Esquestria: The House of the Sun - A pony cultist experience

[spiderhellian]

Let's go home. Whether it's with Twilight or without, I think we've done what we came here for. And anything else would not be handled in a single action.

 

[Earth-Destroyer]

Let's go home. Whether it's with Twilight or without, I think we've done what we came here for. And anything else would not be handled in a single action.

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We have now way of knowing what actions take a single action, I thought the Celestia and Luna would take at least 2 yet it only took one. And we already spend our rerolls, so the only other thing we where even considering the Secret History personal Sacrament is a no go.

This a unique event with one time rewards super rewards, we should grab as many as we can.

 

[Talon Tiger Dino]

Let's go home. Whether it's with Twilight or without, I think we've done what we came here for. And anything else would not be handled in a single action.

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But I want to throw Eldritch knowledge at the big glowy liiiiiiiiiight. Damn thing is right there taunting us!

On the other hand, Uncle Steppes awaits.

 

[Solace2117]

I'm not especially surprised about this kind of plot. Not after we got some more details on how Velvet nearly got killed/assassinated in her backstory.

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Are you saying Harmony caused Velvet's childhood injuries? Cause it was implied that they were a backlash from a lore ritual, not Harmony.

 

[spiderhellian]

We have now way of knowing what actions take a single action, I thought the Celestia and Luna would take at least 2 yet it only took one. And we already spend our rerolls, so the only other thing we where even considering the Secret History personal Sacrament is a no go.

This a unique event with one time rewards super rewards, we should grab as many as we can.

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We've got a Lantern AotL we could use to study A very useful artefact. A fleeting we could catch up on. Socializing or searching (eg for a Ritual site) with a +40 influence.

I think we should go home.

 

[AuthorTransient]

That was certainly a way to meet the principals, and not one I had expected. And it was fun, being here (despite it all). But I'm exhausted. I think it's time to go home.

 

[OurLadyOfWires]

Yeah, writing this sequence was a blast. And I will happily write more of it if the vote goes that way.

But to be entirely transparent, Sacraments are not supposed to go on for 20k words. This is being a very big exception. One that I have planned for a while, and that I very much wanted to write. But I legitimately expect us to pack up and leave.

Still, voter's choice and all that.

Anyways, thank you all for reading so far, and I hope you are all doing we. Good night for tonight.

 

[Shaper47]

Are you saying Harmony caused Velvet's childhood injuries? Cause it was implied that they were a backlash from a lore ritual, not Harmony.

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More how Rajanaga of Pasargadae just so happened to have a guy who "desired" to be with her and love her. Which caused her to die, to have the lores wither into ruin, to have her break her oath to her sister and leave her to rot. And how this gives me a case of Déjà vu.

Because we've heard this story before. Of someone who was touched by the lores who just so happens to have a guy who "desired" to be with her and love her. But Stormchaser had another "desire", a "desire" for a child. The closest Velvet ever came to death was bearing Silky into the world, it was a miracle as she lay there in Agony that she survived. Survived to spread the lores and how to summon Windigos to the world.

Also possibly Fluttershy.

Now it could all be a coincidence. That the element Harmony claims dominion over just so happened to be responsible for killing Rajanaga and keeping DoA locked away to rot. That Velvet who would go on to spread the lores and how to summon Windigos to the world was nearly killed though suddenly arising desires relating to the element Harmony claims dominion over via what we're pretty sure is a method of Harmony's influence.

Or it could be that coincidences do not exist.

Maybe I'm being Paranoid here but things look kinda sus.

 

[Steady Gaze]

We never met Sunset Shimmer :'(. And honestly, I kind of assume her track is a multi-action one, and we only have one left. Regardless, I think it would be one of these:

[] They are young and impressionable. Thankfully, you are a responsible adult. (Hang out with Rarity and Fluttershy, your real-life confidantes)
[] "Is there anything on your mind, Miss Jack?" (Approach Applejack)
[] This place has a library. Go take a look.

I know I said I kind of wanted to leave, but I'd also be willing to swing one more time, even to catch a glimpse.

Also, what do people want to use a freed AP for? The Steppes fleeting opportunity?

 

[dcoconeo]

Also, what do people want to use a freed AP for? The Steppes fleeting opportunity?

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GLORY preparations, or perhaps Artifact Studying?

 

[OurLadyOfWires]

Shaper, please, I am begging you.

There is nothing in the story that supports your theory.

Thinking that [known entity] is the only possible culprit for [event that is tangentially related to its area] is just a reductive view of any story's potential.

It's the same as having a knee-jerk reaction that "a crime that was reported in Manehattan" HAS to be related to "Velvet Steppes" because he is a known character who does crimes in Manehattan. Just because it can be that, it doesn't necessarily mean it is. It could just be me trying to introduce a new character, like Flower Serenade, or a thousand other explanations.

So, again, please. I beg you. Your demonization of Harmony makes no sense, and it is especially grating to me because I take pains to present it in a very specific and intentionally elusive light. I take pains to ensure that I reveal things at a certain pace, and reading a theory like that is just... well, confusing, for lack of a better word.

I don't mean this as a personal attack against you, and I appreciate you. But your take (your arguments) were so bad it made me get out of bed and log back in here just to type this.

Now, good night for real. Vote for whatever you want, as always.

 

[Limabot]

While I do still think Harmony is benevolent, I don't entirely know why exactly it has made this place. It doesn't seem like it's a replacement for the real Equestria, given this place has seemingly been around long before the recent disasters. If it was supposed to be a Lore-free fantasy land or refuge, that would make a bit more sense, but that raises the question of why it's so hard to enter or to leave. Overall, I just don't know what to make of it.

 

[dcoconeo]

[X] Return home, with Diary and Frangiclave, and fulfill your bargain with the Daughter-of-Axes. (End the dream, and redistribute your remaining action points.)

My position is clear: Let's not buy more problems for ourselves, when what we need most now is Bits and Velvet AP to finish our Todo before we can do the Expedition?

 

[spiderhellian]

While I do still think Harmony is benevolent, I don't entirely know why exactly it has made this place. It doesn't seem like it's a replacement for the real Equestria, given this place has seemingly been around long before the recent disasters. If it was supposed to be a Lore-free fantasy land or refuge, that would make a bit more sense, but that raises the question of why it's so hard to enter or to leave. Overall, I just don't know what to make of it.

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In general, I think attributing agency to Harmony is a common mistake we make.

I think it's more like a principle, than a Name. It's more like the Glory, than any denizen of the Mansus. It shapes and empowers as it must, more than as it wills.

 

[Calico J]

I'd say this place is still an interesting opportunity and I don't want to leave yet. Pursuing knowledge of the Principals is definitely still worthwhile as far as I'm concerned. Also probably the library. Anyway, given that we likely won't be back, I'd rather milk it for all it's worth.

 

[Qwoptermain]

Okay. Imma ramble for a bit here.

We understand capacitors now. Making a modern battery might be nigh-impossible via mundane means, but a capacitor is probably doable even without Forge.

And this world hasn't been corrupted by the forest. We're the source of our power here.

Looking back on the thread at the Dreamlands. It's been infested by the Worms. Here, there's nothing to draw from. Here is... untouched

I like the idea of the sun being Harmony.

It makes sense.

Equestria is the House of Harmony.

Our little book club started out by peircing the door to the house. By our actions, we tore apart Equestria's protections. The Sun could not save Luna from our actions;

THE HISTORY OF THIS WORLD HAS BEEN CHANGED, STRANGLED OUT OF ITS PATH BY WILL AND HOOF.

This world's future is now totally divergent from canon.

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And with Luna subverted, the house was usurped. Harmony wasn't able to protect Equestria anymore.

I refrence the words of our Devoured Master:

They come from Nowhere, and even back then they tried to burrow through the black dirt of the Woods, or tried to crawl out through secret passages in secret places, dark corridors where the wrong kind of light exists."

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"But there were protections back there. Wards and traps, barriers and thresholds, even the very powers that be would defend Equestria against the worms.

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In this dimension, we are a worm. We sought out where the wrong type of light exsists. And we were rejected, far gentler than we deserve.

The "wrong light" by which our Devoured Master referred to could conceivably be Harmony.


Harmony may help our Twilight. Our Twilight, broken and infested. Or she may be treated as a worm.

I worried initially that not bringing Mirror!Twilight to this world would result in her "joining a book club", and starting the cycle anew. We don't have to worry about that here. There's nothing to find. Not unless we introduce it.

I needn't say we SHOULD NOT DO THAT.

Bringing Twilight here may help her, Harmony will nurture and aid, it will heal.

Healing can be destructive. We introduce our dear, infested Twilight, trading away our tainted slice of harmony. Harmony may be able to fight the infection. She might survive the process. What if she does not? We will have killed our friend, or granted our curse passage onto another realm.

This Twilight isn't a element of harmony. She is beneath the notice of the lores. Untained. This won't last. She's going to freedive directly into the darkness, unless we dedicate enough AP into her education to make the measly three we spent aquiring her look like an speck of ash. Or we don't, and her broken body feeds the endless ash.

To swap Twilights would doom both worlds.

She's still an element of Harmony. It may not hold sway over our world anymore. Two doors have been smashed. The worms might frolic unheeded in the tainted light.

It may be impossible to restore Harmony. The histories have shifted far to much for that.

Through our actions, the world will crumble.

At this point, we can only hope to secure it for the lifetime of our children, as can they for theirs.

Or we could throw that all away. Gamble on a "good solution" to a problem that Velvet's too much of a coward to fix herself.

It might work out. Harmony abhorrent not having everything wrapped up nice in a rainbow.

She will know love again. She might grow to accept it. She might ascend in the light of a better world. She could return, retake the corrupted House, Sunseting the lores, and allowing our children to live eternal in an House reinforced and restored.

And yes, We will die. Crushed by a beam of the crumbling House. Torn apart by her loyal drakehound. A plaque on an empty plinth, for only the mere fact that we were once Pony, is all that remains once the Elements strips all else away.

But it will be worth it. For our children will have the world we ruined, a world we damned eternally.

Or any of our assumptions are wrong. The light isn't Harmony. Twilight can't recover. It's all just a foggy fantasy.

---

Not to mention if Sunset exists here.

Forget being locked up in Asylum, with a attitud like that, Sunset will be onto her like she's been reincarnated into the first few chapters of Worm.

Or in the unlikely senario, they team up.

If so we're bucked. Sunset is the only pony who hasn't been touched by the lores. Uncorrputed Harmony lies only in her, Twilight would do anything to free herself of it's influence. A friendship forged by the power of hating our everything. Our Harmony approves. Their Harmony approves as a matter of solidarity.

We're bucked. But maybe that's a good thing.

---

We gamble everything on this choice. Worse still, we won't live to see it.

Swap Twilights.

A gamble. We can only hope that entrusting our hero to a gentle unkown. To hope that she can recover, to live a happy life. And if we're lucky, she might return, to bring Sunset to the House of the Sun, to rise anew. That the status quo might return at the end of the episode. That Equestria might sing again, as we face our fate.

Or, we may doom her. Humanity might prove unkind. We may be mistaken that it is Harmony that hosts the House. We might infest an untarnished universe, or doom her to be purged as an infection should. Or it moght all be a dream, dooming her to the worms.

Don't swap.

Twi-Sci is disappointed. But there is no Master to ruin her. She might find us. Track her way into our worlds through the "indomitable human spirit". Or we might never hear from her again.

We don't give away what little remains of harmony. We don't want anything to do with her.

Our daughters are not us. They are better.

And they would do anything for family.

Celestia might be content with Luna back, appeased with her captors dead.

I doubt Candace is. Her purpose as a Alicorn is love. To restore love. To calm rocky waters, to mend, and fix.

I doubt Shining is content. His entire life was dedicated to protect. He failed. He knows now that there is more to this world than what he could have ever thought. We had him hooked. And then we nearly died, and we lost that ability. Unless I fundementally misunderatand, He's not hooked anymore.

He wants Twilight back. There are powers he doesn't understand at play. And he's on the force hunting it down.

_____

Either way,

Even if we can go back. I don't think we should.

 

[Limabot]

[X] Return home, with Diary and Frangiclave, and fulfill your bargain with the Daughter-of-Axes. (End the dream, and redistribute your remaining action points.)

My position is clear: Let's not buy more problems for ourselves, when what we need most now is Bits and Velvet AP to finish our Todo before we can do the Expedition?

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I don't think the vote is open yet.

 

[dcoconeo]

Now, good night for real. Vote for whatever you want, as always.

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Assuming this means the vote is open, but if not I will repost the vote when it is open

 

[Shaper47]

Your demonization of Harmony makes no sense, and it is especially grating to me because I take pains to present it in a very specific and intentionally elusive light

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I wouldn't really call the theory that Harmony is match making to have people get into loving relationships demonization.

I go so far as to say the implication it got Stormchaser around as a loving husband to be morally good action. (If that was Harmony's influence)

As you said things are in an elusive light. I/we don't have all the pieces, only parts of them. Adding them together often produces an unclear or misleading image.

I don't mean this as a personal attack against you, and I appreciate you. But your take (your arguments) were so bad it made me get out of bed and log back in here just to type this.

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I wouldn't call them bad per say but maybe overly paranoid.

But thanks for clarifying the information.

 

[Qwoptermain]

I think attributing agency to Harmony is a common mistake we make.

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I haven't exactly been in the thread long, and was entirely in reader mode when catching up, so I'm not sure to what degree y'all have anthropmophized it, but even before we smashed open the House, our Dogishly Devoured Master attributed Harmony's protection of Equestria to wards, spell, and servants, and occationally the powers themselves.

To be fair, this was during the "all hands that survived our assault upon Luna, meeting, and he's a lying expletive, but it's what I've remembered.

You realize what is wrong about its voice. And although it should be normal, as your Master is surely great in Moth, it somehow feels strange. Maybe because it seems to be too real. Too honest.

You realize that you Master sounds... confused? Not shocked, not afraid, not surprised, but something maddening close to those three. Something that perhaps might see better justice if it is described as "in deep thought".


But a kind of deep thought that you would attribute to yourself, or to anypony else who lives and breathes and worries. Not to… whatever… your Master is.


"We called those things 'Worms'…" the voice finally continues. "And long ago, truly long ago, when the world still had its correct shape and form, even then they already tried to crawl into it… They come from Nowhere, and even back then they tried to burrow through the black dirt of the Woods, or tried to crawl out through secret passages in secret places, dark corridors where the wrong kind of light exists."

... [Cut for flow]

You swear that, whatever is in the middle of the circle, it almost sounds like a regular pony.

"But there were protections back there. Wards and traps, barriers and thresholds, even the very powers that be would defend Equestria against the worms. And back then the worms would merely inhabit and consume. Those who were foolish enough to leave the wards behind, those who tried to brave Nowhere, would merely be taken, and become ever more dead, forever…"

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Now. Moth specialist cult leader. Even before magic gets involved, endearing themselves to their disciples via making them feel special, all whilst lying to their face is more than just their bread and butter, it's their wheat and cream. We can't trust it. But it's there.

 

[Greymere]

[] Return home, with Diary and Frangiclave, and fulfill your bargain with the Daughter-of-Axes. (End the dream, and redistribute your remaining action points.)

Time to go home. I want to study our Lantern artifact already, dammit! Or do something productive at least. Scry a book, talk to Spoiled Rich, explore the Mansus, something that actually progresses our goals. This is interesting, sure, but I don't think it's worth the opportunity cost of losing that AP.

 

[Talon Tiger Dino]

Alright, new theory here:

We know that the Hours choose the dominant History of a world, but all the Histories that didn't happen still pseudo-exist in a sort of weave for reality to rest upon.

I think Harmony is the force that does that weaving, that holds together the tapestry that the Hours would argue about the design over. And then the Hours imploded, wrecked the Mansus, and left everything open to the Worms. So Harmony decided to try its hand at shaping that topmost layer, with the ideals of cooperation and coming together and seemingly irrelevant parts coming together to make a better whole that have defined its entire existence of weaving things that are not into a base metaphysical layer to support things that are. That's why it's sandwiched between Dreams and Histories and things all seem to work out in it's ideal iteration. It's why even when we bring our Lore-laden self right up to it, we just gently get nudged away rather than blasted with excroriating power, because there's always curious individuals poking at the underlying strands through means it doesn't really understand. It's the shining core of the world, after all, always nestled away from the sight Glory by endless strings of Histories, only knowing that there were beings always shaping its topmost layers, teasing certain threads up while pushing others down. But with them gone the Tapestry's Heart, the "Shining Core of the World," might finally get to define itself.

 

[Shaper47]

Also, what do people want to use a freed AP for? The Steppes fleeting opportunity?

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Book searching for Moth 4 book.

Could get Moth 6 by Turn 24 if we focus on it.

our Dogishly Devoured Master attributed Harmony's protection of Equestria to wards, spell, and servants, and occationally the powers themselves.

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They applied the Wards to be old creation by the lores but aside from that. Yeah, that's about what I remember.

 

[dcoconeo]

Could get Moth 6 by Turn 24 if we focus on it.

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Who do you have in mind for the Moth Sacrament, especially now that we know (a large portion of the playerbase) will not like it very much considering how Sacraments implications were treated by the Knock version?

 

[Limabot]

Who do you have in mind for the Moth Sacrament, especially now that we know (a large portion of the playerbase) will not like it very much considering how Sacraments implications were treated by the Knock version?

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From what I remember, the tentative thread consensus was to set up Spoiled Rich (Diamond Tiara's crappy mother) as the Sacrament's victim.

 

[Greymere]

Who do you have in mind for the Moth Sacrament, especially now that we know (a large portion of the playerbase) will not like it very much considering how Sacraments implications were treated by the Knock version?

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So far, unless the collective opinion has changed when I wasn't looking, the idea is to use Spoiled Rich as the Moth Sacrament target. It's why we sent Mareinette to go establish contact with her in the first place.

 

[Venerable Ro]

Alright, time to go, I for one am very much in favor of grabbing the Uncle Steppes FO, he's shown himself to be an excellent character and a very insightful addition to the household.

If there's any chance to bring him on full-time this will be it.

 

[Shaper47]

Who do you have in mind for the Moth Sacrament, especially now that we know (a large portion of the playerbase) will not like it very much considering how Sacraments implications were treated by the Knock version?

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Spoiled Rich still.

I was a big supporter of getting the Master's Sacrament but that's not an option anymore.

Given the circumstances the Sacrament is needed.

Not having much sympathy for others dislike given it's often a result of their choices.

Alright, time to go, I for one am very much in favor of grabbing the Uncle Steppes FO, he's shown himself to be an excellent character and a very insightful addition to the household.

If there's any chance to bring him on full-time this will be it.

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I don't think it will bring him on full-time but it would be kinda sweet.

Maybe if we introduce him to the Princess of the Moon though?

 

[Talon Tiger Dino]

I don't think it will bring him on full-time but it would be kinda sweet.

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He certainly knows where the good books are, at least.

 

[Nevermort]

I think we were shown a world Harmony wish to bring into being. A world without Lores, Mansus and even Magic. Which for some reason is being inhabited by simians. Or maybe it was created by someone else and it just located very close to Harmony. Maybe Harmony is just power source here and someone's else intelligent design is at play .

In the end we learned very little about creator/creators of this world. I thought that it may have been one of the Hours but there was no indication of it. The only possible actionable info is that we now know a very rough location of the place, that Harmony can be seen from it, just like it can be seen from Dreamlands, meaning the two are relatively close to each other.

I would not mind staying for another update, but if we decide to go then so be it. I still think that Mane 6 are our best bets to finding Sunset, but we likely would not have time to do anything with it now.