The Tome of Exalted Ponies

The red-handed courtesan stylist pays for his soup via sexual services, but deceives the waiter. This stylist leaves with a full stomach and bloody knuckles.

…

Certain that Shimmer would recover on her own, Speaker galloped after the two sidereals, finding that they were flipping through a tome of some kind drawn from one of their saddlebags: “Doctor, here it is” the mare said.

“Ah yes, the complete sutra of sacrifice – do begin” the doctor said, as he assumed a strange and arcane martial stance atop the city wall, standing so that he could see all of the undead horde.

The dirty-blond mare nodded, sitting down and putting the tome away: “Once, there was a maiden…”

The doctor raised a hoof, then slammed it on the wall, causing a very loud and quite unnatural sound of hoof on stone to ring out – one that Sunrise seemed to pick up, as she readied herself and her closest dancers formed ranks around her. Speaker watched with great curiosity.

“…who was very vain” the mare continued.

Reaching into his saddlebags, the Doctor retrieved a silk-paper prayer strip, staring at it briefly and intensely, which somehow caused it to light up with old realm glyphs in his purple essence. It floated up above him, and seemed to stick in the air above his head.

“She loved her mirror, and her mirror loved her back”

What happened next was a miracle. Or madness. Or both: The Doctor began to gesture at the undead horde, reshaping the very essence of the throng of zombies, skeletons and ghosts. In the blink of an eye, the mixed mass of undead split into three, sorting each of the three types of undead into the own enormous unit. The skeletons were in the middle, the zombies on their eastern flank, and the ghosts on their western flank. With a second gesture the zombies no longer marched towards the city – but instead walked in a big circle… because zombies were dumb enough to just follow the one before them… especially when there was no one to lead them.

Speaker had no clue how this was being achieved, but he wasn’t complaining.

Next up the ghosts were rearranged into a much tighter formation, which they seemed to hold – for as ghosts they actually had some semblance of an intellect, allowing them to maintain a functional formation.

“Looking only at her mirror, she missed the revolution, and she lost her head”

Sunrise and the singers and dancers closest to her winked out of existence, leaving the rest of the grand choir high and dry – but due to the rearrangements of the undead horde, roughly half a miles worth of distance had been placed between them, buying them time until the skeletons and ghosts reached them.

Looking around frantically, Speaker tried to see where Sunrise and her crew had been moved to.

“When the rookery falls, and the birds fly away, you cannot shoot them all down unless you shoot only one” the mare said, slumping down as if the verse was somehow difficult to say for her.

The sudden bright light marked Sunrise’s new position quite clearly. Speaker recognized the blaze of white fire that erupted at the front of the ghost column, their tight ranks putting over half of them in earshot as she smote their ruin with her holy charms.

Looking to the Doctor, Speaker wondered what was up next… he was about to ask, when two massive units of thornguard appeared on roughly either side of the zombies, and charged at them!?!

Confused at first, Speaker quickly realized what was going on when the front of each thornguard unit lit up with golden fire: They were each being led by a solar!

Letting out a loud and enthusiastic cheer, Speaker couldn’t believe himself. The zombies were being ground up as Fire Orchid and Cash led the superiorly armed and armored troops at them, the ghosts being annihilated as they charged into the reach Sunrise’s smiting charm… this just left the skeletons – and with them Speaker saw a problem he himself could solve, but he found himself stopped by the cross-eyed mare: “Don’t”

“What? We still need to stop the skeletons from attacking the ponies down there!” Speaker said, not really understanding what he was being told, nor why.

The cross-eyed mare smiled, the stars in her yellow eyes sparkling: “Because someone else’s journey is just about to begin – look”

The mare was gesturing down the city wall they were standing on, to which Speaker peeked down… oh…

Roseblack, Wind Dancer and and Denoted Flame were marching out of the gate, leading their one hundred troops. The choir parted ways and cheered, the three unicorns leading their troops to fan out and screen the choir. The doctor made more arcane martial gestures, rearranging the skeletons so that its bone-white column matched the width of the unicorns and their troops, also pushing the skeletons back a bit. This eliminated the numerical advantage of the skeleton horde.

With enough distance to the skeleton line that they didn’t have to immediately raise a shield wall and brace for a charge, the three unicorns pooled their essence for the one thing that unicorns could do that nobody else could: With their essence bound to their blood, they could both bleed together, but it also let them perform special cooperative charms together. Mixing fire essence, corrosive poison essence and air essence that crackled with lightning, the three unleashed a powerful battle-charm that every bandit king and wannabe warlord knew quite well to fear: The dragon vortex attack.

Projecting their combined essence outward, a lightning storm replete with fire and acid rain formed over the skeletons, melting and blasting the skeletons apart left and right. This was the power of the ten thousand scales of the dragonblooded host, if given time to prepare and not having to be only on the defensive. In the first age, such charms brought the demon armies of the primordials to a halt, while sun and moon-touched generals duelled with primordial sub-souls on battlefields that stretched from horizon to horizon.

The elemental vortex absolutely devastated the skeleton horde. The mindless bone automatons, animated by necromancy, had no mind or wherewithal to march around the vortex. The fields south of Thorns were soon painted white, replete with shattered bones and pale dust.

After what seemed like an eternity, Speaker breathed a heavy sigh of relief, feeling the week’s stress and enervation catch up to him. Looking east, he saw the two thornguard units link up, crushing the last of the zombies. To the west Sunrise was singing a hymn that smote the last of the ghosts. Directly to his south, the skeleton column was down to half strength…

“Ah beautiful” the Doctor commented, sipping on a cup of tea, his fez tipped to the side in a quite casual manner.

Speaker looked at the sidereal and shook his head: “Ok, what exactly did you do earlier? How did you make all the enemy troops shuffle around like that?”

“Sidereal martial arts – Scarlet Pattern of Battlefield Style. It focuses on movement, and once mastered you can move others. Now, if I could tempt you to punch me, that would be nice” the Doctor said quite calmly, as if just making small talk.

Confused by the request, Speaker just looked like a giant question mark. The Doctor sighed: “Be kind, just do it - quickly”

With a single hoof, Speaker swiped at the Doctor, seeing the sidereal’s form shatter like glass into a thousand pieces… great, more sidereal martial arts and trickery.

A few seconds later a mare clad in a blue jade armor slammed down on the battlements where the doctor had stood, as if having leapt from a point up in the sky. Had it not been for the fearlessness charm he’d used earlier; Speaker would likely have been frightened senseless. Instead, he looked at the mare and found himself nodding: “Hey, I know you… Iron Siaka right?”

Standing up and pulling her massive maul out, which was quite heavily embedded into the battlements structure, Iron Siaka looked around and groaned: “Damnit, I missed him, didn’t I?”

“Missed who?” Speaker wondered, knowing full well that the sidereal beside him had struck where the Doctor had stood mere seconds earlier.

Giving Speaker an angry look, then looking out what was left of the Mask’s forces: “A pair of rogue sidereals. They stole a special mobile manse a long time ago, run around Creation ‘fixing’ problems. Sounds innocent enough, but Creation needs pain in order for its joy to make sense… nice work on thinning out the mask’s army by the way”

The compliment at the end of her tirade against the Doctor made Speaker smirk: “Thank you – but we’re not quite done yet. Juggernaut is still approaching, and we need to get it away from the city before we can safely do away with it”

“Well… if it was immobile, I might know a way” Iron Siaka mused, looking south to the mountain of rot and flesh that was still approaching slowly.

Speaker looked at the Sidereal: “I might just be able to arrange tha-“ but then a booming voice rolled out over the battlefield like thunder.

The great and terrible visage of the Mask of Winters revealed itself again above and in front of Juggernaut. The difference was that this time the Mask was wearing a mask that was horrible to look at, like a writhing mess of magots and rot, yet clearly displaying a face with metallic fangs and ice-cold uncaring eyes: “You dare!? This defiance is unacceptable! All of Thorns will end for this transgression!”

The furious ranting of the mask continued for some time – but it was clear that it was unhinged, the Mask repeating himself quite a few times, before finally wrapping up his raging tirade: “…and so let this blood monsoon herald the coming of the Rubble Maker, for on this night Thorns will be flattened and shall be no more!”

“Ok that does not bring joy” Iron Siaka commented, as great crimson clouds began to billow out of the palace on top of Juggernaut, quickly spreading across the battlefield and raining blood quite heavily. The smell alone was bad enough, but it also turned the battlefield – already muddy from the earlier thunderstorm and mass of undead stomping over it – into a true quagmire that frankly just made it all the more difficult for the few remaining zombies and skeletons to move around, while Sunrise was using strange Solar path-finding charms to safely and quickly guide her little flock of now blood-soaked singers and dancers away from the remains of the ghosts, back to the city.

Speaker was very inclined to agree with the sidereal: “That’s one way to put it. I’ll be right back”

Igniting his ruby pinions once more, Speaker flew down over the battlefield from the city walls. First he swooped in over the huddled mass of thousands of dancers and singers and announced: “We have won the battle for now, and we are greatly thankful for your service. Please go back inside the city and seek shelter from this blood-rain while we sort out Juggernaut!”

He didn’t have to say it twice, the ponies quickly running back through the southern city gate. Flying over to Sunrise, Speaker checked in with her to make sure that she was ok – she was, even if heavily scarred, and she was quite ready to take the fight to Juggernaut.

“Perfect. I’ll round up the rest of the circle, then we’ll come and pick you up” Speaker said before flying off.

Fire Orchid and Cash were having loads of fun, though Cash readily admitted that actually leading troops had challenged him in a very new way – but he was quite pleased at how it had worked out. Now, Sullen Hoof was nowhere to be found, which was par for the course, and Silverclaws was also gone – though she had last been seen with Sully, so they had probably snuck off together to do something sneaky.

This prompted Speaker to summon a small magical flying cloud. It was a simple little thing that could carry four passengers, picking up Sunrise, Fire Orchid and Cash and then heading towards Juggernaut at speed after Fire Orchid ordered the Thornguard to return to the city and man the city walls to keep everything safe until her return.

“Ok, how did you two flip the Thornguard? The way Silverclaws had described then the Mask and his abyssals had completely stripped them of all goodness and love of their own people…” Speaker wondered as they flew towards Juggernaut, flying around the blood monsoon.

Fire Orchid chuckled: “Oh they were all cold-hearted killers at first – but after I killed the abyssal leading them plus most of their officers, Cash turned their heads inside out”

“Don’t forget the two-hour crying session they had after that. Getting the ability to feel pity and remorse back wasn’t pleasant for them” Cash remarked, sounding as if he had quite the story to tell.

Speaker got the impression that some fun stories would come out of all this, once it was over: “Sounds fun – I had to tussle with a necromancer who summoned a huge warstrider, but she didn’t know how to use its weapon… good sorcerer, lousy swordsmareship”

“Strange. We only had to deal with a single abyssal as well. There should have been more, right?” Fire Orchid noted, appearing to voice the same concern and confusion that Speaker had felt earlier.

Sunrise spoke up: “Sully told me a lot about how the different Deathlords are often loathe to risk their own assets to aid each other. They are rejecting the Barbate Arbiter’s dogma out of a selfish and covetous greed for the favour of their masters. They all want to be the one who brings down Creation – they can’t rationalize working together… even with the Mask trying to arrange that here”

“Lookshyan battle doctrine is quite clear here – never stop your enemy if it’s making a mistake” Fire Orchid noted. Speaker found himself nodding, but at the same time he was worried that the Mask might be doing something they simply hadn’t expected yet.

Cash picked up on Speaker’s worries: “The Barbate arbiter had several layers of safety and failsafe systems at Deep Rot – while we basically just walked into Thorns… you’re right Speaker, I find that all of this has gone far too smoothly so far”

“Let me check in on Sunhill for a moment… hmm… no, nothing to see here” Speaker said, closing his eyes so that his vision could be sent to Sunhill via his hearthstone.

Fire Orchid shrugged, stretching her neck and back: “If the Mask still has any abyssals left, my money is on them being holed up in the palace on top of Juggernaut. He’s already lost too many by having them split up and picked off one by one – if he has any brains, he’ll want to keep them together . if they have any brains, they won’t obey orders to sally out alone. That’s what Sully said he figured after the feast, before he left with Silverclaws to mess with them some more”

“Well, that answers where Sully is” Speaker noted, happy to have gotten that cleared up.

With a deep breath that spoke of her both preparing herself to fight again, but also of a conscious effort to relax herself in this brief bit of downtime, Fire Orchid noted: “He knew he’d had to go to Juggernaut to deal with the thing sooner or later – and his martial arts aren’t really that well suited for large battles… even unicorns have charms to make sure that the soldiers around them aren’t hurt by their anima flux – Sully can’t do that when he has knives, pots and carrots flying around himself”

A few miles or so out from Juggernaut, Speaker looked at the rotting flesh mountain. Even at that distance the thing was just… enormous. Rivers of blood and putrid pus flowed from it, and its many limbs – even if reduced to just bone nubs – still left deep and massive gouges – no, gorges - in the ground as it shambled along.

“So… exactly what is the plan here? Storm the palace on top of it?” Fire Orchid wondered, sounding somewhat non-plussed at the idea fighting a foe too gigantic to be fun to kill.

Cash chuckled: “What, afraid of fighting a foe bigger than yourself?”

“No, I’m more worried it’s so big that it’ll take too long to kill it – it’ll stomp Thorns in what… an hour or two?” Fire Orchid noted, pointing out that their original plan for dealing with juggernaut hadn’t factored in the possibility that the Mask might turn it on the city before they could do away with it.

Nodding, Speaker really wished that Shimmer or Sully was there for their charms of vision enhancement: “We don’t have to kill it – just stop it from moving. I met another sidereal back in Thorns before I went to pick you all up – remember Iron Siaka? She can move Juggernaut, if we render it immobile”

“If we… make so that it can’t move, then she can move it? That… that sounds like something a sidereal would say alright” Cash commented, sounding amused by the proposition.

Speaker explained how immobilizing Juggernaut would only require messing with its many legs – and not even all of them – just enough that it couldn’t move. Fire Orchid seemed to like this much more focused plan, but she did ask a good question: “Can we trust this Iron Siaka to actually do this? If we leave Juggernaut stranded just outside the city it’ll give the Mask a really good position to blast the city to bits”

“All the more reason to do this quickly before it gets too close – Speaker, mark us some targets” Sunrise pointed out, looking towards the massive sagging cliff-face that was the one of the few dozen remaining feet of Juggernaut.

At one of juggernaut’s toes, a gigantic object in its own right the size of a large multi-storied house, Speaker guided the flying cloud in closer to an open wound near the toenail so big you could probably fit a big gate into the bleeding gap.

The toenail was well over four or five yards thick, and looked like the toughest of organic armor plating – it also looked sick, infected, with much of its surface fouled by thick fungal growths that seemed to be eating into the flesh of the gigantic creature. The open wound was a spot where it looked like Juggernaut’s toe had grazed up against something hard with the fungus-weakened parts of its skin, causing a ‘tiny’ scrape.

“Speaker… I love you and all, but why aren’t we just swinging around to the thing’s heel and slicing at it to cut its hamstrings?” Cash said, not at all liking the bloody yawning cavern they were approaching.

Fire Orchid playfully swatted Cash over the shoulder with a firm but gentle hoof: “Isn’t it obvious? We’re going to attack the thing from the inside – if we stay out here, we’ll just end up getting spotted and attacked – inside we can hide while doing this”

“I hate how much sense that makes… and that’s with my collar of dawns cleansing. Oh gods… it’ll smell so bad in there, wont it?” Cash whined, his feelings of disgust overpowering his ability to maintain decorum.

Venturing inside Juggernaut, into the toe-cavern, quickly revealed an expansive and uneven little flesh-cave. It also revealed why the cave was bigger on the inside than the little hole to the outside: An enormous maggot, twice the height of even the tallest pony in the Thorns, and thrice the length of one, with a large jawless mouth ringed by flesh-ripping teeth, apparently considered the cave home, feasting on the ever-regenerating and ever-rotting flesh of Juggernaut as it kept trying to grow back around it.

Beneath its pale and translucent flesh, red and purple pulsing veins could be seen, and the maggot seemed quite mindless and content to just continue eating the flesh of the cave wall.

“That… that’s not natural, right?” Fire Orchid said, taking a few steps back as the sight of the hideous creature clearly repulsed her.

Sunrise approached the huge maggot, as it pulsed and writhed to rip another chunk of flesh off the wall: “Obviously not – no doubt something brought into Creation from the underworld. The real question is more why the Mask permits such things to feast on Juggernaut. It must be weakening it…”

That was actually a really good question – and as the circle snuck around the maggot, which quickly seemed either oblivious or simply didn’t care that ponies were sneaking around it, they pondered the conundrum. Fire Orchid posited that it might be a disgusting method by which the Mask kept the Juggernaut under control: “Maybe if Juggernaut becomes too healthy it’ll break whatever strange chains the Mask holds on it”

“That could very well be. Juggernaut normally heals its wounds very quickly, but if constantly being eaten alive all over by untold thousands of these… maybe it just keeps its body too busy with healing minor injuries, for it to heal whatever hooks the Mask has in it for controlling it” Speaker theorized, as they passed several maggots – some smaller, a few larger – in the blood chunnel leading along the inside the Juggernaut’s foot.

Reaching what Speaker identified as a heel bone, the circle quickly identified the massive tendon that reached from the heel up to the lower leg of the many-jointed limb. As they scouted the thing to find a good place to sever the thing, the ‘ground’ around them began to rumble, and the walls of the flesh cave yawned, heaved and moved about.

The foot was moving.

Seeing the tendon they were targeting flex and pull, Speaker spotted where it looked the weakest. It felt weird using his medical charms to target an attack – but he knew it was to save Thorns and stop the Mask for good: “There!”

Sunrise unleashed an ear-rending howl that blew large chunks of the tendon to bits, while Speaker hurled Gift and Homage, both carving deep grooves into the tendon. Cash leapt at the tendon, his shoe-claws out, delivering thunderous blows to the thing. Finally, Fire Orchid in her newly acquired suit of shiny red and golden magical armor leapt at the tendon, and mid-leap she drew from elsewhere a strange yet beautiful blade.

It was a whole foot wide, and four feet long, of gleaming Orichalcum with a large angular tip. It featured a large square hole in the middle of it, the inner rim of the blade containing letters etched into it that spelled out the true name of five ancient gods of war, invoking their power.

The blade blazed with white-hot solar essence as Fire Orchid swung the blade, striking through the weakened sinew with a series of lightning-fast blows that hewed deep at the tough sinew with every slice.

The ‘ground’ instantly shifted as the foot was no longer controllable, the flesh-cave walls expanding and contracting with the new and unpredictable movement of the foot.

“Ok, we need to get out of here – Speaker, what are you doing!?” Sunrise called out, looking around for anything that hinted of a passage of out the ancle.

Working quickly with Homage to burn and cauterize as much as he could, Speaker replied: “I’m making sure they can’t just stitch this back together – this has to remain broken for long enough to work!”

Everyone else looked for a way out, Sunrise spotting a promising maggot tunnel that seemed to lead straight towards the skin. Speaker quickly caught up with everyone else as they walked down the dark tunnel, their glowing caste marks the only light they had.

“Uhm… we have a problem here” Sunrise announced from up in front.

It turned out that the maggot tunnel they were trotting along in still had its maggot in it – and the maggot wasn’t done burrowing out to the surface either.

“Speaker, can you see how far we are from the surface here?” Fire Orchid wondered.

Judging from the type of muscle tissue they were walking in, and how he could just barely make out some other membranes the tunnel was passing through, Speaker guessed that they weren’t far from the outer surface.

“Perfect – everyone get behind me!” Fire Orchid called out, drawing her reaver daiklaive and pointing it at the maggot.

Oh, the stench. Golden solar fire erupted from Fire Orchid’s blade, cooking the maggot and burning it out from the inside as she cut it to pieces. Of course, the foul vapours that came from that had to go somewhere… so the circle got steamed in maggot funk.

Speaker and Sunrise both had elemental immunity charms that inured them to the deluge – and Fire Orchid seemed to tough it out, but Cash puked over and over until he could only dry-heave: “Oh gods it won’t stop… make it stop!”

Using a medical charm to calm Cash’s gag reflex, Speaker watched as Fire Orchid shoved through the steaming husk of the maggot. He could only hear the disgusting squishing noises as she hewed at Juggernaut’s flesh, slicing slabs and ribbons off with every swing and pushing it back. After about ten minutes of that Fire Orchid reported that she had reached the outer layers of thick hide: “It’s not bleeding anymore, but it’s also so tough it barely even cuts”

“Let me have a go – Homage was designed for this” Speaker said, swapping place with the dawn caste solar.

Five minutes and a lot of pushing later, a one yard in diameter ‘plug’ of dry leathery flesh popped out of the side of that particular giant foot’s ancle, letting the four ponies slip out onto a new cloud that Sunrise conjured.

“Right, that worked pretty well – but it’s taking too long. Juggernaut has too many feet, and at this rate we’ll be disabling feet as he’s stomping through Thorns” Fire Orchid pointed out.

Speaker found himself inclined to agree. Juggernaut was not moving fast, especially not for a being its size – and recalled how fast it could run back in first age – but how to do this faster? Thinking for a moment, the solar doctor got a look on his face that told the others that he had an idea, but that he also didn’t quite like it: “We need to attack his spine… but that will put us very close to the palace up on his back”

The rest of the circle understood the risk. Fire Orchid said that she would really have liked if she had gotten the chance to properly familiarize herself with her armor first before getting into that kind of fight, and Cash noted that he really wouldn’t mind a good breather first after having endured the unholy stench of the boiled giant maggot. Sunrise sympathized with her circlemates: “It cannot be helped – but we know what we’re after, so if we move quickly we can be out quickly. For the ponies of Thorns, and for Sunhill!”

Speaker knew that she had used a charm to instil courage and determination in them all – but he didn’t mind.

Flying the cloud upwards quickly began presenting all kinds of challenges: Above the lowest levels of Juggernaut, basically above the feet, fortifications had been built – fortifications that bristled with siege weapons. This meant dodging a lot of ballista bolts, or in Fire Orchid’s case parrying a number of them with her wide blade in order to shield the others.

“Ok are they even trying to hit us, or are they going for a really shitty barrage?” Fire Orchid wondered after swatting aside another ballista bolt.

Cash peered intently at the fortifications built into Juggernaut’s flesh: “They’re crewed by ghosts – and they’re all looking a bit toasty from moving out of the shadowland… that’s probably at least part of why their aim sucks”

Further up, among chimneys and more fortifications, the circle saw what looked like a whole industrial apparatus built into the side of Juggernaut’s enormous thighs. It made sense, in a twisted sort of way: A mobile base with all of the production capacity to arm and armor his undead forces meant never having to split his forces between offensive armies and defensive garrisons. Of course, this also made it a single point of failure for the Mask’s war machine.

“This is great – if we can banish this thing then it’ll wrap up the Mask’s operation in one fell swoop” Cash remarked, sounding reinvigorated by this possible way of completely neutralizing another Deathlord.

This was far easier said than done. As the cloud rose above the bent and crippled legs the circle saw Juggernaut’s torso, and saw how it was very densely fortified. Bristling with mounted ballistae, Sunrise had to fly the cloud close to the surface in order to dodge the sheer volume of carved bone bolts otherwise shot at them. They were simply too high up – if anyone was knocked off, the fall would be quite deadly.

Because of this, Sunrise couldn’t just fly up to Juggernaut’s spine – another route had to be found, and quickly – various signal fires had already been seen being lit, so it wouldn’t be long until the palace would know that someone or something was getting close…

“I… oh I think I have an idea on how to get closer to the spine – but it won’t be a fun route” Speaker said, frantically looking over the landscape and trying to map the flesh-fold canyons onto how he recalled Juggernaut’s anatomy.

Cash groaned, sensing that Speaker’s apprehension was chiefly aimed at him: “Just say it you git”

“Alright then – I’m thinking flying us up Juggernaut’s butt and approaching the spine from the inside” Speaker explained, smiling apologetically.

Cash’s swearing and Fire Orchid’s laughter lasted long enough for both to disappear as the cloud flew into Juggernaut’s dark cavernous poop-chute.