[Blazing’s Entry]
And we’re back in the Final Sanctuary. My guess that I would be returning soon was correct, and I disappeared about half an hour after Grand Cross left Sagar (the name of the city, as I learned, which means dead horse in the old language of one of the many small countries which used to be sovereign before the Griffon Empire annexed them). I asked them for food, but the fruit the servants brought weren’t enough to stave off my disappearance for long.
Anyway, Emperor Cassius wanted a chat with me, and he was scary. Not in any physical way, I mean. Just like Nicolai, he’s a well-trained and experienced griffon, but his bearing and behaviour are completely different. He is well aware of his power and importance, and it shows. The fact that I could eat him within few seconds didn’t exactly calm my nerves, despite there being no Imperial Guards present during out meeting.
He understood quickly that my time was very limited, so after short explanation of how I got into things about which he knew a quite a lot from Nicolai’s reports we got straight to business. He had several questions about the events I was involved in surrounding Drachenberg, Steinheim, and Legius’ chase through the countryside, and in the end he surprised me by offering me a reward. The status of a noble within the Empire nor the money didn’t really interest me, though, because I have enough on my plate already. What I did ask for, unfortunately, was rejected. After seeing the power armors of the Imperial Guards and Black Ops energy weapons, I asked Cassius to send an expedition to Drachenberg with the equipment to capture Cromach.
As it turns out, due to the current war situation there are no specialized units capable of venturing into Corrupted territories. Well, of course there are some, but he's not willing to send them on some fool's errand.
I did disappear during the conversation with Cassius, but before that I managed to ask Desert Shade about the bounty, and I think we're finally getting somewhere. We arranged to meet up in Canterlot in two weeks. Why Canterlot was beyond me, but all Des said was that it would be the closest to where we want to go.
So, when I vanished into thin air and reappeared in the Final Sanctuary, I just told Heavy to be my alarm clock again and tell me when two weeks outside were up, and I went to sleep.
Well, first I had a shower in a bathroom which materialized soon after Heavy went to sleep. I tried to scrub the guilt away. Again, and again, and again, and again.
Needless to say, this is yet another thing I will carry with me into the grave.
Ironically enough, I feel vastly more "solid" than before despite the hunger. It seems that there's one thing that makes me myself more than hoof-to-hoof combat, draining magic, or my "excessive fondness for male on male activities" as Bucket said.
That thing is ruining the lives of others.
Heh, I almost managed to write all this without thinking about over a million griffons I killed.
Almost.
[End Entry]
"This should be it."
I tear my gaze away from the mostly empty streets of the white city. I remember Canterlot bursting with life every evening, yet now even the glowing lamps are scarce and scattered. Most light making the late evening darkness bearable is coming from the ground floor windows of houses and public estabilishments. Of course, there is a glimmering glow coming from the distance belonging to Canterlot castle itself. For now, it's not my destination, though. As Heavy correctly stated, a lit tavern sign reading 'The Dusty Traveller' I've been asking ponies about for the past twenty minutes is hanging above. Contrary to the silence of the streets, there are laughter, music, and other muffled noises of ponies having fun coming from the inside.
The familiar layout of most inns around here consisting of a common room taking the whole ground floor and the rooms for guests staying overnight in the floors above makes me feel at ease. Granted, the patrons give me surprised and wary stares, but apparently they are used to Corrupted enough not to try to force me out. My wingless unicorn Corruptor form without any visible tentacles must be helping as well.
Heavy, do you see Des anywhere?
"There's quite a lot of ponies around, even a griffon or two, but none of them looks like Lyam or- ah hah! The hippogriff wearing a cape in the corner has the point of a rapier sticking out from under it."
Could be. I was looking for Des' mixed group, not for just her.
I clear my throat after walking over to the corner table with the solitary figure sitting at it.
"Good evening, Blazing. Glad you made it," Des reveals her face for a moment before drawing the hood back again.
"Were you expecting me not to?"
"One can never be sure about things when you're in the question. You do have a habit of being just a step away from trouble. When I heard you disappeared in the middle of the Emperor's interrogation I got a little nervous."
"Trust me, that's not by choice, and it was more a chat than interrogation, " I sit on the chair across the table from Des, "Anyway, what's with the cloak and dagger? And I mean it literally."
"Oh, this?" she touches her cowl with the talons of one foreleg, "I'm just used to travelling incognito when I'm on my own. I'm pretty sure I've accrued some secret bounties on my head all over Equestria and the Empire. Ponies who live as long as us usually do, thought I don't mean to pretend my kind of enemies are even remotely close to yours."
"Heh, my enemies are pretty unique, true. Damn, I don't suppose I can ask you to buy me dinner, right?" I whisper to Des when an earthpony waitress starts striding to our table, "My teleportations unfortunately don't allow for a luggage."
"No problem, just don't stuff yourself. I'm expecting some resistance later when we go ask around, resistance I can't deal with."
"Can I offer you something?" the waitress stops by.
"What's on the menu tonight?" I ask.
"Potato pancakes and vegetable stew."
"Medium bowl, please."
"Anything to drink?"
"Any sweet wine?"
"Only Red Rose. Our patrons usually go for beer, so we just order this from Ponyville."
"A glass of that will be fine. Thank you."
"I'll be right back with your order," she smiles and shuffles off, avoiding a pegasus trying to slap her plot on the way by.
"Honestly," Des chuckles, "If I ordered that I'd be ready to go to bed at best."
"Trust me, I know what I'm doing. Sometimes. Speaking of knowing what we're doing, why are you here alone, especially when you said you were expecting resistance?"
She sighs, which fills me with clear hope and optimism.
"They wouldn't be of any help, so they're still training griffons in the Empire to survive against Corrupted. I don't even know if you are going to be enough, but I have my own stake in this, so I'm willing to give it another shot."
So it's personal for her. Interesting.
"Another?"
She nods, sipping her glass of strangely sparkling water.
"Hmm... I don't know where to start with this so that it makes sense to somepony who isn't me."
"Take all the time you need. I'll try to chew slowly when she brings the food."
My attempt at lightening the mood falls on deaf ears.
"Alright, here goes. When I was young, I was very curious about who my parents were. My only clue leading to them was a steady stream of money finding its way to me, monthly allowance you can say. I eventually tried to trace the money transfers backwards to their origin, but I failed."
"What happened?"
"I don't know," she gives me a frustrated look, "That's the problem. Every time I got close, I think, something happened and I lost everything I learned."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Well, you won't be for long. You see, I actually went after the bounty on you for a while."
"What?"
"It was a lot of money," she simply shrugs as if it explained everything which... it actually does. All she's doing is to earn gold, and she wasn't under any obligation to be my friend at the time, "Anyway, I had my doubts about the bounty, because I remembered Cromach rambling on and on about you whenever anything from the past came up, and I've been staying in Manehattan for a while before you arrived. Sadly, we missed each other until Drachenberg when everything went wrong. During my wait, I asked around and there were no trails leading to the Silver Sun when I followed the bounty's instructions. Unfortunately, I couldn't just ask Cromach because he wasn't home, and nopony else really wanted to talk to me. Well, the trail of money led me to a brothel. To be precise, one specific kind of a brothel."
The waitress arrives with the food, and I break my promise to eat slowly immediately, barely stopping to chew. Des, undisturbed, continues.
"That kind about which everypony in the right circles knows, luxurious, and yet dirty enough to offer pretty much anything. What makes the difference from all the other places I've gone through is that every service is performed by eager experts, not some ponies strapped for cash or even drug addicts. And trust me, it's really hard to find somepony who actually loves eating ass. Ehm, anyway..." she covers her muzzle with her talons before taking a sip of her water again.
"I'm a perv at heart, Des. No need to be ashamed around me."
"Yeah, well, maybe. The point is that this place was high class, and the more important thing is that it survived the age of corruption."
"Wait, what?"
"The next thing I remember is waking up in a hotel where we were staying with my guys, having no idea what happened over past few days. With the help of Rolled Scroll and after calling on few favours from Twilight Sparkle, I remembered only short flashes, but I know my road ended the same way as whenever I tried to look for my parents. I think I am the daughter of an immortal, likely an alicorn, which gives me my longer lifespan, and I think said immortal is the one who put the bounty on you."
"That's pretty far-fetched, but I've had stranger things happen to me."
She laughs, clearly feeling better after my reaction.
"I can believe that, but that's not all because this is where it stops making sense. Remember how Rolled Scroll dug through the head of the noble who poisoned his mates to resurrect you?"
"Yeah, she said something about a mind control... no, physical mind rewrite and alteration spell which didn't allow for magical memory reconstruction or anything."
"Bingo! Well, the same thing happened to me. And from Scroll's and Twilight's examination it had happened waaaay before. I did find something or somepony, and said somepony toyed with my head so that I forgot about it and gave up after repeated attempts at revealing them."
"So..."
"So the same ponies or beings who are my parents are not only behind your resurrection, but are also behind the massive bounty on your head which was supposed to incriminate Cromach."
I saw something. I remember...
"What do you mean?"
When I fell to corruption and tried to turn Des into one of us, I burrowed into her mind and I saw something, something that made me regain control. I was her as a newborn, and... something happened. It was the only memory not taken from her either by time or the one she was looking for. Why would her past shock me?
"That happened in Manehattan, though. Why are we here?" I ask, finishing my meal and feeling significantly better. Now let's have some wine.
"Clue one, the imprisoned noble clearly said the one manipulating him and his group was a mare. Clue two, Twilight came to the conclusion that the mind altering effect that happened to me wasn't magic, and if there's somepony I trust with the analysis of spells then it's the alicorn of the whole shindig. That means somepony physically rewired my and everypony else's head which is impossible without something even more unnatural than magic."
"Divine power."
She nods seriously.
"A user of divine power whose trail I followed multiple times throughout my life was behind that kind of whorsehouses I mentioned all over old Equestria, and I found two estabilishments like that even now after the main wave of corruption. One in Manehattan, and one here in Canterlot which is fairly new and where we're going to go."
"Why not go the the Manehattan one? I could have asked some Silver Sun members for help."
"Because I have a friend who I think met the pony behind this. The mention of divine power and the brothels full of more than willing workers made me suspect the alicorn of Lust, Joy. As things have it-"
"She lives in a pocket dimension which is reflected in the real world by a cave atop Canterlot mountain," I interrupt her.
Des blinks.
"How do you know?"
"That place used to be the dimension of Scream, the alicorn of Lust. But I thought she got killed. After all, that's why Void left this world forever, and why I'm in the middle of this mess in the first place. I'd like to meet that friend of yours who met this alicorn of Lust... whoever it really is."
"His name is Bound Tome, and he lives in Canterlot castle. He accidentally got to Joy's pocket dimension when the castle was attacked shortly after Nightshade's rise, and persuaded her to help save princess Luna from the Corrupted Queen which invaded the castle and wanted to transform the princess into her slave."
"I must admit I'm curious about the whole thing, but it's still a shaky theory at best. And before you argue, I am going with you to check things out no matter what. I'm just saying that looking for a potentially hostile alicorn is something I'd rather avoid unless it was absolutely necessary."
"Last thing then, and I think this one will stick in memory for you. Every time somepony has seen Joy, she was accompanied by a corrupted gold dragon by the name Vertradict."
It has to be her. She followed me through the Griffon Empire, she put the bounty on me, and she allowed Veronica Redtalon to track me despite my magic resistance. What makes zero sense is that if it's not Scream manipulating everyone through one of her schemes, then there's no reason for the new alicorn of Lust to be after me, or even know about me. And if it is Scream...
...why would she cause Void's 'death'?
Too many theories, too many questions, but I'll be getting some answers soon.
"Let's go, Des," I stand up from the table.
"Wait."
"What? Why?"
"I still have to pay for your dinner."