The Tome of Exalted Ponies

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”