I guessed that if Twilight Sparkle, darling scholar of the Canterlot community, wasn't able to recognize the effects of poison joke, then it would be that much harder for a family of non-scholars to figure it out. But just to reduce the odds of the Roam clan figuring it out, I made discreet arrangements for the Canterlot Archives borrow any available copies of 'Super Naturals: Natural Remedies and Cure-Alls That Are Simply Super'. And, just in case the family wanted to try to cover up their afflictions, I sent some letters to the various gossip rags and other newspapers about the cursed mansion. Depending on how long the volatile parts of the extract lasted, and various magical factors I couldn't predict, then anyone who visited that place might end up with a poison joke curse - the whole place might have to be abandoned, or torn down and rebuilt. Especially if they decided not to ask for help. (Given that I'd just used up nearly my entire supply of poison joke, and I was worried about depleting the species, I figured I might as well leverage the maximum possible effect from its use.)
It took them until noon to ask for help. This time both Safe Guard and I went there fully armed, in our respective fashions. At the mansion's outer gate, a couple of guards - I guessed new ones, since they looked unaffected - passed us through the throng of non-flying reporters. At the inner gate, another couple of guards stepped towards us; during my last visit, this was where I'd been checked for weapons. I glared at them and Safe Guard's horn lit up.
"Try it," I growled, "and I'm turning around and leaving." The two inner guards paused, looked at each other, and one went inside - I guessed for further instructions. I idly checked my forehooves for cracks for a minute or so, then turned around anyway. I commented to Safe Guard, "I guess they don't want our help after all."
Just as we were about to head back into the newsherd, the missing guard galloped back and shouted "Wait!"
I heaved a dramatic sigh. "Help, no help, help - I wish they'd make up their minds."
Without any searching, we were allowed all the way back into the house's sanctum, the garden. (Part of the reason Safe was wearing his full armour, and I had my full suit on, was to help us avoid getting poison joke ourselves, should we brush up against a misted surface.)
One of the interior guards had his frame had ballooned up with so much muscle that he could barely move his forehoof an inch. Another had fared somewhat better - he'd gone in the other direction, and was now the size of a foal. But what happened to the mistress of the house, the Viscountess Marble Pillar, was a mystery - she was stretched out on a reclining couch, but had blankets covering her up to her neck. Her eyes glared with both fury and fear; if I wasn't careful, she might just decide to kill us all anyway, just to try to save face.
Once we were standing before her, I reached within my jacket to withdraw a small bottle. "The cure," I said, "a single dose's worth, to prove I have it, and that it's not poison. Instructions are taped to the side." I set it on the tiles and pushed it forward.
"What. Do. You. Want." said Alabaster, biting off each word.
"World peace, immortality, and a free fireworks show every Sunday," I quipped. "Barring all that - how about a simple peace treaty. You have your political goals, and I have mine - and if we work too hard against each other, we'll waste all our time and energy fighting, and have none left to even try for what we want. So let's keep the conflict to what the average pony thinks of as 'legal' or 'within the bounds'. You stop trying to murderize me and my ponies, keep the overt blackmailing down to a dull roar, and generally don't do anything nasty that can, even in theory, be traced back to you; and I don't put my mind to coming up with something truly awful to do to you. And since I have good reason not to trust your word, and you probably don't know me well enough to trust mine - we don't bother even trying to rely on our words. I hear the Princesses know some good honesty spells - I believe that I'd be able to convince one of them to use such so that we know the other is being honest about intending to keep her word."
"Completely unacceptable."
"Ah - so you are so determined to retaliate, that you can't honestly promise you aren't going to? In that case, I believe I am done here." I picked up the bottle and pocketed it, started turning, then paused, and looked back at her. "Oh, yes - I was going to mention, I was in a bit of a hurry when casting this curse, so I was a bit sloppy about it. I wouldn't be surprised if anypony who visited your house in the next few weeks ended up cursed, as well."
I turned away again, and Marble said, "Wait!", with some odd, un-pony-like movements under her blankets.
This time, when I turned back, I gave her the full glare of my anger, powered by my knowledge of the horrors of slavery on Earth - even the present-day forms of it - and that this creature before me was involved in that. "No! I will not wait, dilly-dally, loiter, or tarry! This is not a negotiation. Every time you try to haggle I will increase my demands. My price has just gone up to you also giving me a full list of whoever you've subverted in The Dairy, and how. If you don't like my chosen enforcement method, then come up with another one I can accept - or else you can just stay that way for the rest of your life!"
"Exchange of hostages."
"As if you would send anypony you cared about - and I have no intention of putting anypony I am responsible for under your power."
"Exchange of spies."
"Interesting - but are you really willing to let one of my ponies observe all your discussions, on pain of my assuming you're plotting to kill me if you don't?"
"Buy-in."
"Pardon?"
"My family is rich. I can offer you a share of that income."
"I already have access to as much of the royal treasury as I need."
"For your job, yes - but wouldn't you like to have a little extra for yourself?"
"Wealth can be useful - but not at that cost."
"How about... a newspaper?"
"... er?"
"Full editorial control over the Daily Canterlot."
"... as interesting as that sounds, I think you're veering somewhat from the point. Your paying me some amount of cash or goods doesn't create any incentive for you to stop doing unpleasant things to me and mine. It sounds like you're just trying to placate me enough to buy the cure, after which you'll be just as happy to off me as before. I'm starting to feel annoyed again. Safe, let's go."
The two of us turned to leave, and this time, Marble's shout of "Wait!" was ignored. As we got closer to the garden's exit, she called out again, "Stop them!" A pair of guards with matching bat-wings - I wasn't sure if they were natural or poison-joke-induced - landed in front of us.
I said to Safe, "Shall you or shall I?"
He said, "I'm curious how well yours works."
"Alrighty, then," I said, faced the two guards - and pushed the plunger of my home-brewed pepper spray.
Turned out that it could use some tweaking. While the two guards were rolling around on the ground, hooves on their faces, a tear of sympathy escaped my own eyes. Or maybe two. Not being completely sadistic, I called out, "Rinse their eyes out with water, and they'll be all right, eventually."
Marble yelled back, "You can't leave me like this!"
"Of course I can. I don't believe I will be returning here - or that I will be accepting mail from you. If you wish to talk again, come and see me."
As my backside once again faced her, Marble shouted, "Alright!" I paused, and she continued, "You win. Honesty magic. Full list. Whatever you want. Just - fix me!" Her gestures dislodged some of her blankets revealing that instead of a typical pony foreleg, she had some sort of flipper. She hurriedly pushed her cover back into place.
I sighed. "Send me a copy of what you plan on swearing before the Princess. It should fit on one page - it could even fit on one line. Anything that looks like a legal document, I'll send back to you. Depending on how annoying you are about the whole process, I will consider allowing you to partake of the cure before you stand before the Princess. Safe, let's go."
After we left, and had gone a reasonably safe distance, I nudged Safe into a cafe. I sipped at my tea, and stared out the window, at the landscape stretching out from the base of the mountain. Conversationally, I told him, "I don't know if I can do this."
"What, get one of the Princesses to verify a promise? That doesn't seem too hard - you've got them wrapped around your hoof, by all reports."
"Not that. Well, not entirely that. I've been dropped into a game with pretty high stakes - maybe even the highest - and so far I've been able to pull things off by the skin of my teeth, with a bit of luck, of creativity, and by knowing a few tricks that aren't in general circulation yet. But I'm running out of tricks - and I'm just starting to bump up against the ponies who, well, are actually competent at what they do."
"Are you asking me for reassurance?"
I shook my head. "Not really. I'm just... not really prepared for all this. I'm a scholar, not a manager - what I've really wanted to do ever since getting into Canterlot was to bury myself in the royal archives for a few years. What I've ended up doing is getting other ponies to bury themselves in there, and pass along condensed reports - and once the next wave of expansion of The Dairy comes through, what I'm going to get is reports condensing those condensed reports. I can't even take a hike through a meadow without being trailed by messengers, worrying that I need to be closer to the center of things in case of an emergency, and that I really should be spending my time trying to figure out my next clever trick... and that if I don't get back to work, the whole thing is going to crash and burn."
"Are you really that indispensable?"
"At the moment - I think so. Maybe in some months or years, assuming things keep going that long, the top people at the Dairy will have gotten used to my wacky ideas, and be able to work with them without my having to kick them the right way around every few hours... but right now, if I have to go into the field for, say, a week, by the time I get back the civil defense shelters will have been transformed into seed shelters built by somebody's cousin of substandard materials for too much money, the scouting program will have morphed into political indoctrination camps, and the nobles in the Barn of Lords will have torn everything else to pieces trying to get something for themselves. And if I don't figure out how to take a break every now and then, I'm going to go crazy - really crazy, not just 'I think I may be crazy' crazy."
He took a sip from his tea, then said, "So go crazy."
I blinked. "Care to expand?"
"The things that you're doing - they're important, right? Helping to save lives in new and interesting ways?"
"Right..."
"And the ponies who don't like what you're doing are treating you like a new player in the game, and starting to build strategies around you."
"Seems so."
"So don't let yourself get buttonholed as just a player. Be a force of nature - something they can't predict, something that does things so grand that they just get swept along in your wake."
"... I'm still listening."
"Not even I know what you did to that Viscountess, or how. So build on that. Become the Mad Cow, who charms the Princesses, turns her enemies into frogs, and, so I hear, has a decent singing voice." I felt my face heat. "Do the things the Guard hasn't been able to do - including becoming a raging inferno when you come back from a vacation, if your staff mangles things as bad as you're predicting. Have a full-time job and be a full-time mother." At my expression, he added, "If that's something you want to do."
"Let's just say I'm still getting used to the idea that I can get pregnant, let alone that I might be an actual mother. But for the rest of it... do you really think I can pull off something like that?"
"Lemme put it this way: What've you got to lose by trying?"
I considered his suggestions. Finally, I said, "I think I'm going to need to find a steadier supply of - er," I glanced around at anyone who might be listening in, "some of my 'curse' ingredients. I wonder if anyone's invented hydroponics yet?"