The Tome of Exalted Ponies

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?”