Entry 187
Before I set out to visit the frontiers, I had a day with Typhon today as he rested between sessions in the stasis bubble. He is now fully capable of speech and is intelligent, if lonely. He cannot make many friends as they grow old while he must remain young.
In some sense, this is a mercy for him. We have continued to learn from vivisecting captured kelpie fry, and noticed changes in kelpie physiology that… Typhon seems to have picked up, despite him being born decades ago. My doctors and I can’t figure this out, but we’re running out of time. It seems Typhon is growing out of the “fry” stage of kelpies. Right now, we can feed him fish.
However, once he’s stopped becoming a fry, he’ll need sapient food.
Entry 188
I visited several communities and cities in the shallows and what I saw doesn’t seem possible.
The populations of our communities, particularly those near the resource-rich shallows, are dwindling. Or they are a pale shadow of what they were centuries ago. Cities I recall that were teaming with life are now towns.
Oh the local governors tried to hide these facts by messing with the taxes, and enough bureaucratic red tape to make it look like they were fulfilling the conscription and their tax quota, but all they’ve done is tank our economy.
I had them imprisoned of course and while they blame the war, it’s their own bloody mismanagement that led us to this.
Entry 189
This is bad. Our financial situation is…
Well to start, I did my best to rectify the taxes, but our reduced population, and thus reduced revenue from taxes is proving impossible to surmount. The war’s also cut down on trade and taxing that income any more higher is going to break seaponies backs.
To make matters worse, the war’s eating into our treasury. We long ran out of hard currency ages ago, but now the government is about to collapse under the weight of the loans we’ve taken.
The common seapony is suffering thanks to the kelpies and their stubborn refusal to just die. They’re continuing their guerilla tactics against our leviathans and sea turtles, and while they have yet to launch any frontal assaults against our outposts, their raids are forcing us to disperse our forces ever thinner. Forces we can ill afford to equip and train given our desperate financial straits.
But I will not end this war. I cannot. If I do… then what it have all meant? What would all this expended blood and treasure have all meant? I cannot give up. We cannot give up.
Entry 190
Traitors! The kelpies have somehow convinced several villages of seaponies to join them! We have received missives from several villages saying that they no longer believe in Aquestria’s war against “their own kind.” What rubbish. The kelpies are the enemy! That they are birthed from sea pony and deep ponies is Yoth-Atal’s curse. How could they consider them their friends?
A message has to be sent. A retributive force has been sent to destroy this village and remind my dear ponies that those who side with the enemy are traitors and will be treated as such.
Entry 191
Typhon is growing too fast. The stasis fields… they’re only doing so much. As he grows he is becoming hungrier and hungrier. As we know thanks to the many vivisections we’ve done of kelpie young, soon he will progress past the fry stage and need to devour sapient life.
Vivisections of kelpie fry are becoming rarer and rarer. I need—we need more research material. Yet, although I know the rate of kelpie births among sea ponies and deep ponies has not slowed, it’s becoming harder and harder to find kelpie fry. It’s as if that cursed Abyssal Empress has developed a way to funnel the fry to her forces. I must investigate further. There must be traitors involved.