The Tome of Exalted Ponies

The Jade Mountain stylist is a rock upon which bad soup splashes harmlessly, and is a rock that crushes evil waiters.

…

The trio returned to Lookshy, relaying what they had learned. The general staff was happy to have their own strategic analysis confirmed, and once again agreed that Roseblack’s reputation for anti-corruption and nepotism policies would make her an ideal candidate for the scarlet throne – even more so with her forewarned invasion plans, Lookshy already thinking up strategems and plans.

The circle stayed in Lookshy a bit more after that, for there was business to be done there: Part of their plan for Port Calin and a wider anti-invasion defence involved ensuring that the Sunhill legion could be deployed closer to Lookshy, so the light-rail network had to be expanded – and coordinating that with Lookshy took a bit of time, though not much thanks to Cash Charmer’s expert negotiation skills, and the merchant houses of Lookshy eagerly buying into the network to fund the expansion.

It thus came to be that Sunhill began expanding its light-rail network towards the west. This came with no small amount of drama as the guild saw its trade network threatened by this new and very speedy logistics system, one that threatened to completely undermine its own system.
This required many of the west-ward rail pillars defended by Lookshyan garrisons, to prevent guild mercenaries from capturing or destroying them – but ultimately the guild knew well enough that it couldn’t stop Lookshy from doing anything outright… though it no doubt soured Lookshy’s relationship with the guild even more than it already was.

The rail expansion also gave the circle an easy access point to Port Calin, for to avoid too much heavy guild opposition they routed the westward expansion of the network along the northern shores of the Yellow and Yanaze rivers – and put the last pillar before crossing to Lookshy near Goodharbor, the largest non-realm coastal city and the last major port of call for ships going to Port Calin.

Linking up Sunhill to Goodharbor meant that grain and rice merchants across the east would start coming to Sunhill to quickly move their wares to Goodharbor, for shipping it off to the rest of creation where prices for such products were much higher – part of why the guild found the idea of the light-rail network not being under their control to be such a threat to their economic power.

Goodharbor was also located some four-hundred miles from Port Calin, and the moment that the rail pillar to Lookshy connected to its Goodharbor counterpart across the many miles of broad river, troops started flooding in.

The merchant princes that ruled Goodharbor weren’t exactly thrilled to see a sudden influx of Lookshyan troops arriving at their doorstep – but the pillar for their city was set outside of their walls, near the coast – and the Lookshyan commanders that arrived shortly were able to smooth things over, politely explaining that Lookshy had no quarrel with the city state, merely wanting to ensure that nobody else used the new connection for a sneak attack to Lookshy.

It was also during these negotiations with Goodharbor that Sullen Hoof arrived, having made many a mountain-crossing leaps to cross the distance from the south-east to get to Lookshy, and from there via the rail network to Goodharbor. He told a glorious tale of messing with realm generals, stealing all manner of fun personal effects and helping Roseblack organize quite the little blackmail scheme – while also cooking up a storm that saw many of the senior officers of the other legions around Cripple Creek bend the knee to Roseblack: “She hadn’t expected to be able to leverage my aid into a recruitment drive – but I was able to profile several unicorns sympathetic to her cause, while those who would move against her I left addicted to snacks that would entice them to abandon their posts to seek out more of the stuff… it was very fun to orchestrate”

Satisfied that things with Roseblack were ready, and that Lookshy was mustering troops within striking distance of Port Calin, the circle gathered and prepared their attack on the Port Calin: They just had to make a big enough mess of things, that when Lookshy arrived to take control, they wouldn’t be opposed… which meant dismantling two imperial legions and whatever other local troops and dragonblooded unicorns that were present there.

One thing the circle had agreed upon, was that a ‘proper’ declaration of war had to be made – it had to be known that this was Sunhill attacking Port Calin, not Lookshy – for diplomatic reasons.

To this end, as the circle landed with four dozen Sunhill legionnaires as their honor guard via flying yeddim, on a ridge near the hill-town of Abundant Waters, Speaker ignited his ruby pinions and flew off on wings of golden fire to announce Sunhill’s intentions.

Abundant Waters, a town set up in the hills some three hundred miles from Port Calin, was known for one thing: Its namesake. This came in the form of several water aspected demesnes, which had been capped with manses that provided a constant flow of clean drinking water. Hundreds of miles of aqueducts fed the farmlands around Port Calin and all of its territories, as well as supplying drinking water to all the towns and the port city itself.

This also meant that there was a fortress next to the main aqueduct junction, to protect this eastern-most fringe of the Port Calin satrapy and its vital water supply.

It was late evening, twilight setting in, as Speaker arrived like a blazing comet. His wings of golden fire and his flaring anima left nobody in doubt that a solar anathema had just flown in over the battlements.

As alarm bells were rung all over, Speaker flew straight to the flagpole over the keep within the fortress, felling the thick wooden pole with a single strike of his hoof.

Being up on the roof of the keep, it wasn’t exactly easy for the local troops to get up and stop him – his shield charms meant that archers wasn’t an issue, and the few troops that came up to him via ladders he carefully disarmed and knocked out, before moving to the edge of the roof, to make his declaration:

“Look, up on the roof!” many a soldier cried out, terrified as they scrambled to find more ladders or other means to get up and catch or kill the anathema in their midst.

Satisfied that he had everyone’s attention, especially the few unicorn officers he could see down among the teeming troops, Speaker flared his anima once more: “Harken realm lackeys – the lords of Sunhill, all chosen of Celestia, has designs upon Port Calin and its lands. This fortress will be the first fall to our might – the realm’s presence in the river provinces is at an end!”

As expected, the officers in earshot weren’t stupid – a messenger was quickly dispatched, though as Speaker saw the messenger head for the aqueduct junction where all the local water manse pipes flowed together, he was a bit surprised to see the messenger jump on a hidden boat set in the aqueduct… though it made sense: The speed of the flowing water would ensure that the messenger would reach Port Calin much faster than a series of relays of galloping ponies. Just as planned.

Flaring his anima thrice, Speaker signalled to the rest of the circle that the messenger had been sent. It was time to take the fortress. This was initiated by Cash Charmer kicking in the main gate of the fortress, the thick metal-braced timbers shattering quite spectacularly to his magical martial arts.

Cash, Sunrise and Sully all moved in to great fanfare. Speaker kept throwing his chakrams, to cut the spears of their troops mustering – leaving them effectively disarmed. Cash focused on taking out unicorn officers, striking them down and knocking them out as quickly as he could find them, while Sullen Hoof sent a dozen rolling pins orbiting around him and then galloped almost faster than a mortal eye could track him, pummelling and knocking out at least of the garrison before anyone had a chance to see what was happening.

Sunrise wrapped up the assault, by using her silencing technique. To the remaining troops of the fortress, suddenly being unable to hear the cries of help from their fellows, or the orders of their officers… or even their own words - oh that sowed panic in ways that no other charm could. Sunrise followed this up, by making her voice the only sound heard, as she loudly cried out: “Surrender, or face the wrath of Sunhill!”

Trapped within the walls of the fortress, against foes for which arrows just bounced off, two thirds of their numbers already downed, the remaining troops quickly surrendered. A few unicorns tried to mount valiant last stands, but Cash pulled each of them before him with his extended claws, dominating their minds with the most potent of his mind control charms.

By dawn, it was the banners of Sunhill that flew over the fortress of Abundant Waters.

“So… can we turn off their water supply?” Cash wondered, looking at the aqueduct.

It took some careful inspection of the water manses, all of them built as temples to Da’Naad, the elemental dragon of water. Speaker found that disrupting or damaging the manses enough to stop the flow of water would cause a catastrophic buildup of essence, which would result in some very ugly explosions… and the villages near the fortress, which all seemed to live off businesses that supported the fortress, such as laundry, gambling parlours, brothels, taverns and blacksmiths for maintaining weapons. It would be completely destroyed as part of the manses blowing up. Speaker would not permit that kind of needless destruction.

“Right, good thing I brough a lot of laxatives” Sullen Hoof noted, ordering Sunhill troops to bring him a couple of barrels from the yeddim they had arrived in. The stuff was slowly poured into the aqueduct, while Sunrise prayed to Resplendent Buttflow that all of Port Calin feel his generous blessings.

The Lookshyan occupation troops arrived later in the afternoon, reporting that Lookshyan spies in Port Calin were hearing of a fun mix of panic from the messenger who arrived overnight, that the Sesus legions stationed outside the city were digging in and readying the city’s siege defences, plus that a curious outbreak of rampant diarrhea had broken out in the city.

“Yes, we poisoned their water supply – should reduce how many soldiers they have who can actually put up a fight” Cash Charmer cheerfully informed the Lookshyan commanding officer.

With Abundant Water taken, the next target was Sweet-tree – a crossroad hub for all the orchards, plantations and farming operations in the region. It was basically Port Calin’s food supply. Its defences was a mix of strategically arranged rice paddies, the muddy rice fields set up to seriously hinder any troops marching towards the town – or forcing such a force to funnel onto the main roads, either way making them easy targets for the archers on the fortress guarding the place – but it wasn’t set up for defending against foes arriving via air.

Of course, they were on guard, alerted by the messenger who had come through via the aqueduct – but the blacksmiths of Sunhill had been busy: They had fashioned steel armor plates for the yeddim Cash flew around on – it didn’t allow for ramming anything, but it made it very difficult for archers to do much to the great beast.

This let the circle fly straight into the fortress, repeating much of the same tactics applied at the previous fortress, though by flying Sunrise in right from the get-go, she applied her silencing immediately, resulting in many a confused troops wandering out into the fortress courtyard, only to find the rest of the garrison either clobbered or surrendered.

Once again, the circle had to wait for the Lookshyan occupation troops, keeping the surrendered and captured troops in line until the Lookshyans arrived. After Sunrise shouted the head off a soldier who tried to stab her with a hidden blade, the rest appeared to stop trying to overpower their captors. The lack of unicorn officers at the fortress made handling the local leadership quite easy, Sullen Hoof learning through interrogations that after the messenger arrived the few unicorns at the fortress had left with part of the garrison to join the defence at Port Calin… oh.

That explained why the nearby immaculate monastery had also been cleaned out – it seemed that the local standard siege response was to uproot and seek refuge in the city.

“Strange, because the locals don’t seem to be doing much of anything” Sunrise noted, looking out over the battlements of the fortress.

Cash breathed deeply, staring down a group of captive soldiers who were starting to look just a little too hopeful about either trying to escape or overpower their captures: “This is a realm satrapy – realm policy on serfs and peasants is... well, it tends to be very utilitarian, and they’re not really valued much. They can always open their borders to refugees who seek the stability of realm-controlled land – for peasants the peace and stability offered by the realm can be very tempting”

Sullen Hoof leapt up to the battlements to join Sunrise, briefly flaring his caste mark as he used some kind of charm to assess the actions of the peasantry in sight: “Yup – the peasants aren’t fleeing because they know they’re be turned away at Port Calin. Though it looks like a lot of peasants are trying to burry stuff here and there, likely whatever money and valuables they have, so it’s not looted”

“I would go out and preach calm and understanding to the peasants if not for the fact that they would likely run off screaming the moment my caste mark flares – plus if any one of them did heed my word, they would likely be punished later when immaculate priests and monks return to the area” Sunrise said, sounding none too pleased.

The next day the Looksyhan occupation troops came marching, taking over the handling of the captive enemy troops and setting up proper prison camps for them. The plan for captive troops had always been to just let them return to the isle, but only after the fighting was over.

This left the road to Port Calin wide open. Speaker felt no small amount of trepidation – their element of surprise was gone, and now they wouldn’t be going up against small garrisons, but two whole imperial legions. Cash was optimistic – it had been a while since he’d had a proper fight, and Sunrise looked quite confident in her ability to sway masses of troops once their unicorn officers were taken care of.

With two days of prep time, there was no telling what kind of tricks the two Sesus legions would have ready – and House Sesus was known for being the single most martially inclined house in the realm, to the point that Cash joked that it was less a house and more a military organization that occasionally dabbled in politics.

Heading west, the circle soon arrived at the outskirts of Port Calin – they could at least see the city walls from the hill they had landed on, but Cash dared not move any closer: A realm skyreme was circling above the city, and their yeddim, while armored, wasn’t suited for airborne artillery duels – mainly on account of there not really being any weapons mounted on it.

“Speaker, I want an essence cannon or lightning ballista on this thing when we get back to Sunhill” Cash idly mused, as he waited for Sully to finish his survey of the landscape.

The twilight caste Solar could only smile when Sullen Hoof suddenly spoke up: “They’re clever – they’re not dug in to repel a major attack, but they’ve set up a lot of small hideouts to ambush us from. I’ll bet they’ve got those places filled with immaculate monks”

Cash asked for Sully to point these hideouts out, but they were well camouflaged, so Cash couldn’t recognize what Sully told him – but they trusted each other, so Sully knew that Cash would be careful upon their approach, and Cash knew that Sully wasn’t likely to exaggerate something like this.

“So… do we just walk up and demand their surrender?” Sunrise suggested, sounding as if she was seriously considering doing so.

Cash had to chuckle: “You know, that would be hilarious if it worked – but let’s be honest here… it’s a bad idea. We know they’re setting up ambushes. Let’s just go flush them out, take those out one at a time”

“Honestly, not a bad idea – except we’ll be bombarded with their siege weapons once we come in range” Speaker pointed out.

Sunrise made an arcane gesture, a sizzling pattern of essence briefly flashing around her right forehoof: “That shouldn’t be an issue – I can provide cover, I learned a spell recently from the book of three rings for something like this, only problem is that I can’t move while channelling the spell”

A bit of quick thinking, and borrowing a tower shield from their honor guard, plus Speaker doing his usual crafting charm magic, saw Sunrise parked on a wheeled shield so she could remain motionless but still be brought along. Well, it wasn’t necessary for her to mount up and cast her spell until they got to the base of the hill they were on, when the first ballista bolt landed a bit under a hundred yards from them.

Rearing up on the shield and crossing her forehooves into a defensive posture while wielding her sorcerer’s staff, Sunrise conjured hundreds of surging mystical bands of energy that spun out around her – only to fade a moment later. Cash was actually a bit disappointed: “Oh come on, I had expected that you’d conjure some strange arcane shield or something”

That was when a bolt from a lightning ballista struck Sunrise head on – but the bands of mystic energy caught the bolt, it sizzling and sparking in the air for a brief second, before being launched right back at battlement and the magical siege weapon that had fired it – which exploded quite spectacularly.

“Oh, now we’re talking!” Cash burst out.

Speaker could only shake his head, hoping that the siege weapon crews would stop firing – no sense in them getting hurt, while he pushed the makeshift shield-cart along to make sure that Sunrise was up in front of the group.

Sullen Hoof had drawn Cash a map of the hideouts he had spotted, while he himself had of course snuck off, leaving Speaker and Cash to actually deal with the immaculate monks as they drew close.

At the first hideout – which turned out to have been a dugout clever made under some trees and bushes to hide the entrance – five immaculate monks leapt out, a perfect elemental circle: There was one unicorn for each element, though the instant they leapt out the fire aspected one launched a massive fireball at the circle, which Sunrise reflected right back, killing the unicorn outright.

The four remaining unicorns just looked in disbelief as their peer keeled over, the remains of her head looking like an ashen twig, smoking with cinders.

“This would be the part where you run off screaming” Cash said, without a doubt using a smattering of mind control charms while at it.

The earth aspected unicorn, a stoic looking stallion with a jawline truly chiselled, called out: “Do not mock us with your petty tricks anathema!”

“You know, that would have sounded a lot more convincing, if your three buddies hadn’t just run off” Cash said, fighting to resist the urge to laugh.

It was painfully clear that the stallion was struggling to not look back – but he could hear the galloping of his peers having abandoned him. He was shaking in fear as Cash calmly cantered up to him, his grin wide and smarmy: “Stay back foul anathema!”

“You say that… and yet here I am. You know, I met Pasiap a few years ago – and it would sadden him to see a righteous and pious stallion like you throw his life away so senselessly” Cash explained, deftly tugging at as any of the monk’s heartstrings as possible.

It would have been amusing to see the unicorn’s will and resolve erode away if not for the simple fact that every moment the circle tarried, was another moment for archers, ballista-crews and other siege weapons to be loaded and aimed at the circle.

Leaving the dumbstruck and seemingly pacified unicorn behind, the circle advanced on Port Calin, its city walls rising over the next ridge. Two additional ambushes handled later, saw the trio of solars but a couple hundred yards from the city walls of the mighty coastal city.

Being that close meant that it was easy for archers to just launch volley after volley, but due to Sunrise’s magic that saw projectiles reflected back from whence they came, then there were few souls left who actually wanted to shoot at her or the circle – it was just too damn risky. This of course endlessly aggravated the various junior officers up on the battlements trying to focus their respective units of archers at the circle. Even at the distance they were at, the circle could hear the angry voices of officers shouting the ears off archers who were refusing to lose arrows at the circle.

With little to no viable ranged options remaining, the gates to the city briefly opened – letting out several squads of unicorn. Some of them were in sky-blue the garb of immaculates, but most were in military unicorns with medium to heavy plate armor.

It was clear that Cash had hoped to engage these new unicorns in a duel on words – but they weren’t interested in talking, so a brutal melee ensued. Sunrise quickly dropped her sorcerous protection spell, under the idea that while fighting the archers up on the battlements wouldn’t lose arrows down upon them, plus she wouldn’t have been able to maintain her arcane posture while defending herself.

A few archers did try their luck – but Sullen Hoof was up on the battlements in the blink of a eye, having galloped up the walls, while wreathed in a whirlwind of rolling pins. It sounded like bells ringing out as he sped down the battlements whacking ponies on their helmets, knocking out every soldier he would gallop past.

Down in front of the gate, several unicorns were learning the very hard way that while blades could be parried – then parrying a shout wasn’t all that easy… so many of them were finding themselves constantly knocked over or tossed around – Speaker helping just the same, grabbing, wrestling down and tossing up into the air anyone he could grab. Cash in turn lined up mighty strikes on every unicorn as they came down, for down they came, hitting them with furious impacts that saw them slammed into the city wall.

Only a the most heavily armored, or toughest of the unicorns were able to get up again after such a treatment – and with their numbers whittled down as such, the circle was able to engage them one on one.

Cash quickly moved to engage a burly mare in heavy armor – mainly because the armor didn’t look magical… and with an armor-shattering strike, he saw a shower of rivets and plates plink and clatter off the city wall behind her. Completely stripped, the unicorn mare stood quite surprised and horrified, while Cash briefly admired her beauty and commented quite openly on it.

Meanwhile, Sunrise was not as much fighting her foes, as she was wearing down their minds: With her charms she forced them to deeply commit mentally to every blow they sought to land on her, slowly leaving them in a state where they simply couldn’t raise arms against her – and this gave her time to set up a grand performance: For while Speaker had learned impossibly potent crafting charms, Sunrise had similarly found ways to enhance her singing in ways that would draw even tears from stone with her aria.

With music wrought of her own essence, a haunting chorus and instrumentation that slowly built up, Sunrise sang to the heavily fortified city wall around Port Calin.

The stone wept – and the horrified troops up on the battlements saw to their terror as the stones under their hooves began to move, the very wall yielding open as if it had a will of its own! The city gates needed not open now, for the wall itself had parted ways – revealing… oh…

Three jade warstriders – a blue, a black and a green one – each in the process of having a unicorn fitted into their pilot seats.

“Speaker, they have striders!” Sunrise quickly announced, as she braced herself against a ballista bolt fired from the green warstrider’s enormous oversized bow.

Seeing the sudden development, Speaker quickly disengaged from the unicorn he had been tussling with – flinging Homage to bash that unicorn over to Sunrise. He then quickly stated a choice selection of the magical Five Hundred Words of War, and spun about himself, his hooves quickly tracing an essence lattice around himself, drawing in sunlight that made the lattice burst with bright golden fire.

Cash effortlessly noticed the development, and moved quickly to prevent his foes from targeting Speaker in an attempt to interrupt the spellcasting. From up on the battlements, a sorcerer cried out “My counterspell isn’t working, what is this?” while hundreds of least gods from everything from the torn rivets of the shattered armor of Cash’s foes, to the bricks of the city wall, all streamed to Speaker and forged themselves into beautiful orichalcum armor plating, building themselves upon the lattice into a mighty golden warstrider.

The three warstriders inside the city walls stood silent – for it could easily take a few hours to socket a pilot in properly, especially if done by inexperienced support crews. It had only taken Speaker ten seconds to conjure his warstriders – so he quickly moved to rush the hole in the city wall, smashing every large bit of siege weapon he came in range of, before reaching the three jade warstriders and plucking the squirming pilots from their still open control-cages.

Speaker managed to yank one unicorn out, and had to squish the other one, for the third pilot managed to gain enough control of his warstrider to bring up a limb to block and parry Speaker.

A duel between warstriders ensued, and local property owners in that part of Port Calin no doubt wept – for an unarmed duel between warstriders is very destructive to its environment.

His sorcerous warstrider’s large size also made him an easy target: Many of the siege weapons that had been turned away from the circle out of fear of magical return fire now turned towards him, though not even steel-tipped ballista bolts were able to actually harm the thing, making them little more than an annoyance and distraction.

For Speaker, fighting in the warstrider wasn’t that much different that fighting normally – the warstrider moved as he would move, allowing him to perform all of his usual magical martial arts, which he put to great effect, slowly whitling down his foe.

The jade warstrider in turn was clearly being piloted by someone not quite used to using it – and the unicorn seemed even less used to fighting without a weapon, which gave Speaker a massive edge to begin with, but the unicorn wasn’t stupid – and was able to improvise a pair of warstrider-sized daggers from bolts plucked out of the remains of a broken ballista.

This made the fighting a fair bit more dicey – to which end Speaker leveraged the only other advantage he knew that he had over any unicorn as a solar: He had more essence to burn. Disengaging from the fight, Speaker instead ran roughshod through the troops gathered in the square at the city gate, wrecking wagons with weapons and generally making for as much chaos as possible. The jade warstrider pilot would run out of essence soon enough, while Speaker’s main goal was to weaken the city’s defenders as much as possible.

The led to the two warstriders chasing each other around, levelling no small amount of the outer merchant district of Port Calin – Speaker trying his best not to step on anyone, though it did look like the ponies of the city had evacuated from the city blocks nearest the walls in anticipation of a bombardment. Local fire fighting services were also on point, with plenty of ponies near the city’s canals with buckets ready to toss water up at anything that caught fire – which happened, as warstriders thundered through structures with lit fireplaces, oil lamps or candles.

Seeing this destruction around him pained Speaker – it truly did – but he knew that on the blessed isle the fighting was likely much worse. Still, he had trashed pretty much all of the city’s emplaced siege defences at that point, so he finally turned his attention to the jade warstrider… which wasn’t there, because the inexperienced pilot of it had found himself greatly too exhausted by the great strain of piloting a warstrider, while Speaker had wisely used charms to negate that same problem…

Of course, this meant that Speaker found the warstrider in the process of switching pilot – allowing him to politely ‘discourage’ the unicorn trying to fit herself into straps of the control cage, followed by picking up and jamming a large half-crushed copper cauldron into the then empty pilot seat, preventing anyone else from using the thing. Lookshy would likely be overjoyed to take command of a couple of realm warstriders.

…maybe it would also offset Lookshy’s expenses in having to oversee the reconstruction of the city.

Speaker made his way back to the area around the gate. He found it full of troops that had laid down their weapons – and screaming unicorn officers who couldn’t get through to the troops. It looked like Sunrise had done her mind-control magic… but where were they?

The unicorn officers trying to rouse their ensorcelled troops quickly turned on Speaker – but Speaker was in a giant golden warstrider – so they couldn’t really do much, and he couldn’t get near them without stepping on someone.

Sensing that his need for a giant magic suit of armor had ended – there wasn’t any more siege artillery shooting at him, for he had destroyed it all, Speaker enacted countermagic upon his warstrider – it dissolving back into the lesser gods it had been forged from, who quickly flitted back to their humble domains.

Back down on the ground, Speaker spent the next hour or so chasing down junior unicorn officers – him quickly finding that using Gift and Homage to lob off one or two of the unicorn’s legs was a great way to make them stop running – and most of them behaved when he promised to reattach those limbs afterwards.

Cash showed up as Speaker was patching up the last batch of no-longer-amputee unicorns, explaining that the fighting had moved to the satrap’s palace: “Me and Sunrise had a lot of fun in the satrap’s court… Oh I don’t think I’ve seen her really wring someone’s mind out like that in quite a while”

“Good for her – has the fighting stopped then?” Speaker said, maintaining his focus on his last patient until he was done, the unicorn quickly shuffling off in shame of having been defeated and then healed by anathema the moment Speaker had finished.

With a half-nod from side to side, Cash didn’t quite seem to know if he wanted to smirk or sneer: “Sort of – depending on what Sully pulls off we might be under siege pretty soon”

“I’m sorry, under siege by who?” Speaker had to ask, though he instantly caught himself for of course he knew the answer to that.

Cash briefly jumped up into the air – much higher than what a normal pony could from a standing position – and in doing so did a quick headcount of all the troops in the area: “There’s barely a third of a single legion’s worth of troops here, and a lot of them are city guardsponies. The two Sesus legions camping north of the city never planned on defending the city from us… they wanted us to take it, and then they’ll come and take it back instead – almost as if they were ready to lay siege somewhere, like the imperial city”

“Ah yes, the good old liberate the innocent ploy – I guess it’ll also conveniently let them install a new satrap of their own choosing, say a Sesus unicorn?” Speaker said, as he saw how Cash was nodding at him.

It was with the greatest of sigh that Cash explained that Sunrise was still wrapping things up at the satrap’s court, all the lesser nobles there needing some polite talking to – and probably a bit of mind control – in order to accept the idea of rejecting the realm: “The real problem is that we don’t have any troops to helm the walls and repel the Sesus legions when they come at us in force – and Lookshy won’t be here in time either, nor will they be equipped to repel something like that”

“That shouldn’t be an issue – I’ve gotten most of the legions to pack up and head to their transport ships” Sullen Hoof suddenly reported, as he came in and landed from an impossibly high leap, making it appear as if he almost flew in from the west end of the city.

Sullen Hoof had apparently been having fun using his disguise charms to impersonate some of the high-ranking legion officers the rest of the circle had slain at the gate, giving all kinds of orders to the legions camped north of the city – orders like pack up and get to the ships quickly before the anathema get to them.

“So… you sent two legions towards the imperial city then? That’ll wreak havoc with Roseblack’s plan – we specifically wanted to avoid that” Cash bemoaned, his expression one of wondering whether this whole lightning campaign against Port Calin was now all for nothing.

With a few clicks Sully removed his orichalcum helmet and then he whacked Cash over his head with it, before putting it back on: “Sent them there – yes, but they’ll never get there. I sabotaged the ships first. They’ll start taking in water after a day or two, and then their rudders will start breaking. Some of them might manage to repair it, but they’ll all have to turn back to here… Into the open arms of the Lookshyan troops manning the coastal essence artillery”

“Oh… clever, I like it – but ok, let’s go check up on Sunrise” Cash said, motioning for Sully and Speaker to follow him into the city towards the Satrap’s palace.