The Tome of Exalted Ponies

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In that moment the heavens had heard her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, this would definitely take some getting used to.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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