The Tome of Exalted Ponies

The five-dragon stylist besets his soup with all five elements, making for tasty soup

…

The circle found itself all together, cushioned and floating in a golden glow. Shimmer quickly turned herself into a cat, allowing her to effortlessly flip herself around. This let her see the rest of the circle. When in that position, she turned back into her normal pony self and called out to the others: “Is everyone all-right?”

It took a few moments before everyone had gotten their bearings and were able to reply. Nobody seemed to know what had happened, but Sunrise was the first to examine the essence they were all cushioned in… and she quickly recognized what it was: “It’s Fire Orchid’s essence!”

Everyone cheered for this – but… Cash was very quick to pick up on Sunrise’s sad note in her statement: “What’s wrong?”

“Her essence is… hurting… failing. I think she’s dying, or the act of bringing us to her is killing her!” Sunrise cried out, sounding genuinely terrified.

Speaker quickly examined the essence around them, and indeed it had numerous micro-ebbs and flows within it that kept winking out, as if every second something was burning out in trying to produce or marshal the essence. It was a grim realization, but Speaker had seen the essence of others dying – including that of Fire Orchid’s previous exaltation – that he knew this wasn’t quite right… but he didn’t get time to tell the others, before they were all deposited back into reality… but it was not the reality they had been snatched from.

The air was thick with incense, the point of being choking, along with heady whiffs of strong perfume, mineral oil and the ozone-funk of electrified air. His elemental immunity charm kicked in instantly, letting Speaker breathe and orient himself – but still, the place he found himself in was strange beyond words. It was not the clean-cut and efficient corporate aesthetics of the Horizon facility he had been in: It was a mile-wide hall of some kind, that reverberated with a deep yet oddly melodic thrumming of industrial machinery and chanting in the distance.

The rest of the circle was there too – Cash, Sully and Shimmer all choking on the air, while Sunrise was able to withstand as he could, using the same charms. That was when Speaker became aware of the movement around them: Gun barrels, thousands of them, pointed at the circle.

These weapons were from golden armored giants, each wielding what was clearly some kind of gun – but each such firearm was easily the size of a pony!

“Enough! Bring them before me – we do not have much time!” sounded a deep and booming… thought? It wasn’t a voice – it was a telepathic broadcast, and not a targeted one; Everyone had heard it, including the golden giants with the huge guns, as they too seem to twitch and reel from the intensity of the broadcast which had struck like a mental hammer.

The golden ones approached the circle with purposeful and strong strides, their armored steel boots sounding quite heavy to the metal floor. Their helmets featured uncaring red lenses over the eyes, and grim expressions on the face-filters, lending them the appearance of gilded skulls.

Considering that three of his peers weren’t really in a condition to fight, Speaker chose discretion as the better part of valor, quickly helping his friends on their hooves so they could all follow along – without having to be grabbed or shoved too much.

Walking for the better part of half an hour, the great hall seemingly with no end, the circle finally made it to a spot before a truly mindbogglingly grand ziggurat of strange machinery, atop which sat the sorry remains of a familiar face. It was Fire Orchid, in her bright scarlet power armor with its orichalcum trim… but it was quite heavily damaged, and so was she.

The voice in their mind spoke again – and now it was clear that it was Fire Orchid, though it didn’t quite match her normal voice: “You’re here… finally – I so worried I would never get to see a friendly face again. Quickly, I don’t have much time…”

In between coughs, Cash’s charms of perfect social understanding let him interpret what Fire Orchid had actually meant to say, letting him cry out to Speaker: “She is dying – see if you can heal her!”

Speaker quickly moved to ascend up the steps of the golden ziggurat, but the equally golden giant warriors in almost comically thick armor plating were quick to stand him and block his passage. Speaker did not take this well: “I have been asked to see a patient – step aside!”

The golden warriors stood silent and unyielding – at least right up until a psychic emission from atop the ziggurat saw all of them brought to their knees. Not wanting to question this aid, Speaker raced up the steps with bounding leaps, his charms lending him supernatural height and stability to each jump.

At the top of the ziggurat, on a grand throne, sat a heavily wounded… no… that word didn’t really fit. She didn’t really detect as being alive anymore to Speaker’s medical charms. It was a pony corpse with the soul of Fire Orchid bound to it, the link between body and soul maintained via strange magi-technical conduits which seemed to feed her a constant stream of essence… and all of it howled with the screams of the dead. This was what Speaker had detected as constantly burning out to maintain her.

Whatever had kept the golden giants kneeling finally relented, and so they quickly raced to intercept Speaker – but by then he had begun to attempt to heal Fire Orchid… maybe. With her soul and exaltation still there, he figured that if he could mend her body enough, the soul could latch on again… maybe? It had worked, sort of, like that for Lee of the Third Breath, right?

Focusing his healing charms on Fire Orchid’s head and vital organs, Speaker had his essence weave new flesh into being, reviving the withered remnants on the corpse and growing new tissue from desiccated old scraps. To his surprise this went very quickly, as the constant flood of essence going to her appeared to accelerate the process greatly.

Just as the golden giants reached Speaker and attempted to yank him away, did Fire Orchid gasp loudly and draw breath! This somehow sent out another pulse of essence through the entire mile-long hall… and a sudden hush came over the entire assembly of millions. The only sound was the deep thrumming machinery that kept pumping essence into Fire Orchid – but everything else, including the distant chanting, became silent.

After a few minutes of confusion which Speaker capitalized on to restore more of Fire Orchid’s body, the legions of golden giants and other attendants erupted into absolute insane jubilation.

Speaker didn’t care much for the festivities – he wanted Shimmer to come up and help with her flesh-melding charms, to aid in sticking Fire Orchid’s bits back together right – but the golden giants near him seemed far more interested in wresting his patient away from him. Considering that their fists were the size of his head, this was a fairly one-sided struggle – especially since Speaker didn’t want to start a real fight, but once Fire Orchid was done heaving, and appeared to have reconciled the agony of only having her brain, the breathing parts of her head, her lungs and just barely enough musculature to facilitate breathing she called out: “Let my circle attend me! They are my peers and should be treated with equal reverence! So decrees your empress!”

Ok, so Fire Orchid was the new scarlet empress of this place? Hilarious.

The rest of the circle was quickly ushered up to Speaker and Fire Orchid. Half an hour’s worth of treatment later, and Fire Orchid had enough of her chest, torso and head restored that she didn’t need external help staying alive, allowing for most of the quite invasive life-support devices to be disconnected and removed.

Sure, she didn’t have any functional limbs yet – they were growing in a bit slower, since she had ordered herself disconnected from her gilded essence-infusion system at her part-seat part open-air tomb. This disconnection process took several weeks though, during which the rest of the circle was kept separate from Fire Orchid – though due to her decree they were able to visit her regularly, during which they were told the grim story of what had happened to her when she had arrived there:

“I appeared here during a terrible battle – brother slew brother, and this world was in flames. I was within a grand vessel sailing the stars, though one crewed by poor souls fighting a losing battle and slowly being devoured and corrupted by demons – so I fought my way to the bridge, only to find a showdown between a father and his son. It was the son, I think his name was Dark Horse, who had just struck down his father, the space king, and was gloating at how he would now lay waste to this world. I intervened before a deathblow could be dealt, destroying Dark Horse, but the father was beyond salvation. For my bravery he gave me his coat of stars and somehow gifted to me his powers, for as he died he faded into nothing… and when relief finally came they all seemed to recognize me as his chosen heir” Sunrise regaled, barely pausing to breathe, all the while a swarm of heavily cyber-augmented technicians fiddled about her, diving in and out of the machinery connecting to her as they slowly worked to safely disconnect her.

Within the cathedral-palace that Fire Orchid had been enthroned/entombed in, the circle pondered the nature of this recognition – but also just how Fire Orchid had ended up in such a state as when they had found her. Sullen Hoof inquired with much worry: “Please don’t tell us that getting us here was what brought you to the brink of death?”

“Oh, heavens no… no, it was Dark Horse. See, it seemed that he had engaged in some kind of genesis artifice, making copies of himself in case his confrontation with his father didn’t go well. I’m not even sure if the one I slew was the original. The remaining ones weren’t slow to make their intentions clear; They would rearm and set up new dark crusades to destroy me now, sensing their father’s powers in me now… and on several occasions they almost got me. Every fight was costly beyond measure, both in the lives of the troops defending me, but also in how the dark herd managed to chip away at my body and soul… and thus I ended up bound to this horror for who know’s how long, drifting in and out of sleep, not able to move, see or speak… wasting away slowly, without ever being able to see the open sky again” Fire Orchid regaled, her voice pained and her eyes in tears as she remembered each sorrowful battle, on worlds drenched in blood, along with countless millennia sitting upon her golden throne.

Speaker found all this quite impressive, though also equally horrifying: “Was that why they were… are… infusing you with essence? To keep you alive?”

“Speaker, you saw how I looked – you used your charms. By all rights I should have been dead, but they managed to connect me to these things and bind my souls to my body, both my hun and my po souls… but it wasn’t just for that: I didn’t have their former kings’s full power anymore at that point, due to my wounds, and they needed that for their interstellar ships to navigate by. I don’t understand how it works, but the sorcerers that manage their long-distance navigation basically use me as beacon – but now that I am recovering, it shouldn’t be necessary to have me connected… plusnow I can finally get to see the sky again” Fire Orchid said, her tears flowing freely from her elation.

The idea of being guided from afar by the light of a Solar wasn’t all that strange-sounding to the rest of the circle, so to Sunrise the whole setup with the very temple-looking palace they were in made a lot more sense now: “…and here I thought the people I led worshiping me as a prophet were bad enough – these people worship you like their guiding light, their god basically”

“With the power I was granted I basically am – I have led untold legions across the stars, uniting this people in a glorious golden age of prosperity… until Dark Horse finally struck me enough to bind me here” Fire Orchid said, her voice and her gaze faltering mid-sentence, as if some terrible realization had come upon her.

The circle was understandably worried, but Sunrise seemed to see the issue first: “How long were you ‘asleep’ here? How long did your people go without your direct guidance?”

Cash felt his brows collide into a most worried expression: “Oh lovely – so now we’ll have to contend with your priesthood getting upset that their living goddess doesn’t live up to her own hype?”

“More like me disagreeing with how they have interpreted my will – but yes, this will become an issue… but not one for you. I will deal with the needed reformation of my cult turned state religion later” Fire Orchid stated, her voice tired, but sounding resolute that this was both something she could do and do properly.

The circle retired again for the day, the cyber-technicians continuing their work tirelessly as they seemed more metal than flesh from underneath their bright red cloaks with black and while checkered trim.

In the private chamber set up to house the circle, Sunrise voiced her worries: “I do not possess the same charms you do Cash – what isn’t she telling us”

Cash Charmer looked at Sullen Hoof, to wordlessly communicate his own theories, before he turned to Sunrise: “It’s like she said, she led the people she was given charge over, but then had to sit and watch for… who knows how long… as they had to fend for themselves – and I got the impression that she really doesn’t like the path they took”

Sullen Hoof walked along the intricately decorated wall, inspecting the features and dizzyingly detailed artwork – before thrusting a hoof through an illuminated piece of stained glass and pulling out… a jaw-less skull with what looked like wiring and cables having replaced its spine: “Maybe we can ask this thing”

The skull had a lone cybernetic eye and some kind of electronic device where an ear might once have been – but beyond that, it only had the bone of the skull as a visible organic element. Sully handed the ghoulish thing to Speaker, who – to his great horror – reported that with his medical charms he detected a living brain inside the thing, nearly dropping it from chock.

With utmost care, and the precision of a heavenly artificer and healer, Speaker removed the cyber-components from the thing and began to heal and regenerate the poor soul – giving it the same treatment that Fire Orchid had received, though she hadn’t been in nearly as bad a state. It took time for the body of the woman to reform, but Fire Orchid needed more time to disconnect properly from her essence infusion throne, so it all worked out… sort of, for Speaker also found that several sections of the brain within the skull had been surgically removed, altered with electronics or tampered with, so there was no telling how much person was actually left within, even with everything regrown.

When the restored woman had been healed enough that she could breathe on her own, Speaker brought her out of the medically induced dreamless coma he had been keeping her in. She instantly screamed something that Cash’s linguistics charms translated as a desperate plea to end her life, her eyes wide in absolute horror. Instantly putting her to sleep, Speaker looked at the rest of the circle: “Ok… that wasn’t entirely unexpected, right?”

“I’ve been there – I’d say it’s a fair response. Try to bring her back slowly, and then let me work on her” Cash said, giving Shimmer a knowing nod that confused the Lunar a bit, for she did not remember when Cash had once been almost killed during a wyld hunt, only to be saved by her despite his pleas to let him die.

A few hours later Cash had applied enough mind control charms on the woman that she was comfortable with staying alive for the time being. In this new state of being, she told of how she had ended up as some kind of still-living spy gadget built into the wall, Cash translating for her: “She says that she was once a lesser servant to the empress’s court here in the palace – an impossibly great honor, to serve those who waited upon and anointed the goddess. However, one day she did something wrong – won’t say what exactly – but this was her punishment… apparently a very common punishment: To be peeled, scraped, lobotomized and augmented, turned into a servitor”

Using his charm of disassembly on some of the gold-embroidered silken sheets and upholsteries in their quarters, Speaker acquired the materials needed to fashion new clothing to the woman – though she was still absolutely terrified to leave the quarters, dreading that she might be caught and punished again. The circle promised her that no such thing would happen – and took steps to ensure it.

At their next meeting with Fire Orchid the circle was told that she had been disconnected enough from the throne infusion apparatus that could move around on her own – her limbs had similarly regrown sufficiently to allow her to walk, albeit slowly. This suited her just fine, though Cash was very quick to request that Fire Orchid came to their quarters first, instead of wherever Fire Orchid wanted to go.

“But I… no that’s ok – it will be good with a test walk before heading outside” Fire Orchid conceded, walking with the circle to their quarters, though the trail of cables still socketed into the long row of implants going from her head down her spine still made going anywhere quite slow. It also didn’t help all that much that two dozen of the great golden-armored warriors followed her everywhere, along with a throng of those cyber-technicians who, quite frankly, really did appear more machine than flesh whenever their black and white-checker bordered red cloaks would catch on anything.

This made for quite an entourage – it also made it hilariously difficult to get some privacy with Fire Orchid, but that was mostly resolved as she was able to order her golden custodians to keep all the others out.

It was thus that Fire Orchid finally managed to speak somewhat privately with the circle – and they inquired about these servitors. Her response was one of resigned sorrow: “That’s just one aspect of how messed up my people have become. During my absence the machine intelligences that once operated many things here rebelled, and after that my people became deathly afraid of such things – replacing machine minds with mortal minds stripped of flesh. It will take me centuries, if not millennia, to fix all this and broker peace again with all the other star-faring races that my people managed to alienate and wage war upon…”

Sullen Hoof nodded to Fire Orchid: “I guess they thought they could do anything as long as they had a living goddess’ light guiding them?”

“And a fanatical clergy egging them on – I can already imagine the uprisings and insurrections that’ll come the moment I demand my legions stop their attacks on peaceful aliens and pursue diplomatic relations” Fire Orchid groaned, slumping into a couch clearly built for a much greater being than herself, the locals being much taller than a pony.

The ex-servitor woman burst from her hiding spot, seemingly unable to contain herself. She threw herself on the floor before Fire Orchid, prostrating herself quite fiercely: “My goddess – you must not speak such heresy!”

Fire Orchid rolled her eyes: “See what I have to work with?”

“Forgive me my goddess! Cast me to the flames, make a servitor again if you must, but you cannot say such things!” the woman cried out.

As Cash translated, the rest of the circle got the vibe of just how deep the xenophobic religion built up around the worship of Fire Orchid had become. Fire Orchid explained that Dark Horse’s use of alien mercenaries and his alliances with other alien forces during his crusades had given her clergy all the excuse they needed to preach a dogma that anything that wasn’t them, was bad – even anyone simply not submitting to their faith, or looking funny: “It’s all purge the heretic, the mutant and the xenos with these people now adays – back when I led the legions it was actually possibly to broker friendly relations and trade with some of them”

“As much fun as it would be help with brokering peace here – then we are also needed back home…” Cash noted, elegantly trying to change the subject away from Fire Orchid’s horrible description of the society she now ruled again, mainly because he actually seemed to understand how vast a task doing that would be.

Sunrise bid the woman rise and face Fire Orchid: “Orchid, Cash is right – you know we can’t say here forever – we have a duty to Creation first, a mandate from heaven”

“I know… that’s why I’m not coming back, but I can send you home” Fire Orchid said after drawing a deep breath.

The woman looked around confused as the circle glared at Fire Orchid, her looking mainly at the still human-form Cash for an explanation: “What did the goddess say? Are you all now also shocked at the things she says?”

Walking over to the woman, Cash nodded politely to her: “We are shocked, but not for the reason you say – now how about you sit over here, then we’ll have her figure out what to do with you. You won’t get punished or anything, that much I can promise you”

Quickly returning to the circle, Cash joined in the rather spirited discussion as Fire Orchid firmly held on to her position. Having been vested with the powers of space king, she was needed to lead these people – and to reign them in: “Without me the astronomicon will go dark, and interstellar travel will become impossible – each world will be left isolated, and they will fall to their enemies if left alone like that”

“Pish tosh – we can find way to pass what you got to someone else” Sunrise insisted.

Speaker shook his head: “Maybe – but I’m not sure that’ll help. Fire Orchid, exactly how long were you stuck in that machine?”

“Too long… millennia – hey, girl, what millennium is this?” Fire Orchid called over to the woman waiting patiently.

The woman was quite startled at her goddess speaking to her, but politely replied that it was the forty-thousandth millennium. Fire Orchid’s eyes went wide as she relayed this to the circle, with the added context that she had appeared in the thirtieth millennium.

“Well, that settles that – I guess aging works differently in this reality, or maybe it’s the essence infusions, or what that space king gave you – but if you are that old now, then you will likely turn to dust the moment you return to Creation” Speaker said, quite sad at having to leave Fire Orchid behind like this.

Sunrise refused to accept this: “No – Speaker you regrew her body! She even looks young again! We can’t just leave her here! Creation needs all of its Solars!”

Fire Orchid got up from the couch and embraced Sunrise: “I know, I’m sorry – I wish it could be different – but I do not intend to leave Creation short an exaltation either”

It tuned out that Fire Orchid, in her millennia of solitude, when she had been awake, had not only constructed a plan – but closely examined the power she had been given by the space king. It was what had let her pierce the immaterium and bring the circle to her, though she had waited until the rest of the circle had gathered on its own – and she had even found a means to send the circle back home, but before that she would need three things done: “First, we will need to somehow turn Cash back into a pony…”

“Oh, I can do that easily” Shimmer said, remarking on the sorcerous shapeshifting solution she had come up with back the first reality she had ended up in.

This was performed, Cash relieved to be back to his four-hooved self again. “I so missed being able to wear my proper shoes” he said, waving around one of the claws extended by it.

The months it took Fire Orchid to organize everything in preparation of the circle’s return, were not wasted by the rest of the circle. Sully worked with legion procurement officers to device a new highly nutritious combat ration for the imperial guard, one that could be easily sourced across many worlds, while Speaker worked with hundreds of various maimed but venerable war veterans who had previously resigned themselves to that of pilgrims to the holy throne. Sunrise and Cash aided Fire Orchid in a series of empire-wide reforms, planting the seed of justice and wisdom in a civilization that had greatly declined since Fire Orchid had been connected to that accursed throne, following her last battle with the one she called Dark Horse.

These reforms didn’t go down quietly – the theocracy that had spawned around Fire Orchid’s cult of personality reacted very poorly to their now living goddess telling them that they weren’t doing things right. Uprisings across thousands of worlds had to be put down, but with Fire Orchid back at full power then travel across the stars had become safer, faster and far more reliable – the powers of the space king flowing through her properly once more.

Indeed, Speaker spent a lot of time examining Fire Orchid with his essence sight. So did Sunrise and Shimmer – and they all agreed that what Fire Orchid had been gifted was not unlike another exaltation… one that seemed to fight the solar exaltation for its place within Fire Orchid’s soul. It was because of this that the circle understood why Fire Orchid was willing to give up her solar exaltation, even though it was a had pill to swallow.

“What will we tell your mother?” Shimmer wondered, thinking that explaining to the leader of Lookshy that her daughter – once lost, now found again, is lost once more would be quite upsetting.

Fire Orchid sighed, looking across the circle at the dinner table they all sat at: “Sunhill showed me more love, understanding and appreciation than my birth-family ever gave me. She, all of gens Karal, had their chance – but since the dragons didn’t exalt me, then I was discarded like so many other veterans, even if kin. Here countless billions look up to me for guidance, for there are cruel things out among the stars… here I’m needed, and it is not a burden I would want to pass on to anyone else”

Cash and Sunrise had also tried, but none could talk Fire Orchid out of staying. Speaker found it deeply ironic: “Even when you do find somewhere you belong, you still have to leave again… to metaphorically die to the world that knew you”

“The would-be king and her army of should-have-beens, as you told me the old saying from the first age about me went. Maybe its fate?” Fire Orchid wondered, gazing longingly out the window showing the horizon-spanning sprawl of temples, office buildings and residential structures that ostensibly took up the entire surface of the planet they were on. It was raining.

Of all the things Fire Orchid had missed the most, in her many thousands of years of effective entombment on her throne, it was seeing the sky and the sun again – it brought tears to her eyes.

When the day came for the circle to be sent home, Fire Orchid dazzled the circle with many gifts before they left. Holding court, as a true empress, in a beautiful and cavernous mile-wide hall adorned with finery from supposedly every world in her empire – to the point that the banners hanging along the walls were layered thickly – Fire Orchid called up one circle member at a time: “To Last Shimmer, the old friend I know the least, yet share the most with: I grant to you this bracer of wraith bone, of alien make. I understand that it can flow and change shape, though how I do not know. The aliens I got it from use it for both their weapons and their armor, so its strength is quite impressive – I hope you can make use of it”

Several clerics in attendance had to stop themselves in order to not cry out in protest, for their empress and goddess was handling heretical xenos artifacts. Shimmer graciously accepted the bracer, which indeed seemed to slip on to her right forehoof and resized itself. It had a pale white color, with a bright smooth ovoid blue gem set in it.

“To Sullen Hoof, I have had my best archivists compile the largest compendiums of cooking recipes in the empire. It took far too many scribes far too long to commit it all to writing, but I fear that a data-slate might not work back in Creation” Fire Orchid said, passing a tome a little bigger than Sullen Hoof which was set on a gilded trolley, to Sullen Hoof, who strained himself and his essence to haul it off. Shimmer helped him by folding it into elsewhere.

With a gesture towards Cash, Fire Orchid summoned the master diplomat and statespony to stand before her: “Cash Charmer, what can an empress offer a stallion who has everything? Money? Land? Titles? I do not know what I can give you, so I would have you choose your own boon”

Murmurs throughout the court rang out, as a blank check – a boon granted without limit – was quite unheard of, even before Fire Orchid’s fall. Cash quickly considered his options, bowing gracefully: “Thank you your highness. Considering your boundless power and reach, yet how little of that would be of any true value when we return home, then I understand your hesitance. I would ask of a single vial of your blood, drawn from your heart”

An uproar thundered through the court, thousands of courtiers unable to reign themselves in – a xenos, this strange horse being, asking for the blood of their empress? This could not stand! Never mind that they didn’t seem to recognize that Fire Orchid too was in the form of a pony.

Fire Orchid smirked, and with an imperious gesture had her great golden-armored guards hold back the court, many a rabid courtier being struck down. She then called for servants to bring a suitable vial, and bid Speaker approach to oversee the blood drawing.

Speaker abided, and while he filled the vial – seeing that Fire Orchid’s blood now glowed with a golden aura – Fire Orchid offered the solar healer and artificer his gift: “Thank you. Bright Machine Speaker, my gift to you is a puzzle. I am told that this is called archeotech, for it is technology from a bygone age that is little understood anymore – from the dark age of technology. I hope that in time you will unlock its secrets and find use of it”

A servant brought forth a sturdy lockbox big enough to contain a large watermelon. Its content didn’t rattle, but it was quite heavy. Speaker accepted the gift graciously, passing the sealed vial of blood to Cash. He wasn’t quite sure what Cash had in mind with it, but he trusted his friend not to do anything too stupid… though it being heartsblood made Speaker suspect that Cash had something lunar in mind, for it was such heartsblood that they used to learn the shapes of others.

Finally Fire Orchid bid Sunrise Glow approach, gifting her a large painting featuring the whole circle: “Your greatest strength has always been keeping us together, so I would give you this to remember us by – and to show my next incarnation how close we were”

Sunrise struggled mightily to keep back her tears, but failed beautifully as she put the painting away elsewhere.

With the gifts given, Sunrise had the circle gather up. Engineseers and techno-clerics of the martian priesthood arrived to set up special devices around the circle, as Fire Orchid martialled her powers. The circle observed carefully and curiously, using essence sight for those who could, to see the Fire Orchid using her new strange powers.

At first the material world around them weakened, and one ring of the containment machines around the circle came on. Speaker heard the term ‘Gellar field’ mentioned repeatedly by the cyber-enhanced technicians. Moments later strange creatures began appearing around them, Sunrise identifying them as what passed for demons among the locals – and indeed, they weren’t exactly friendly – but the instant they detected the presence of Fire Orchid they quickly fled, leaving but a rent gash in reality which Fire Orchid slowly manipulated and opened wider. As the hole in reality engulfed the circle, the last ring of machines came on and the grand gilded and banner-laden court of the empress faded from view.

The transit back to creation was a lot more comfortable than when they had been brought to Fire Orchid, the circle even able to converse calmly during the whole trip. Sunrise noted that she could tell that Fire Orchid’s essence was strong and vibrant this time around. Cash nodded: “Oh and Shimmer, that heartsblood I got – would you be able to use this to assume Fire Orchid’s form with this?”

“Sure, at least temporarily – it won’t grant me her form permanently”

This seemed to please Cash, as he explained that it was as a means to give Karal Linseed, Fire Orchid’s mother, a proper farewell. He even had a written message from Fire Orchid to her mother, which should work as a script for Shimmer while in Fire Orchid’s form.

“That’s very thoughtful of you Cash” Speaker complimented.

Cash said that it was the least he could do: “My own father died while I was out with a merchant caravan… and Fire Orchid isn’t dead, just…. living somewhere else – but her mother still deserves a proper sendoff”

Sully agreed, adding that this should ensure that the relations between Looksy and Sunhill wouldn’t be strained much if at all by this.

Moments later, or perhaps days later – it was hard to tell – the circle reappeared within a dark cave… and Shimmer instantly shrieked in terror.