For just a month? It’ll take you far too long to train up a mortal army that way – you’re already behind schedule! Why haven’t you just summoned a suitable force of demons and taken the country yet?” Lakshmi said, not sounding terribly impressed.

The would-be inspector’s reaction to Speaker’s claim was sensible enough – if one assumed that Speaker and his peers were mortal ponies. For solars, a month and a half were more than plenty to create one or two very elite fighting forces – and for a whole circle, plus Lee, they had made even more than that.

With all that in mind, Speaker’s smirk remained as he approached Lakshmi: “Under normal circumstances, perhaps – I’ve been made to understand that the green sun prince charm set doesn’t really contain any good training charms, which honestly makes perfect sense since enlightenment and personal betterment would fall under the purview of Qaf, the heaven-violating spear, not any of the five yozis you lot are being masterminded by”

Lakshmi’s expression turned from unimpressed to nodding in respect: “A trainer of troops and a scholar of demonic lore? I am impressed”

“Oh, you have no idea – but that’s a moot point really, I’ve seen what I needed to see” Speaker said, nodding briefly to Copal who quickly stepped back.

Lakshmi was about to say something along the line of “What is the meaning of this?!” when Speaker struck, using a mix of his magical martial arts to quickly pummel the partially demonic pony into pieces. It had been while sparing earlier that Lee had discovered that all of the green sun princes were just as susceptible to demon-smiting charms as regular demons, to which end Speaker had used charms from his Hoof of the Daystar style to imbue his blows with holy purity, striking the pony down with magically empowered blows she had no way of surviving.

The decanthrope demon and its hosts all cried in out horror, but Copal quickly seized all three in a strong grip of his essence, holding them tight while Speaker swiftly moved to slay all of them. There was no sense in letting the demon realm know that Bitter Copal had officially gone rogue.

Turning to Speaker, Bitter Copal looked noticeably relieved: “I should thank you Speaker. I haven’t felt this free in years, and I couldn’t have done it without you and your friends”

It was a bit strange to see Bitter Copal’s disposition change like that – and the outline of his bandage-covered face even revealed a smile, which was the first time Speaker had really seen one of those from Copal: “It’s the least we could do”

“Perhaps – but now it is only a matter of time before the other infernals in Gem question why Lakshmi will not return or answer magical messages. We must move quickly now”

Word was quickly spread to the rest of the circle, that the countdown had started for demonic retribution. It stood to reason that now the demon forces at Gem would soon redouble their efforts to get to An Teng, no longer to ‘aid’ Bitter Copal’s efforts, but to capture and question him about their missing peer – as well as to seize An Teng for the yozis.

Luckily, then the rebel forces were well equipped and had been snuck into position for the final push to freeing the country. The only thing missing was having the Golden Lord signal the start of the rebellion – a magical messenger to his celestial secretary handled that, the coven’s spy network reported a few hours later that at every shrine and temple in An Teng a vision of the Golden Lord had appeared, which had proclaimed that the realm had fallen to such a degree that it was no longer fit to rule An Teng – and that he knew of a descendant of the last high king of An Teng, who was ready to take the throne. It wasn’t a direct call for rebellion, but to the satrap and anyone else in charge of the country, then it was a very clear warning that trouble was on the horizon.

In the jungle the rebel force was split into two primary legions: The main force, which would take the city of the steel lotus and the second legion, led by Sunrise and Fallen Twin, which would fly out and take the coastal fortress at Dragon’s Jaw.

The two legions stood assembled and resplendent before the coven and the circle in a very large jungle encampment. Demon slaves had laboured tirelessly to clear the grounds, as well as gather plant fibres that demonic artificers had spun into cloth and later dyed, making for a properly uniformed army. Firmin resin had made their weapons and armor, the dull brown resin hard as steel but lighter than dry firewood – the twin legions of free An Teng were fearsome to behold indeed, and thanks to solar military training charms they were a force to be reconned with.

“Hear me, proud sons and daughters of An Teng! You have all witnessed the divine revelation at our shrines. The Golden Lord supports our cause, making our fight for freedom truly righteous! When the daystar sets tonight, it will set on a free An Teng!” Bitter Copal proudly proclaimed from a podium before the troops, their cheers loud enough to frighten away birds from the surrounding jungle canopies.

Before the speech to the troops, Bitter Copal had used the disguise charm that Shirin had taught the rest of the coven to assume a form supposedly not unlike how he had been before his demonic disfigurement, making him appear as a young and handsome tengese stallion once more – the rest of the coven had done similarly, all of them having agreed that their demon-tainted forms were not terribly suited for public display.

Sunrise then conjured her massive cloud spell, the same she had used years ago to facilitate the evacuation of Brookside in Nexus, which resulted in the founding of Sunhill. As several thousand tengese soldiers boarded, with Fallen Twin and his officers in the lead, Bitter Copal waved them off as they flew west towards the fortress at Dragon’s Jaw.

Trees by the thousands moved out of the way, as local wood elementals who had been summoned and suborned did their tasks, opening up a new road for the army to march on the City of the Steel Lotus.

Sullen Hoof and Ashi of the Six Wheels both journeyed to the city ahead of the army, scouting out any pockets of resistance, while the army marched with Speaker, Lee and Bitter Copal at the head.

Shirin was already at the Satrap’s court, having infiltrated it a while ago to ensure that any reports of a rebel army would never reach the Satrap without her tweaking the content to downplay the news. Now that the army was on the move, her task was to ensure that the Satrap wouldn’t run off – capturing him and forcing him to publicly relinquish control of An Teng was a key part in the coven’s plan to take over An Teng. For while Bitter Copal’s ancestry gave him a legitimate claim to the throne – then if the realm could still come back and say that its satrapi had been usurped, that risk of invasion would needlessly complicate things for the coven.

At the outskirts of the City of the Steel Lotus, Ashi met with the army, reporting that the city seemed open for the taking: “A lot of the realm scions are holed up in their walled estates, the Satrap too – but they haven’t pooled their private troops to make any kind of collective effort against us… the prideful fools – and I checked in at the city watch: They’re ready to swear their loyalty to the new rightful high king of An Teng”

“Perfect – can you have them clear the roads for us to the satrap’s mansion and to the Palace of Threefold Magnificence” Bitter Copal inquired, sounding keen on wanting to minimize any civilians getting caught in any fighting.

Ashi was gone with the wind – literally, her charms of speedy movement making her move like a silent and unseen wind through the streets of the city.

Copal gestured for the first legion to break up into smaller units, so they would fit through the city streets.

Marching through the city, Speaker couldn’t help but notice how basically all the tengese ponies were cheering them on as liberators – and Bitter Copal seemed to relish in it. There were a few skirmishes leading to the government palace, mainly from small groups of soldiers from various realm scions that had sought to barricade the roads around the mansions and estates they guarded.

These barricades were quickly torn down and moved aside, no real fighting coming from it – the troops helming the barricades weren’t stupid enough to try to hold off thousands of enemy soldiers when they were easily outnumbered fifty to one.

At the palace of threefold magnificence Copal and Speaker met with Sully, who had infiltrated the palace earlier to keep track of the place and ensure that nobody there did anything stupid, like sending out emergency messengers to the blessed isle. Most of the staff there was simply told to go home and come back in a week – a few were arrested, mainly staff from the satrap’s administration, leaving Cash to quickly assail the lawbooks there: His task was to sift through millennia of legal history, to find what customs and laws the realm had forced upon An Teng – that they might rid themselves of those, while keeping true original tengese law, plus Cash would likely have to draft replacement legislation for anything they got rid of.

With the palace secured, the next target was the satrap’s estate – an air aspected manse that turned out to have to some very potent lightning-based defensive features that saw the uprising’s first true casualties as gung-ho soldiers tried to storm the place, only to be zapped like bugs.

Speaker’s elemental immunity charms made a mockery of the lightning-casting pillars of the estate, approaching the front door to the estate and loudly demanding that the satrap surrender himself: “We’ve already taken the palace – the city is ours – and Dragon’s Jaw and the legion fortress there has also been seized. Surrender peacefully, and we will permit you to return to the blessed isle alive and well”

Ragara Sora Jor, the realm-appointed satrap of An Teng represented, was in deep despair. The recent pulling out of house Ledaal from An Teng now made him extremely suspicious – had that old hag known something he didn’t? Every week more dynasts would show up at the various ports of call for An Teng, seeking to hide from the civil war – and Jor had been more than happy to let them spend their money at Ragara owned luxury resorts and rental estates.

How could such a massive force have appeared outside the city without his network of spies detecting it? How could the city have been seized so quickly? Then again, his primary targets for his spy network had been the activities of other realm houses and the Lintha.

…to see all of that come crashing down in just one day was a bit much for the stallion, even as his earth aspect tempered his passions and made him slow to anger – but seeing just one pony walk up the bridge to his mansion and completely ignore the lighting being shot at him? Really? It was clear that the pony wasn’t even a unicorn, so how could this be?

“Satrap Jor, surrender peacefully – or I will break this place and come in after you” Speaker declared, calling up to the balcony where he had seen ponies moving around.

Surrounded by his personal guards – all which looked quite uncomfortable and spooked, understandably so – Jor shook his head, looking to his wife and children: “You all need to pack – now – quickly! Grab money and valuables, the smaller the better. We need to get to the harbour”

A thunderous crash sounded from the main gate into the mansion, Speaker having struck it with all of his magical martial might – the gate had cracked and broken, sending shockwaves of tangled essence throughout the manse.

Stepping through the destroyed gate, Speaker quickly turned and used his repair charm to mend it – restoring the proper essence flows of the manse. Having a manse blow up inside a city would not be a good way to wrap up an uprising like this.

In the courtyard Speaker saw several ponies at arms in realm livery, but they were tengese – and didn’t look as if they were all that interested in attacking Speaker, who in turn spoke to them: “Your true king is calling – will you answer?”

The ponies at arms weren’t stupid – they could see that their satrap master wasn’t going to be in charge at the end of the day – so they quickly threw off their livery and opened the gate, disabling the lightning defences and letting Copal’s troops surge in.

In another part of the estate a wagon had been readied, servants frantically loading it with heavy bags of jade coins from the manse treasury, along with other valuables their master had instructed. When Copal’s troops arrived and seized the wagon there was much wailing, the realm-born servants truly fearing that they were about to die – but much to their relief they were simply taken into custody and marched off, without even being put in chains.

Catching the satrap proved slightly more difficult – as at that point he seemed content to go down fighting, having taken a very nice-looking white jade dailklaive from the treasury and readied himself.

Speaker, leading Copal’s troops through the mansion, was about to breach into the room where the cornered satrap was making his last stand to defend his family, when Shimmer suddenly spoke up to him: “There’s a window in there – they’re climbing out…”

Looking around in surprise, Speaker found that Shimmer stood next to him – having likely flown in quietly in the form of a small bird once the lightning defences were down: “Very well – lets close that window”

Quickly retrieving his singing staff, Speaker played a merry little tune that saw the stone of the walls flow to close off the large window in the room beyond the closed door. The screams of confusion coming from inside seemed to indicate that this did not please the ponies left behind.

Shimmer quickly sped off with a squad of soldiers to grab anyone who had made it out the window while Speaker waited. He could hear the ponies inside knocking on the now sealed window – the essence flows of the manse having already reinforced the new wall, making it next to impossible to break. A few moments later Spekaer suddenly found himself briefly confused, as his sensed seemed to… swap?

It took a moment, but he realized that he was seeing what Shimmer was seeing and hearing – and she was holding the daughter of the satrap prisoner, having webbed up the young foal while a few nearby soldiers appeared to be recovering from the filly’s kicking and biting. Nodding, Speaker’s senses returned to himself, letting him present a new ultimatum to the satrap: “We have your daughter. Whether she gets to join you on a boat back to the blessed isle, or attend your funeral here first, is your choice”

Despite the thick oaken door muffling much of the sound, then Speaker and the soldiers outside could easily hear the swearing from inside. Not long after, the satrap emerged to surrender. Later that night, Speaker received a magical message that the fortresses around Dragon’s Jaw had been taken without much of a fight and only a few injuries.

It took a few days to fully secure the city of the steel lotus. Cash worked hard to quickly set up an interim government, and the three princes of An Teng were summoned to attend the coronation of a new high king.

It was during this chaos that, mainly while setting up a new tengese navy – that a skirmish broke out at the harbour of city of the steel lotus: Sullen Hoof and Cash had been doing a tour to tally what suitable warships and river patrol boats there were present, and in doing so discovered a beautiful first age yacht moored.

Sullen Hoof was not slow to point out that it was the exact same ship that the mystery unicorn they had encountered in Port Calin had escaped on. They instantly attempted to board and seize it, but found themselves repelled by – of all things, dozens of very combat ready demons, fending them off – confirming, if nothing else, that this mystery unicorn was a powerful sorcerer.

By the time the rest of the circle showed up to aid in taking the ship, it had cast off and sped off – using strange trickery to veil its presence, for it couldn’t be seen or tracked going down the river of queens towards the ocean. Everyone agreed that this was most mysterious – but Bitter Copal had bigger fish to fry, as the princes had arrived for the coronation.

The coronation event had been forewarned with plenty of time to spare, so anyone who was anything in An Teng – at least who had any intention of remaining in the country afterwards – had shown up to pay their respects. The prince of the highlands was pleased to see that the circle had truly worked the golden lord’s justice, and two other princes similarly seemed not entirely displeased either.

As with such ceremonies, much pomp and circumstance had been set up in advance. Bitter Copal equally received the princes in the government palace, showing them the lineage research he had done which proved that he was the last of lost family line dating back to the last tengese high queen. As the circle had learned in the time in An Teng, then familial relations was everything to the natives – so being able to prove he was descended from high royalty gave Bitter Copal a very strong claim to the throne in the eyes of the native tengese.

There was of course the matter of the satrap. He had proven generally uncooperative, but a solution for that had been found, as the satrap would deliver the pre-coronation “entertainment”.

In a large square in front of the government palace, the old stocks had been put to use once more. The satrap knew the place well, much to his own dread, for it was the square where public lashings, caning and even executions of criminals would take place – especially the ones sentenced by him personally.

Put in a heavily steel-reinforced stock that even his dragonblooded powers couldn’t break, each of his four hooves held tightly – and a jade essence tap put on his horn to prevent him from using charms or floating anything around – the satrap found himself looking at a crowd of tens of thousands of tengese… and it seemed that they were eagerly awaiting whatever punishment he was in for.

Bitter Copal stepped up to the podium next to the locked-up satrap, the crowd roaring their approval, cheering on their new high king: “Fellow country-ponies, I stand before you as but a peer – for I am not yet your king. I cannot ascend the throne until our satrap here relinquishes the realm’s claim on An Teng… so that is what we are going to get today, either by signature or by execution!”

Satrap Jor’s eyes went wide. He had expected an execution the moment he had been taken from his cell to the square, sure – but he had not expected to be forced to sign that bloody document in front of a crowd… not that he had any intention of doing so: “Fool – the imperial legions will descend upon An Teng and see you all put to death! I will sign nothing!”

Shirin approached Bitter Copal with a thick ledger, something she had compiled together with Cash in the weeks before: “Are you sure about that? You do realize that if you sign, we will let you and your family leave unharmed?”

There were spread jeers from the crowd from the few who had heard Shirin’s statement. The crowd wanted blood – and the satrap remained defiant.

With a gesture someone else was brought forth. The satrap couldn’t tell who it was for he was held by the stocks, while Shirin engaged the crowd and the strap: “Oh we have no intention of bringing out neither whips or canes here – we will torture you by your own deeds”

It turned out that the other pony brought forth was the satrap’s wife, a unicorn mare from a different Ragara family who appeared to have been quite content living in the lap of luxury.

The ledger Shirin was holding was thrust into the hooves of the satrap’s wife, while writing kit and a very well-written legal document was placed on a lectern before the satrap. Shirin then haughtily stated: “You, satrap of these lands. Will you sign this document and, as the realm’s chief representative in these lands, relinquish the realm’s claim to these lands?”

The satrap simply spat on the document. It turned out that Cash had made dozens of copies – so it was simply swapped out.

“Very well – Ragara Ruby, read from the marked page on the ledger you got… or we execute the both of you” Shirin stated with a taunting glee.

The unicorn mare looked at the ledger with great uncertainty. It was a legal record, from the satrap’s court. Why these usurpers would want her to read from something that boring sounding was beyond her – Ragara Ruby was much more at home entertaining her husband’s guests at their estate, or at one of their country villas… but the wicked eyes of the mare before her bid her to flip to the marked page.

“In the case of assault against one Sesus Mutra and his entourage, the accused is sentenced to thirty lashes and ten years in a Ragara penal mine” the mare read, sounding very confused at why this had been marked for her to read.

Shirin stalked around the mare: “Also read the footnotes for it – that’s the juicy part – and loud enough so everypony can hear!”

“Footnote… alright, where… here: Sesus Mutra had gotten drunk and raped the accused’s wife. Have someone track the pregnancy to see if it exalts and if so, schedule a… confiscation?” the mare read, sounding both horrified and confused.

Shirin quickly stepped in: “There’s your satrap’s justice. Punishing a stallion who wanted to defend the virtue of his wife, and the sanctity of his family – sent to a penal mine where he was worked to death. And in true Ragara fashion, since to them everything is just about money and valuables, then even the offspring of such sordid affairs are considered assets… not formal adoptions – that’s how little he thinks of us”

“Jor, how could you!” Ruby said, horrified at what she had just read.

The satrap could only bow his head in shame, while Shirin asked him again: “Will you sign the document – or shall we continue this very public reading your court rulings?”

One thing was death – but this kind of drawn-out public humiliation? And worse still, general tarnishing of the name of house Ragara? Even if he was let off alive afterwards he wouldn’t survive his house’s wrath for that…

“Alright! I’ll sign your bloody document – but burn that book!” the satrap shouted.

The book was not burned – there were a lot of judicial review that Cash still had to do with it, a lot of sentences that had to be annulled, and ponies who needed a lot of compensation for what they had been put through.

It thus came to be that An Teng got a new high king, one by the name of Bitter Copal. By his side were his trusted advisors Ashi of Six Wheels and Shirin, and the commander of the An Teng legions General Fallen Twin.

Of course, with An Teng secured, it would be months if not years before everything was sorted out: King Copal had a lot of talking to do with the three princes and other tengese nobles. He had a lot of ideals about reforms, both land reforms and judicial reforms pertaining to personal rights – things like him wanting to abolish serfdom – and while the princes were amicable to some of them, then there were other ideas Copal had which were a bit harder for the princes to accept, as the mix of first age inspiration and fervent nationalism ground against their feudal power structure.

There was also the issue of the demon army working through the fire mountains far to the south-east. With one legion stationed at Dragon’s Jaw, and Lee remaining at the city of the steel lotus to train up a new army, the circle left with Fallen Twin and the second An Teng legion on a giant cloud, flying south-east to either meet the demon army or head them off after a week’s worth of rest and preparations.