//------------------------------//
// Ch 6: Servants and Sages 
// Story: Meta Gamer in Equestria Bonus Chapters: Archimedes's promise 
// by reflective vagrant 
//------------------------------//

They stood there, astonished and a little afraid at what I said.
After an awkward pause, I figured an explanation was due.  I returned my posture to normal and gave an apologetic nodding of my head.
"Sorry.  A lot of history was lost in the amount of time between this era and the one I hail from, but your name and your reputation as a healer of the resistance are one of the few details that survived from this war that I had the chance to learn."
Both of them seemed to give me a distrusting glare at my explanation before she spoke up in a concerned and calculated voice.
"We were going to give you the title that I am called among the servants, but since you know my actual birth name, as unfond I am of both it and the birth mother that gave it to me, lets just go with that.  Though, I can't say I am happy to hear that I will be known as the name I tried to forsake in the eras to come."
Bunny Angel gestured us along and soon guided me to an area where we could talk.



I could see Diary already there, cat napping in a somewhat comfortable pile of straw in the corner of the area that served as a "room" in the cave, her eye lazily open and looking at me.  I also saw a large rock and some mismatched pillows acting as cushions adorned the middle of the room.
I had to adjust myself as I sat.  The pillow I sat on had been filled with the same straw stuffing as Diary laid on and it didn't all behave, poking me in a few spots initially.
I also saw a pair of capybara in the corner with Diary, just chilling, unconcerned about the cat.  I found it odd that the giant rodents known for their friendliness where there, but just shook my head and looked to the pony sitting across from me.
Upon seeing our eyes meet, she asked, "Tea?  We have some left over from the evening rations that we don't want to go to waste."
She pored a bit into the largest cup and pushed it to me.
I took the tea and just about put it to my lips when I spied something in the room, on another rock.
It was a crude herbalism kit with a particular black paste left in a bowl.  The table had a few markings on it indicating it had been made recently and not cleaned up.
Upon seeing the shade of the paste on the side of the bowl where it dried, my hair stood up on end as I recognized it from my time with Zecora and her herbalism lessons for me to help me make more permanent potions.
Astral marking paste.  It was only ever used for two things.  One was that it worked as the base for a more complex paste that helped in unmasking changelings and other things not in their true form, even working on my wildshape forms.  The other was that in the form it was in now, it marked non ponies on the astral realm so that dream walkers could zero in on them and gain access to dream walking in their dreams quickly.  It could mean that the griffins were having trouble sleeping, but it could be done on non ponies without it given they had known the individual long enough and well enough.
No, being in a time of war, I found it far more likely to be something else.  Something that had happened to me in my past.
I gave the slightest taste of the tea, not even sipping it, but touching the tea to my tongue.
It was made from the same plant as the tea I drank back home.  It had almost no stimulants in it, but could easily mask a certain class of chemical concoctions poured into it.  I didn't have the tongue to taste such a mickey, but I had no doubt that a solid dose of it was in there.
When they saw me hesitate with the tea, I gave them a smile.
"This is the same tea I drink back home.  Only one I can really stand.  Otherwise I'll have the jitters all day.  A bit cold though.  Here, let me warm it up."
I put my teacup up next to the tea pot they had served it from and called out, "Hocus" while rubbing my fingers together, soon the teapot and mug was warm enough to have a small bit of steam coming off of it.
When I saw them relax a little, I knew I had guessed right.
I carefully pulled the mug back to my face and closed my eyes to smell it, as if I were to slowly enjoy it.
"I want you two to know, I have no intention of resisting, and am even willing to cooperate with you as you question me, but you can drop the act."
I opened them again, looked strait into Ebony Nexus's eyes and did my best to not look intimidating, but cooperative as I said what I knew would sound rather bad.  "I recognize the setup for an Astral Judgement when I see one.  You can tell the dream walker to come on out."
Seeing her nervous again, I held the cup as calmly as I could, while pointing to the paste.  "That's Astral paint paste. In it's current form it only is used for non ponies so that a dream walker can hone in on them quickly.  I'm familiar with this tea and that its flavor can mask a potent herbal sleeping agent.  That means you don't have a unicorn that knows a sleeping spell at the ready, which explains the capybaras.  The side effect of an astral judgement is extreme emotional distress on the one it is done to.  In the absence of a calming spell, a comforting, empathetic animal to cuddle is the next best thing.  That is something a druid could easily provide with an animal that's already friendly anyway.  That makes sense, since if you had a pony that could do a calming spell, you'd also have one that could just put me under."
They were stunned at my analysis and unsure how to respond, but I could see they were starting to lean towards panic.
"But the flaw is that the paste takes time to apply, which cuts down the time the astral judgment has to be performed before a subject wakes up.  This isn't my first rodeo with Astral Judgement.  I know from experience it sucks and I won't have it done half-assed just so you can do it without me knowing before it's too late."
Just to make sure, I called out to Archimedes.  "Partner?  I was just served tea and I know it has a sleeping agent.  I want to drink it anyway, yes?"
Archimedes piped in immediately, "I'm so sorry, partner.  I don't want to ask this of you, but yes.  We do want to... 
'show' we will cooperate with them."  His emotional tone wasn't just one of his melancholy, but genuine apology.
I pored a small bit of the tea into my mouth, pulled away from the cup and swirled the tea, gargled it then swallowed to show action backing my words of wanting to cooperate.
I then put the tea on the table and kept it close.
"I'll drink the rest of this cup for you and any more you need me to drink after you have the paste on my face.  Lets give the dream walker as wide a window as possible."
With this, Ebony Nexus stood up straight again, unsure of what to do for a second.  Ultimately, she took the bowl and brought it to me as if to hand it to me.
I became ever so slightly uneasy and did my best to set the bowl down on the rock table next to me without spilling it.  I was starting to get tired already.  It must have been a strong sleeping mixture they had in the tea for the single sip to get me this close this fast.
"I don't actually know the pattern you need for this."
At this, Ebony Nexus cocked her head in wonder.  Before she could decide what to do, Bunny Angel spoke up.  "That's alright.  I've seen it enough to remember it.  No need to reveal the dream walker."
After several minutes and several masterful strokes of his fingers, Bunny Angel had my face decorated sufficiently.
He passed me my cup and started to say; "If we want a solid time frame, given that you are already tired, you should only need a few more si—Not the whole thing!"
It was too late, I had already chugged the cup and set it down.  I took a breath and looked at him "Like I said, as wide a window as poss...ib..."
With that, I was out cold.  I could barely feel him catch me as I went under.







I found myself on my little dream island, half expecting Princess Luna to show up again, but quickly shook my head. 
"She hasn't even been born yet,"  I said to myself as I felt a presence approach from behind.
"So you're the one going to judge me, then?  I give no resistance.  Do your thing."
I raised my arms out wide and relaxed my head back.  As I did so, I could feel the small hoof of a mare on my shoulder.
I could feel light building up from that hoof and the pony behind me as I heard Ebony Nexus's voice call out "Reveal your secrets, Torilian!"

~~~~~~
I knew the dream walker chooses the connections between memories, but something reminded me it was still my memories they end up seeing, not what they wanted to see.  I realized I had reflexively thought of one as she called me a Torilian.
"Joy from your presence, son of Gaia."
She seemed to pause at this, causing the memory to kinda just float for a little bit before she pressed in a more focused manner.
A brief excursion on my time before I came to Equis played in fast forward through my mind, like she was searching for some event that never happened, and thus the trigger to slow down never happened.
The events before the blue box appeared and disappeared as she was left unsure of what she had absorbed.  Playing my time backwards, she zoomed through my life until we got to points that had involved the second rift war.  As she watched, she expertly asked different questions that made different points show up.  I didn't understand the questions, but I wasn't the one she was asking.  She was asking my memories directly almost like a search engine.
~~~~~~
"Checkmate."
~~~~~~
"Fluttershy was dead in my arms."
~~~~~~
"Please, help me heal him, Auntie Equis!!"
~~~~~~
"I!  Am!  @#^$#*Dalock!"
~~~~~~
""The Tree of Harmony is only what Equestrians call her.  We among the servants call her the Crystal Sister."
~~~~~~
"-Hero."
~~~~~~
"Please Moss, could you close the rift?"
~~~~~~
"Partners?"
~~~~~~
"I said go away, Princess Luna!"
~~~~~~
"Hallelujah!  You're alive!"
~~~~~~
"Not even in the pits of Tartarus, Moss."
~~~~~~
"Can you hear me now?"
~~~~~~
"Much appreciated, Ash.  Worth every penny."
~~~~~~
After she had a solid idea of my timeline, she paused as if checking something.  I myself checked my mental state and found I was doing surprisingly well, given how long the astral judgement had lasted so far.  I was in pain, but the pain was coming so much slower than before.
Whatever she was checking, she had her answer and reset her focus.  Her methods changed as she combed each detail thoroughly.

At the end of it all, it had been the longest Astral Judgement of the three I had ever been through by a large margin, and I couldn't deny I felt like total shit at the end.  If it weren't for my past experience, I probably wouldn't have survived.
Somewhere in the middle of it all I had realized she wasn't held to a code of ethics on what to search for.  She had free reign with no ethical restraints and I was at her complete mercy.  She had not focused on a specific item, but had combed through as much as she could in the time that had been given her.







I awoke with a capybara laying next to me with her head on my belly, doing a light rolling of its breathing almost like that of a purr with the occasional whistle like chittering.
With my body and emotional state feeling like it had been hit by a truck, and then had the truck back up over it again, I just accepted the company, gently petting the animal and letting its empathetic noises of comfort wash over me.
"That was quite the reckless stunt you pulled." I heard Bunny Angel call to me from across the room.
Looking over, I saw him slipping that clay pyramid back into his storage for it.  Next to him was Ebony Nexus, gently cuddling her own capybara, looking exhausted as well.
Bunny Angel got up and glared at me.  "Before you ask, you've been out for almost three days, including the time spent in the judgement and then recovery.  That sleeping agent doesn't register with the magics as a poison so I couldn't purify it from you."
I thought for a moment, then raised my head to speak before he cut me off.
"If it weren't for her continued efforts in keeping you under stress to keep your heart going while the sleeping agent ran its course through your body, you would have died in your sleep with such a dose.  We were afraid you weren't going to make it.  Many thought if your heart stopping didn't kill you, the prolonged stress on your body and mind keeping your heart going would."
"Don't be so hard on him." I heard Ebony Nexus softly call.  "It's a miracle he survived at all and he's still recovering."
His face went from angry to pained as he turned to her.  "As are you."
I wanted to apologize but found myself being cut off by him again.
"I just wanted you to know how much more stress you caused us at this base.  Whatever the Doctor sees in you had better be worth it."
With this, he left the room in a huff.
After he had left and I found myself becoming more aware of my surroundings, I noticed my pants were positively soaked in piss.
"Yea, sorry.  The sleeping agent had to leave your system somehow and we didn't have time to focus on pleasantries after you went down."  I heard Ebony Nexus call out.
I shook my head and kept rubbing the neck of the capybara.  Trying to be polite, I said, "Nothing a little prestidigitation can't fix."
I called out "Nikto," A few times to clean myself up, but knew I would have to just bear with the lingering chafe until it healed.
She gave a bitter laugh.  "Its amazing how strong you are, given what you've been through.  That was the longest Astral Judgement I had ever performed.  I tried to pull as much stress on my mind as I could once we reached a level we felt your heart wouldn't stop, but that trick only relieves a small fraction of it.  Had you not already experienced it with your princess and gained a minor tolerance, I fear you wouldn't have made it, even with going voluntarily."
I looked up at her in shock. "You were the dream walker?"
She smiled and weakly pulled up her bat like wing.  "With as much experience with dream walkers and thestrals your mind proved to have, I'm amazed you didn't make the connection sooner.  And yes, I am both a servant and a dream walker.  They aren't mutually incompatible, just highly unlikely.  I've actually found my ability to dream walk helped in my duties as a servant once I found my connection to the Animus Mundi.  Several of the other servants say that I am a rare case."  
She sat up and posed in a dramatic fashion, though her tone showed it was to play up the joke rather than actually seem epic.
"You're looking at what a Torilian druid would call our only member of the Circle of Dreams among the servant circles of Equis."
She plopped back down and started to nuzzle the capybara, who had eagerly come back in for attention.
"Not that we categorize ourselves like they do on Toril.  Some strengths may be more common or rare than others, but we all have our strengths that we serve with none the less.  We have no need to divide ourselves."
She gave a hug to the capybara and sighed.  Tears formed in her eyes as she continued.  "But to get back to business, I know there's a lot in your mind I must never reveal.  The future for this world you showed me didn't just mean victory was guaranteed, it also meant we win in a more absolute fashion than I had even dared dream.  That future was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.  To think ponies of the future will unlock a permanent crystalline form like myself, and even cause it to pass to their children!  If what you show me is true, then I definitely will want to preserve it.  To do that, I must let the events that lead to that outcome all play out naturally."
She looked me dead in the eyes with a resolute strength I had only seen in the eyes of Fluttershy once before.  Not even the abyss I felt in my own eyes or the zeal I saw in Archimedes's eyes compared to this.
"And yes.  I do mean all of them."
It didn't take me two seconds to realize she was talking about her own death.  Those eyes showed me everything.  She was scared of dying, sure.  She was scared down to her core knowing it was coming so soon.  She didn't want to die, but she was going to meet it head on.

A guard popped their head in as I processed what her resolve meant.  After a second, he piped in.
"O Daa kern porverind.  Wummt core nadanon vantonill?"
She gently turned her head, the resolute energy of her eyes softening to a soothing smile.  "Dee xoraka, tet parun."
Turning back to me, she asked, "Did you need anything?  Water or food perhaps?"
I was stunned as I realized she had actually been speaking fluent English instead of using a translator.
My stomach gurgled and I realized just how dehydrated I was with my throat.  I simply nodded with a bit of enthusiasm.  "Please."
She nodded back and made a request on my behalf before the guard left.
"You speak English.  How?  I thought you were using a translation spell."
She smiled knowingly.  "Your princess learned the basics of your tongue from performing a relatively short astral judgement on you.  That is how she managed to tutor you in her tongue.  It was the same with me, except I spent far longer in your mind and was able to refine it far better.  Although I could never be more fluent than the one I'm imprinting a language from, from the imprint alone, I'm almost as fluent in 'English' as you are now.  Thanks to you forcing me to be in there so long, I even know a good deal of the pony tongue from the future and a little of what you call 'Espanol' from your schooling as a child."
I nodded and processed what she said, still giving scritches to the rodent next to me.  I paused.
"But Bunny Angel understood you."
"While he had his tongues spell active.  He heard me the same as he heard you, translated.  I just spoke English so as to not exclude you."
She shook her head.  "I know you survived an Astral Judgement twice before now, and that is helping, but I'm still shocked you are as up and about as you are, keeping a conversation.  Still, since we are still talking, let me introduce you to a friend."
She nodded her head and eyes upward to make me look above where I was sitting.  I was surprised to realize I had been underneath a tree the whole time and didn't notice.  I was also surprised a tree was alive and well within a cave.
"This is what is known as a sage tree.  Sometimes they are also called guardian trees if they grow large and strong enough, but they are still the same thing, just a little more potent."
I looked at the tree.  It looked like a normal tree, but in a cave.  I couldn't identify the species, though.
As if she predicted my question, she continued, "If you are wondering how it can grow in a cave, they are able to absorb almost any light in their leaves, not just sunlight. The crystals provide all the light this one needs.  That, and they are connected to the Animus Mundi."
I looked back at her, showing a desire to listen.  Anything to keep my mind off the aches.  I had learned dwelling on them only made them worse.
"They are called sage trees because they are the reincarnations of sages that served the Animus Mundi in the past.  They act as keepers of safe havens and advisors.  Servants can talk to them through the Animus Mundi to learn about the wisdom they had gathered in their past life and in their observations as a sage tree.  This one's name is Toad Oil. Not all sage trees are as friendly as him but he's pretty old, even for a sage tree.  He has told me in the past that he will do his duty for however long he has left but he's still ready for his final rest when the time comes.  He also says he's happy to see you, though he says that to every ally from off world."
I nodded and started to say "Tell him I sa... You know what?  I'll just tell him myself."
As I put my fingers to my temple and tried to hone in, Ebony Nexus's eyes widened as she called out,  "No!  That's a bad idea!"
"Nice to meet you too, Toad Oil."  I barely managed to get out before I was blasted by something over the Animus Mundi connection.
"Torilian parasite!" I heard the very familiar voice of the Animus Mundi spit at me with an extreme vinegar to the message.
I felt my mind being racked as the connection was forced closed.  I had definitely taken psychic damage.
I found Ebony Nexus over me, helping me get back to the resting position I hadn't realized I had fallen out of.
"The Animus Mundi has been extremely aggressive to any foreign druids ever since they betrayed the resistance and returned to the side of the elves and their god.  It was the only way she could neutralize them, by refusing to empower them while on Equis."
I breathed deeply and did my best to recover.  Sitting up and keeping the capybara at a distance with an extended arm scritching and holding her back at the same time, I said, "That explains why my wildshape hasn't recharged.  She isn't fueling it.  I probably can't call upon her for spells while I'm here either."
But I then focused my frustration and a good deal of my feeling shitty from the Astral Judgement into a bout of determination.  "But there's one thing I need to clarify."
"I am of Gaia! Not Toril!"
A briefest of pauses seemed to follow, but then the anger swiftly returned, psychic damage and all.
"Parasite!"
I waved off Ebony Nexus as she came to help me up again.  "No, I deserved that one.  I'll get up on my own."
I took a breath and got up to my elbows.  With a bit of snark, I called out rhetorically.  "Yea, love you too, Auntie Equis."