The Tome of Exalted Ponies

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…”