The Tome of Exalted Ponies

Flame and Stone stylists do not use spoons, they breathe fire and smack you with a club if they do not like their soup. They are simple folks, but get their point across, brutally.

…

Sullen Hoof, having fought the previous incarnation of the Shoat of the Mire, was quick to ask a few questions. Cash translated, and the foal thus explained that ‘Mother’ – the Dowager – had chosen her earlier that day, and said that in order to be a good girl she had to give up her name… and she had complied, and thus she had been chosen by the abyss. Indeed, she answered every question put to her, appearing to be under some kind of compulsion to do anything she was told do.

“You have got to be kidding me… exalted mere hours ago? I guess the Dowager was desperate for a new deathknight” Speaker said, wondering just how the Dowager had killed the foal, for a black exaltation could only latch on to a mortal soul at the moment before they died – that much the circle knew from other abyssals.

It certainly raised several uncomfortable questions on what to do now. Cash said that he would need time to deprogram the Shoat, to give the foal some semblance of her own mind back. The rest of the circle took this time to recover their essence, a slow process seeing as they were in a shadowland, but it beat running out of essence.

Several hours later, Cash was able to report that he had salvaged what he could of the foal’s mind. She could now think for herself, and no longer considered being alive a waste, didn’t worship death… but he had not been able to recover her name: “I suspect the Dowager summoned a passion-moray to eat her memory of her name. She only knows her title at this point. I also think I’ve managed to teach her to speak river-tongue… or maybe she used a charm to learn it – not sure, but you should all be able to talk to her now”

What Cash had not said – something the circle was keenly aware of – was whether the Shoat could be trusted. Sure, he said that he’d gotten all of the Dowager’s brainwashing out of the young filly, but had he gotten all of it?

“I… I need your help” the Shoat said, looking at the circle. Her expression was like that of a blood-drenched axe murderer staring at her next victim, and yet Cash was enthusiastically nodding.

Like a grumpy grandmother suspiciously looking at a grand-child that had just broken her favourite porcelain vase, Fire Orchid approached the Shoat: “Help with what exactly?”

The filly looked around at the circle, a darkness in her eyes and on her brow: “Mother… no, sorry… the Dowager… she challenged me. She told me to prove myself – that only by proving myself, would I be worthy of her love. Cash told me what her ‘love’ was… and now I want the memories of my parents, the memory of my name… I want it back – and I’m willing to fight for it”

“And when you have that back, then what? Sunrise inquired, appearing to be on board with aiding the barely adolescent deathknight with her plot of vengeance, but none the less hesitant at unleashing a heartless murder-hobo on Creation.

The tears that formed under the eyes of the Shoat were pitch black, and sizzled as they struck the dirt floor: “I still remember my parents – they were alive a day ago – but the Dowager took my memory of their faces and names. Once I take her face, I’ll take every piece of soulsteel in this mound and labour to free the souls tied up to them or within them”

The circle couldn’t find anything too offensive with that plan of action – and Speaker sensed no lies – so the Shoat was allowed to come along, proving herself exceptionally adept at slaying the various monsters that inhabited the mound.

It wasn’t all perfect though: There was one major difference between how the circle dispatched the monsters there and how the Shoat did: The junior exalt fought with a frenzy and glee that was truly worrying to see – for it was with the pale glowing eyes of hungry ghosts that she fought, and she would occasionally outright consume the ghosts and monsters they came across, somehow absorbing the powers and abilities of the things she ‘ate’.

Due to this strange ability of consuming and expressing the powers and abilities of the ghosts and monsters of the buried ziggurat, then the Shoat ended up looking quite monstrous and grotesque after half a dozen levels further down: From a wolf-sized spider she ate its head, growing two more eyes – letting her release withering quadruple volleys of black teardrop fireballs against anything that beset her. From another monster she had torn what she had claimed was ‘food’ – though Sully protested loudly at calling it that – but when the culinarian saw her eat it, he just up and vomited. The shoat swore that it made her stronger. This repeated many times over.

Examining at least some of the strange things that the Shoat absorbed/imbibed or wore, Speaker confirmed that they were in fact brimming with essence, and subtly hidden magical materials and components. To this end, their effects on the Shoat made a bit more sense, though it was rather unnerving to see her become less and less of a pony, as she willingly debased and mutated herself in her rapid pursuit of power… for she kept saying that she needed that power in order to face the Dowager. She no longer called her mother.

This showdown was quite a while in the making, every level of the ziggurat the circle descended revealing a level bigger than the last, and the strange emanations from the depths of the accursed place only growing stronger.

This baleful and corrupting radiance appeared particularly potent after the circle had banished a very powerful second circle demon – a demon lord in its own right – one summoned to guard the access down to the deepest pit of the mound.

“I… good heavens – I guess it’s my turn to say that it feels all kinds of wrong now” Speaker said plainly, as he peered into the darkness of the stairs beyond where the banished demon had floated in the air. The air still hung with a potent odour of… not death – but something else in the air, something alien – something than none in the circle, or the Shoat, could identify. It wasn’t good.

Down the next level, the first thing the circle took note of was how clean it was: There was no longer any trails of dirt dragged by patroling necro-surgical creations, instead there were quite a lot of ghostly or necromantic cleaning staff and creations hiding in the corners, or clumsily trying to ambush the circle as they explored the level.

It was on this level that the circle came across quite a few macabre necromantic surgery theatres, many of them appearing to feature paused necro-surgical procedures that were only half-way done… though it was difficult, even for Speaker, to accurately gauge how far along the ‘assembly process’ things were in a given room. The Shoat picked over the raw materials, body parts and organs for anything she could absorb power from, the circle burning the rest with holy fire.

“The only thing we haven’t found yet is her personal sanctum… yet with these gory halls of unholy creation, then we’ve seen everything from storage areas, living quarters for the stolen foals, the intended proving grounds for the Dowager’s deathknight – the only thing we haven’t found any sign of is the source of the strange draining effects of the manse, and the Dowager’s own private quarters” Sunrise stated, as the circle sifted through the cinders of the last undead horror that the circle had slain and put to the torch.

Speaker found himself nodding: “You’re absolutely right – though this buried ziggurat isn’t a true manse. The essence being drawn in here isn’t an effect of the architecture. This place was just built on top, or around it… but a very long time ago”

“Hmm… if it’s that old, but with this drain of essence… then even this stone should have withered – but it looks very new and well kept. Fire Orchid, could you see just how strong this floor is?” Sunrise mused, looking at the martial mare.

Fire Orchid stepped around on the floor, listening closely to her steel-shod shoes against the stone tiles, listening for any sign of cavities or… oh…

The floor collapsing saw everyone scrambling: Cash shot his claws up into the ceiling, to avoid falling. Shimmer turned into a seagull, watching helplessly as Speaker and Sunrise dropped down among the barrels of blood, crates of embalmed flesh, stone tables and boxes of soulsteel surgical tools. Sullen Hoof managed to jump up onto a wall, somehow sticking to it.

The Shoat landed on her hooves first, quickly seeing through the dust and chaos what she had been looking for: “Mo- Dowager! You killed my parents!”

Sully quickly and safely jumped down, helping Speaker and Sunrise get up. Fire Orchid pushed off the crates and surgery table that had landed on her, and Shimmer flew down, growing her seagull form to waft away the dust using her wings.

It appeared that the circle and the Shoat had landed in a great chamber with a vaulted ceiling. Not far from the circle stood a solitary throne of bone and pale rock, and on that throne sat the Dowager… though she had donned a new form, one of a tall and sleek mare painted in red and ochre tribal patterns, and her rear-hooves were cloven and her front hooves were split into tangles of snakes: “I am your true mother – the fool that birthed you was never truly alive, just like you, living only a shadowy half-life”

The Shoat roared, her caste mark erupting as a black wound on her forehead that bled profusely, while her anima erupted to reveal an infinitely regressing arrangement of dark shadows appearing around her. It was the ghosts of all of her ancestors that the Dowager had raised and slaughtered. With eyes that truly saw red, for the blood from her caste mark was running down over her face into her eyes, the Shoat glared at the Dowager: “You are nothing – your lies are transparent to me!”

It was quite eerie, if not down-right disturbing, to hear a foal shout words with the wisdom and vocabulary of an adult, for the black exaltation she bore had granted her centuries, if not millenia, of knowledge – especially that of her past incarnation.

It was also the last thing the Shoat managed to say, for with a snake-fingered limb wreathed in necrotic essence forming all manner of sorcerous sigils, the Dowager launched a dread spell at the Shoat, seizing the foal and floating the Shoat over to her – as the junior deathknight wiggled and struggled helplessly against the magical grip.

“You had such promise… such a beautiful and profound abhorrence of life. I see that you are now a lost cause. I will ensure that your next incarnation learns better discipline” the Dowager spoke, before casualy gesturing at the Shoat, the foal rocketing off to the side of the room, impacting wetly and with a bone-crunching cry of pain.

The circle needed no other call to attack the Dowager. The dread deathlord remained on her throne, striking the floor as the circle closed the distance with a staff of shadows – the floor instantly crumbling away, revealing… something that should not be.

The whole circle scrambled to avoid falling, once again– Speaker leaping away, Cash firing a claw into a wall to quickly reel himself over. Sully similarly leapt over to the wall, sticking to it via his charms. Sunrise, the least mobile of the circle, used a spell to burst into a flock of birds for a moment, the flock coalescing again in a corner of the room. Shimmer was still in her seagull form… but she actually landed on the collapsing floor, writhing as she clawed at her head.

That was when Sully called attention to the strange vortex revealed under the floor: “That… that should not be”

Now, everyone in the circle was using a mental defence charm – they had been using it since they entered the manse, even Fire Orchid – but it seemed that Shimmer’s mental defences had been breached. Speaker scramble to catch Shimmer before she fell in, the Dowager laughing deeply: “Haha, behold the chthonic glory of the Well of Udr! Have fun going in”

Catching Shimmer, Speaker saw the floor tiles crumble away around them. Sully caught Speaker, calling for Cash to shoot him a claw – which Cash quickly did, but the claw never made it to the three, getting sucked into the strange nightmare vortex that was the well instead.

Indeed, describing the well was a futile effort: It should not be. It hurt the mind to even contemplate, something that shouldn’t be possible even with solar mental defence charms. It wasn’t even like looking into the wyld – the circle knew how that felt quite well, and knew that their mental defence charms worked just fine against that kind of exposure. Instead, this strange phenomenon appeared to a be hole in reality, a pit that sucked in potential, essence, matter, and anything else not nailed down with the strongest of essence fortifications.

Shaking a little sense back into Shimmer, Speaker scrambled to shuffle away from the crumbling floor. Shimmer in turn cried out: “Deep Wave!”

The overgrown moonsilver bracer on her right forehoof sprung to live, the moonsilver octopus clinging to Shimmer with four tentacles while turning the other four into moonsilver pick-axes that it dug into the floor and used to haul both Shimmer, Speaker and Sully to safety.

“Was that your only plan deathlord? Not very impressive!” Fire Orchid called out mockingly, one of her steel-shod hooves solidly embedded in the wall to keep her safe from the well’s pull.

The Dowager snarled at Fire Orchid, her face morphing into that of a war-painted lioness as she made an magical gesture at the pony with her snake fingers: “Fool! I am the greatest necromancer among my peers – I have scried untold realities for diseases without name! The great contagion was but one of my finds. If you wish to see the depth of my bag of tricks, be my guest!”

Fire Orchid, quite aware of her surroundings, instantly picked up on the ooze coming out of the wall trying to get to her – but she was also equally alert that this was a distraction from the dowager having started to shape some kind of spell!

The constant tug on everyone, drawing the circle towards the well, wasn’t difficult to overcome – but you needed something to hold on to. It was a pull akin to having a child tugging at your robes – nothing that a firm stance couldn’t stop, but it was there… all the time – and if you weren’t paying attention, you would start to slip along the floor.

This also made it difficult to let got, for moving around – and Fire Orchid did not want the strange creeping slime that the Dowager had summoned forth from between the stone bricks to touch her. With some quick thinking, Fire Orchid spun around and thrust her hooves into the brickwork one by one, letting her remain rooted but mobile, to get away from the ooze.

It was easier for once he got back on the wall again, for his charms let him walk on walls and ignore the tug of the well that way around – but neither Sully nor Fire Orchid were skilled in sorcery, so they couldn’t do much to stop the Dowager in what strange spell she was cooking up – even Sunrise’s attempt at flinging a counterspell at the deathlord did nothing, for despite necromancy and sorcery being very close, then they didn’t work the same, and thus couldn’t be disrupted in the same way.

“Now that you have all gotten comfortable, allow me to introduce what’s left of my former lunar mate – one of my finest creations if I may say so” the Dowager cackled, releasing her necromantic spell by throwing a bone from somewhere on her out into the room.

The bone came to a sudden stop in the middle of the room, hovering in the air for a brief moment before erupting with blood from within it. Muscles, flesh and tendons followed, and in seconds a strange and horrible monster had formed: Part tyrant lizard, part many-tentacled kraken, it was a strange creation… though most egregious was the fact that it seemed to stand on the floor that wasn’t there anymore – letting it easily stomp over and engage the circle.

For Fire Orchid, fighting on difficult terrain wasn’t new – up until recently she had spent a couple of years fighting in jungles as a mercenary, rarely enjoying open ground for a straight on battle. Still, having to battle a necromantic monster, when the walls and floor were giving away at/ the seams, was asking a lot. Of course, ever aware of where she was fighting, Fire Orchid simply leapt onto the monster and conjured a beautiful orichalcum dailklaive out of pure essence, hacking away at the beast.

The rest of the circle joined the fight, though Speaker remained with Shimmer to keep her from going insane – it seemed that the well of Udr’s strange radiance was messing with her head a lot harder now that the circle was up close to it: “Hang in there Shimmer – we’ll end this quickly”

Aiding the best he could, throwing Homage at the great beast to have it carve up its many layers of thick dead hide, Speaker couldn’t help but notice that Cash was… swinging by his claw-chains towards the Dowager – but his aim was clearly off, because the way he was going to he would miss her by several yards.

That had apparently been Cash’s intension, as another claw chain stopped his swinging, leaving him dangling in front of the Dowager: “Greetings – I don’t believe we’ve met”

“Oh yes, the wordsmith from Sunhill – I’ve heard such tales of you … do you really think you can talk me down?” the Dowager in her lioness-faced form said, sounding quite amused by the thought.

Cash somehow managed to gesticulate quite well, despite hanging by a chain from his left hoof: “Oh heavens no – you seem far too dedicated to your work for that – and what work indeed! This mighty beast you’ve made, plus all the other things we had to fight our way through to get here, and the great contagion? Such a masterful find”

The dowager appeared somewhat unhappy by the mention of her supposedly greatest and most wicked creation – the great contagion – but through some artifact of her lioness shape, then its wrinkled nose expression quite clearly communicated that Cash had struck a nerve. The solar was not slow to capitalize on this: “Touchy subject?”

“Silence! Your pathetic attempts to worm inside my mind are pathetic” the Dowager roared, swiping at Cash, but missing him by a very comfortable margin – apparently to her own great confusion.

Cash smiled – quite cheekily so: “My invincible ego shield lives up to its name again – and it seems that your mental focus has been worn already, perhaps through my charms, or perhaps simply by your own necromancy – regardless, I do wonder: We all know that the deathlord called the First and Forsaken Lion was punished by his neverborn master, via being encased in his armor for all eternity, to never truly touch another being. How were you punished by your neverborn master, when your great contagion failed?”

Speaker had to admit – it was rather amusing to see how quickly Cash had zeroed in on the Dowagers deepest and darkest secrets and fears, laying them all to bare. It was certainly more fun than having to haul a near catatonic Shimmer around, to avoid having the giant necro-surgical monster and its many soulsteel-bladed tentacles hit them.

“The failure of my finest discovery was not my fault – my neverborn… patron… recognized that” the Dowager proclaimed, while Fire Orchid and Sully took turns hacking at the great monster, but its tentacles seemed eerily adept at growing back…

Cash simply shook his head: “Come now – I don’t need a lie-detector charm to know that’s not true. I am a district lord of Stygia! I know how ghosts work quite well… and if there’s one thing we haven’t seen here, in your lair, its other ghosts. You’ve been isolated by your master, forced to work here alone sans the few souls and creations you can muster out of the locals up in the jungle – and lets be honest they are not exactly intellection peers”

The Dowager shifted uncomfortably on her throne, a snarl creeping over her lioness face. Speaker hadn’t even thought of how all the ghosts they had seen were that of local slain villagers – but it checked out: At Deep Rot there had been untold convoys of materials coming in, at least until the Lookshyan siege forced them to close up. Thorns had equally still been a busting coastal city – but this place… this place was very much isolated – and the circle had not found any ghosts hailing from other parts of Creation, only what the Dowager had been able to capture and produce locally.

“I have plenty of company – I have no need of sycophants or weeping minions!” the Dowager proclaimed as she gestured wildly with her snake fingers towards her monstrous creation, either unaware or uncaring that every exchange of words between her and the Cash slowly whittled away at her mind, lowering her defences.

Cash threw a look back at the tentacled half-kraken half-tyrant lizard monstrosity who was trying to chew on Sunrise but finding her hard to swallow: “Oh yes, that thing must be able to engage you with the most stimulating of conversation! It looks to be positively brimming with conversation!”

Throwing himself and Shimmer to the side, and then scrambling to get a hold so they wouldn’t slip into the well of should-not-exist, Speaker had to wonder what Cash’s game was. He quietly swore to himself that if they ever entered a deathlord’s lair again, even if it wasn’t to pick a fight with it, then they should plan for how to fight the thing.

“Yes actually – I bound the ghost of my last lunar mate to his own corpse after I thrust his head into the well. He’s not exactly happy about his condition, but he’s learned to obey me again, and can be ordered to converse with me quite well” the Dowager boasted gleefully, sounding all too eager to speak highly of her own twisted creation. Perhaps she truly was lonely and in search of someone mildly intellectual she could talk to?

Speaker could feel Shimmer squirm at the mention of such a horrible treatment of a lunar – while he looked more carefully at the monster…. No, there was no mind in that thing. It was flailing wildly, without even any visible eyes. This was not the fighting of an intelligent foe; it was the rampage of an unthinking creature. If the Dowager thought she had conversations with that… then she was truly deluded.

Cash appeared to have drawn that conclusion a while ago, but played the Dowager expertly – though he knew well enough that chatting with lunatics was always an unpredictable endeavour: “Pray tell, you said that the great contagion was your greatest discovery? In Stygia the word is that it is your creation – are you saying that you simply found it?”

The great necro-surgical monster howled, its many fanged maws braying and roaring all at once – but the Dowager appeared caught between observing the fight and entertaining her conversation with Cash: “Oh I found it, but I also ennobled it… strengthened it – my very finest work!”

“Fascinating – and I take it that this thing here is part of how you found it?” Cash wondered, twisting about briefly to dodge a cut off tentacle that came flying his way.

The Dowager barely seemed to notice how her once-lunar monster was finally being worn down, Fire Orchid and Sully having exposed a crack in its inner bone-slabs to allow Speaker to throw Gift into its innards, as the Deathlord cackled happily: “Oh yes – I spend millennia scouring the strange realms that the well of Udr connects to. Took me ages to simply find a safe way to do so, but now I can plumb the depths for plagues and diseases…”

It was clear that the Deathlord had indeed plumbed the depths of madness through the well – for the Dowager seemed to completely zone out as she regaled about the lunacy she had witnessed through the well.

This gave the circle just enough time, as Fire Orchid and Sully managed to cut down the monster they were battling – cutting the necromantically fortified organs within it, that seemed to be fuelling its regenerative powers, at the cost of Sully wrangling several of the monster’s soulsteel-bladed tentacles in exchant for some very nasty wounds. With that brief, if not costly, reprieve, Sunrise began shaping a spell – a powerful one at that – which was meant to do something very simple: It would force any ghost caught by the spell to seek reincarnation – and Deathlords were, if nothing else, ghosts. The mask had been wise enough to dodge it, but here the dowager seemed quite busy chatting, right?

The problem was that shaping any kind of sorcery was not a subtle endeavour – so Cash had to really start straining himself to keep the Deathlord from not noticing what was happening right behind him. Even using enough charms to make his anima begin to light up, which made it quite obvious that he was using charms on the Dowager, but he knew that it didn’t have to hold for long… just a few more seconds.

Such seconds felt like an eternity, as Cash rapidly spun words as sweet as honey, to lure the Dowager’s attention away and grip it – the challenge of it all being to maintain his composure as his friends were getting hurt: “Oh you must tell me of these adventures with your search, they sound so amazing – it sounds like you have seen things that no other pony ever has!”

It was impossible to see what strange and mad thoughts ran through the Dowager’s head, but between her resolve having been eroded by Cash’s charms and her complicated and hasty summoning ritual, then… it seemed that Cash had made her ignore the bright golden light half a stone’s throw from her. Or maybe it was hubris, thinking that circle couldn’t really do anything? Maybe she was more worried about her once-lunar necro-surgical creation appearing to actually falter?

Fire Orchid rode the creature down and yanked her essence-formed blade from its ichor-gushing innards, howling triumphantly. The Dowager snarled, reaching out for the monster – but in an almost confused manner, as if she suddenly snapped to attention from the daze Cash had lulled her into. It was in that same moment that Sunrise unleashed her spell, for she spoke the five arcane words of release and flung the sphere of glowing cicada glyphs…

And with that, all hell broke loose. The Dowager finally seemed to realize that her most masterful creation had been defeated, as it fell to the non-existent floor – she shot up from her throne, howling as if the circle had struck down the once love of her life. That’s when the sphere of glowing magical symbols struck her, the symbols instantly wrapping around her and pulling her upwards.

With an ear-piercing shriek, the Dowager found herself seemingly ripped in twain: Sunrise’s spell was pulling her towards reincarnation, regardless of whether she wanted to or not – but at the same time spectral hooked chains manifested, holding her down… or ripping her apart: “No! You will not get me this easily!”

It appeared that the Dowager’s neverborn master wasn’t keen on letting its minion go that easily, but the spell did seem to immobilize the deathlord – not that this meant that the Dowager stopped trying to get over to the slain monster. Reaching out with her snake fingers, the snakes appeared to stretch – to the point that their scaly skin ripped and tore, the snakes enveloping the necrosurgical half-kraken corpse, tying it together so that it wouldn’t fall apart, or into the well of Udr.

Now, why was the Dowager so desperate to recover this thing? Pride over her supposedly finest work? Did she truly believe that it still somehow spoke to her? It did appear as if the physical contact with the monster reanimated it, causing a few of its soulsteel bladed tentacles to spring to life and lash out at Sunrise, catching her and turning the tentacle-blades inwards as they worked to crush caught mare.

Sunrise barely managed to squeak out a frightened cry for help before she was smothered by undead flesh, Fire Orchid springing into action to try to hack at the tentacles.

Smiling for a brief moment with her snake-fingers latched onto the monster, the instant that the monster’s ability to manifest a magical floor under itself so it didn’t fall into the well failed, the Dowager found herself dragged along with her creation, screaming all the way in an unearthly shriek as the brain-twisting vortex quickly pulled the giant corpse straight into it.

The problem was that Fire Orchid still was standing on top of the monster corpse, along with a quite wounded Sullen Hoof, along with Sunrise wrapped in its tentacles – and as the Deathlord was dragged in, the Dowager snatched Cash with her other snake-finger hand. The disappearance of the magical floor that the monster made also caused more of the room’s remaining flooring to crumble, which sent left Speaker and Shimmer falling in as well.

Going into the well of Udr was not pleasant.