The Tome of Exalted Ponies

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lovely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There! A water elemental directing the surf.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The elemental quickly read the scroll, its polished sandstone eyes going wide. Handing the scroll back to Speaker, it nodded to Havus. The water god made an imperious gesture, its elementals halting their approach towards Speaker: “I am sorry Monk Jade Scripture, but this Solar has a heavenly blessing I cannot violate without risking my own divinity. This protection extends to all spirits under my court. If you wish to see this pony apprehended, you will have to do so yourself”

The monk looked very displeased – more so at the prospect of having to get her own hooves dirty: “We will have words Havus – your position in the perfected hierarchy and your festival calendar can always be revised”

It was plainly obvious for all who could see the god, that it was by no means pleased of having its festivals threatened – gods lived by their worship, so threatening that was no small matter. To this end Speaker felt pity for the god, for he had not intended on seeing his host harmed for letting him sleep there: “Show some respect monk, you’re speaking to a god. If you think I must be struck down, do you own dirty work”

Oh, the look she gave Speaker. A second later she charged him, galloping towards Speaker with her horn blazing with a baleful aura of razor ice. A water aspected unicorn, of course.

Speaker braced himself with his magical shielding charms, a golden shell enveloping him as he made no move to parry or dodge the monk’s elementally enhanced strike… and that was all that the monk got to do, as she was swarmed by elementals and torn asunder.

It was an easy to overlook clause in the writ, but gods and spirits who provided aid to a questing solar were obliged to protect the solar when in their domain. Havus gave Speaker a pleased look: “I can’t tell you how long I have looked for an excuse to rid this court of that unicorn spy. Thank you, kind solar, for giving me the opportunity to do so”

“No problem – I just hope you and your court won’t suffer for this” Speaker said, bowing his head.

The god seemed in good spirits about the prospect of fallout from the monk’s death – his water elementals were already washing away any evidence of the murder, and he seemed certain that he could, completely honestly, state that the monk ran afoul a heavenly edict that he had to enforce: “The immaculates know that there are risks attached to being an observer at spirit courts”

Speaker didn’t object – he had recalled the at times strange brutality and lethality of divine law from the first age. The water-bed of ‘ocean velvet’ he was given to sleep on was just as amazing, though many of the spirits and lesser godlings were quite curious to speak with Speaker, seeing as he was a solar. Many of them remembered the times of glory in the first age when solars had ruled creation, and just as many wished for those times to return, arguing that the dragonblooded and the sidereals made for poor taskmasters who polluted their waters and did silly things like flush their sewage into streams that ran in their ocean, instead of using first age disposal and recycling techniques. Speaker of course agreed, and told wonderous tales of the sewage disposal system he had made in Sunhill, pleasing the water elementals to no end.

Next day Speaker flew west the on a new sorcerous cloud, at great speed.