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

[Sveta08]

Ha! Oh how wonderful!
Was almost worried there for a minute! But, ah, so sweet! So delightful.

And how clever of Selene! She is not quite a documentarian as Velvet is. Yet.

 

[Venerable Ro]

Well alright! Let's get this train rolling, Eclipse can eat our dust.

 

[DelightedOne]

Ah, Selene is going to appear in this isn't she? The title is a dead giveaway.

Iron Button and Beyond Reproach are good. I wonder if they will be loyal after this.

She called them AND has Cadance in the room? She is feeling quite mothy tonight isn't she.

Yes, Iron Button, Cadance is on our side so you're kinda fucked if you don't cooperate.

Question games? She is awfully confident in this, it doesn't even feel like Velvet.

CLOP

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...

Okay, she got me. You're doing great sweetie!

She wanted you to act like there is a Princess in the room.

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Oooh, that makes so much more sense now. I was wondering what exactly was in her mind to say that.

"During the search, an unknown, and by all accounts disinherited, noblemare comes to prominence. She somehow makes her way to the heart of the search efforts in Canterlot. And after the false Princess Luna takes over the castle, she attempts to break in with one of Celestia's former apprentices."

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Here comes the build up. Wait, he thinks Velvet is a changeling?

So we are lying about everything and making luna's disappearance be a setup. Meh, I guess it works.

You have reached the maximum "loyalty" you can reach with the Lunar Bureau. For that, you have automatically "converted" it to your use, and started to secretly spread the use of the Lores among its ranks. You may no longer spend Commissioner actions to "ingratiate yourself with the Bureau", because there is no need for that. However, you also (currently) cannot "speed up" the process of bringing more Bureau ponies into the know.

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Hahahahahaha. Amazing, truly, completely and utterly amazing... but I already knew it would happen.

We cannot accelerate the growth of our cult yet, but there is a path for that in the future, let's keep that in mind.

You can now "Create institutional knowledge" for free, once per turn, during your Follower's phase. "Institutional Knowledge" is a level 1 manuscript that will "introduce" the Bureau to the selected Lore, giving them access to your Library on the relevant Lore as well. You may create an additional piece of "Institutional Knowledge" by using your Commissioner's Action for the turn.

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This is delicious. Finally something to make the Bureau more useful to us, we need to make these things as much as we can.


Oooh Selene and Velvet were there. I was fooled again it seems.

 

[Random Anon]

I'm actually a bit disappointed that Velvet didn't actually answer the last question .
I guess she only promised to tell the truth.

Anyway, what a great chapter. Didn't expect max rep so fast.

Edit: for the first two questions:

So here is your answer: My cutie mark looks like an open book, with blank pages, with a butterflies flying around it.

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True

My house was attacked by four armed ponies… and one of the ice-made creatures we have classified as a Windigo

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True

But no direct true answer for the third and last.

 

[ses]

So we finally have a cult of our own! Cadre bonus back soon lets gooooooooo.

To be honest I didn't actually expect them to be to certain that Velvet was a changeling, rather than being onto all the wonderful and varied forms of treason we actually have done. I loved that they had a conspiracy board up in their home though. I always love that trope.

Also LMAO at Drummer Clap being our personal pony-fetcher. To be honest I absolutely love Drummer Clap and our ability to send her to carry out "arrest warrants" whenever our friends decide to be hikkimoris.

After all, if your "suspicions" about the Commissioner are correct, then she has other ways to deal with you two that are much more convenient than calling you like this. So, the best thing you can do is hope against hope, and act like nothing is wrong.

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My actual reaction to his was "How the fuck did they figure out we can Death Note people?", not anything sane or related to what they actually thought they knew.

"My turn," she says, her voice almost sounding excited as she speaks. "So, for my question I want to ask… What is your favorite number? No, no, let me rephrase that. Pick a number between ten and twenty," she says.

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I'm surprised Button didn't think "Fuck should have said ten in case there's some horrible thing she's going to do to us that many times before we die"

 

[Zxzx24]

Oh that was wonderful!

 

[ses]

Frees up a Selene AP that I was wondering if should be spent on Divine Moon Revelations.

Maximum Loyalty means we get to keep any goodies that the Bureau finds in Tall Tale, right? Right?!

But yeah do we take Lantern institutional knowledge for free next turn? It'll be hilarious if Velvet and the Bureau casually outpaces Eclipse in lore knowledge. Though the fact we've already maxed the loyalty meter means less reward to personally shreddering the bugs with maximum max-Lantern/Edge overkill.

Overall well worth the 400 bits I'd say. You can't normally just buy a cult that believes you to be a divine moon demigoddess for 400 bits.

Funny, I wonder if we'll be able to take generic constables to Expeditions led by Selene like we used to have the option to take generic cultists that we never took. Would be kinda hilarious to see the soon to be adepts of the Bureau doing an Expedition with the actual Princess Luna while she's pretending to be "Princess Luna pretending to be Velvet Covers the Commissioner"

RIP to all the Death Note memes I had prepared and ready for next turn. Game was over before it even began.

Honestly I'm just shocked Reproach never figured out that it was Velvet all along who was responsible for the exploding Gardener base. Like, the HQ of the gang that attacked her getting exploded along with the leader right after an attempted assassination should have rung 'cui bono' bells in his head to at least be on the conspiracy board and get mentioned under the list of weirdness. Seeing that they assumed their break-in was due to counter-surveillance rather than simply being detected by our secret extra-competent non-Bureau bodyguard I guess that shows where their head was at, and it wasn't "secret black ops parallel organization using very naughty resources and methods", despite that explaining the attack being repelled as well as the Gardener base going boom as well as the Greenhoofs folder.

 

[DelightedOne]

Maximum Loyalty means we get to keep any goodies that the Bureau finds in Tall Tale, right? Right?!

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Well, we couldn't mess with evidence because of our deal with Fair Trial but maximum loyalty seems like it could help with that.

But yeah do we take Lantern institutional knowledge for free next turn?

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You actually made a good point, we received a hint that something might be happening in Tall Tale earlier-

"The first order of business is from a representative of Tall Tale. They wish to express their concerns about certain occurrences that are happening in their city."

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- so Lantern to help the Bureau identify changelings fits well. Now we just need to decide if we are going or not so we can spend the Commissioner action in one more Institutional Knowledge, preferably Moth.

 

[ses]

- so Lantern to help the Bureau identify changelings fits well. Now we just need to decide if we are going or not so we can spend the Commissioner action in one more Institutional Knowledge, preferably Moth.

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We need to spend that Commissioner action to go to Tall Tale personally, which honestly I still want to do because it'll be awesome, plus it ensures extreme overkill victory right when we need a win to justify how fucking long we delayed that assault by to Celestia. I could see taking our free manuscript on Moth instead for Celestia reasons and just relying on Velvet's personal Splendor on handling Tall Tale.

I don't think we'll be allowed to double our Free manuscript via Lapdog even if we spend our free reagent next turn on a Forge 1 battery. Sad! Well we wouldn't do that anyway next turn because Forge name. But in the future.

 

[DelightedOne]

I could see taking our free manuscript on Moth instead for Celestia reasons and just relying on Velvet's personal Splendor on handling Tall Tale.

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Fuck, forgot if we introduce the lores it uses our Secret Library level. It is 2 now(and would be anyway if we made the manuscript) and as far as we know Celestia is still at 1, it is far too risky.

 

[Talon Tiger Dino]

I want to go to Tall Tale on the off-chance that there is a Worthy Opponent in that hive. As Comet vs Shining shows, you can rig the deck as much as you want beforehand, so a Resolution to absolutely body their equivalent is perfectly fine.

 

[Talon Tiger Dino]

What's funny is that if Celestia nabs a Bureau pony and asks who taught them the spooky magic, they can say "Princess Luna" with absolute certainty. Even if she slaps them in front of the interrogation mirror.

 

[Alan975]

What's funny is that if Celestia nabs a pony and asks who taught them the spooky magic, they can say "Princess Luna" with absolute certainty.

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and then scream in pain as a burning horn roots around in their memories

 

[Talon Tiger Dino]

and then scream in pain as a burning horn roots around in their memories

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Well yeah, it'd be utterly awful for them, but even then their memory will show the Commissioner moving the stars on demand.
...which might lead to Celestia kicking in some doors and demanding to know why Velvet never revealed her true self to Celestia, which would get really, really awkward until Selene emerges from her closet cubby and goes, "I just don't want to deal with the paperwork so I offload all this shit on Velvet as the strangest form of body double history will never know."

 

[ses]

So does this mean that Selene can spend an AP to [Honored Guest] a commissioner action? Because what better way to sell the lie that Velvet is Luna in disguise than to have Luna show up disguised as Luna disguised as Velvet? Her Moth realization only gives QM-guarantee that it will go undetected for her Selene guise, but... it's not like infallibility is even a benefit in this case.

 

[Talon Tiger Dino]

All I know is that you can tell this quest started with a Moth Cult protag that dove hard into SH.

 

[Alan975]

Its very Moth-y that we're infiltrating our own organization.

Better yet, we're doing it by wearing the mask of our minion that is our boss, no one can predict our moves if the flowchart goes in a loop!

 

[ses]

So now that we have cultists have we unlocked the classic "fleece money off your devoted believers" action that every cult leader ends up having to lean on because it's just so damned handy?

 

[BritBiscuit]

Really cool chapter, you can really see the Moth and SH influences on how Velvet acts and even with the plan as Selene also started as a Moth primary. Super cool writing I could really put myself into the scene in my head.

Also its really funny how despite Velvet being ignorant of the Velvet family mafia, she somehow still managed to get her own legbreaker, Mafioso Drummer Clap rocking up to Reproach and his partner in a mob outfit smoking a big cigar, "The Commissionah wants to see yah on the double and I gots told to bring ya to her. If you appretiate having unbroken doors as much as I enjoy breaking them then you'll head over to her real snappy see."

 

[BritBiscuit]

So now that we have cultists have we unlocked the classic "fleece money off your devoted believers" action that every cult leader ends up having to lean on because it's just so damned handy?

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At this point wouldn't that just be embesling funds under the guise of a pay cut to our followers. Considering that we are their employer and also their cult leader, we'd be essentially paying ourselves but I guess it'd work as like a money laundering thing.