Diary of Cozy Glow
After burying the foundation stone in a safe place, we continued towards the capital city of Arcys. We had instructions from King Shining Horn to seek out an agent of his known as Darkmoon at the Bothered Hen Inn in the capital. Arcys seemed to be nothing more than a small town, smaller than Vil, and certainly not a match for the natural grandeur of Canterlot back in my original homeland, Arcys had a stone wall built around it and an inner keep containing a palace with a pair of tall towers. The guards at the gates seemed distracted by something and just waved us inside along with other travelers. As we moved through town, I noticed that the streets of the city were mostly empty, the few ponies that were about were whispering to each other, something about events going on at the palace. The little I managed to gather while we navigated towards the Bothered Hen inn whispered about some kind of coup.
Once we reached the Bothered Hen Inn, I found it to be a humble establishment, but it seemed to be well cleaned. Among its patrons a unicorn in his 30’s with a white coat and an unkempt black mane with red stripes approached us. He wore a pair of rectangular glasses, slightly obscuring his emerald eyes and he was wearing a regal red cloak with white stripes, he introduced himself as Darkmoon and asked us if I happened to be Knight Commander Cozy Glow. I said that I was, Darkmoon got rather excited and told me he had heard stories about me which he would love to hear more about us another time. Then he proceeded to tell us what he knew about what was going on in town.
Apparently, the king had been deposed by two of the western barons, Baron Fury Heart and Baron Cold Steel, who had imprisoned the king in one of the towers in his own palace. If we could free the king and deliver him to the barons still loyal to him to the north, it would mean a civil war within Arcys, but this conflict would also weaken Swift Blade’s forces and the northern loyalists could be powerful allies in the upcoming war.
But there was a slight problem, the palace’s defenses were impenetrable, the guard entirely loyal to the two usurping barons. I suggested that maybe the tower the king was held could be reached using flight. Which would mean only me and Silverwing would be able to participate in the rescue. It was here Twilight came in handy with a helpful spell, telling us she would be able to create frail butterfly wings for the rest of us so Sunset, Night’s Blessing and Twilight herself would be able to get up on the roof of the tower. But considering there was still a risk of being shot down by the palace guards, we needed a diversion while we performed this rescue. Darkmoon had an idea. Leading us out of the city and into a nearby forest. As we entered a small empty clearing Darkmoon told me he had set up a meeting with a potential ally.
When we entered the clearing where we were supposed to meet with our potential allies. I could hear a faint sound from aboe as a group of winged ponies dropped out of the sky. A magnificent Pegasus with feathers shimmering of all colors of the rainbow stepped forward and introduced herself:
“Welcome, you must be ambassador Cozy Glow of Taralos, my name is Rainbow Step, ambassador of Mae Mae’s reach. I heard about the attack on Taralos but am not certain if my people getting involved is worth the risk. Yet, Mae Mae’s Reach had a good relationship with King Blueblood of Arcys so we are uncertain we can truly trust the barons that deposed him. Tell me, why should we help you? I heard that you can be quite persuasive, Cozy Glow.”
I remember reading about Mae-Mae’s Reach, it was a small island nation to the southwest of Taralos populated almost exclusively by pegasi. They could prove to be a powerful ally in the upcoming conflict. I tried my best to convince Rainbow Step that an alliance would be mutually beneficial:
“Ambassador, there has long been a close relationship between Mae Mae’s Reach and Taralos, if you help us in this, we will also help you in turn whenever you are in trouble. Also, if Taralos falls, who’s to say that the rogue barons and Prince Swift Blade won’t turn their attention on Mae Mae’s reach next? I think your best option is helping us get rid of this problem before it’s too late, because if Taralos falls there would be no one left to help you if Swiftblade does feel like conquering Mae-Mae’s reach once he is King.”
Rainbow Step looked at me for a second before smiling and said:
“Very well, you make a good point, the forces of Mae-Mae’s Reach are at your disposal. Tell me, what do you need us to do?”
I told her that we needed them to create a diversion while we flew up to the tower the king was imprisoned in and rescue him. While they told me this diversion might not be without casualties, Rainbow Step accepted the terms.
While the pegasi forces were waiting for Darkmoon’s signal. We prepared for a flight up to the tower, Twilight cast a spell that gave Night’s Blessing, Sunset and herself a beautiful yet fragile-looking pair of butterfly wings. Twilight warned them that the wings were quite sensitive to heat, and they shouldn’t fly too close to the sun, once upon a time a friend of hers, Rarity, had almost died making that mistake. Twilight also told us to hurry up as she only had enough magical power to make the wings last for a couple of minutes. With that we told Darkmoon to give the signal to be Mae-Mae’s reach forces and we began our ascent, soaring high above the town of Arcys before descending towards the palace and the power that the king was being held captive in, landing on the roof. On the roof was a set of stairs leading down into the tower.
The room below was unusually shaped, made of plain stone and with a high ceiling. On a chair in this room was sitting a single heavily armed earth pony, guarding the cell on the other side of the room. The cell itself appeared remarkably comfortable, which I guess befitted the royal status of the prisoner. The floor was carpeted, and the windows had solid steel bars covering them. The room was furnished with a bed and a writing desk. A middle-aged earth pony with a white coat and an arctic blue mane who I assumed to be King Blueblood was in this room. As soon as they saw us, the guard shouted for reinforcements and almost immediately an important looking earthpony together with another heavily armored guard came from the stairs below. The important looking earthpony was clad in gilded armor and had a grey coat with a white mane. I suspect that he might be one of the barons. The Baron immediately ordered his soldiers to get to the door to the cell open and the king killed. But we couldn’t allow that order to be fulfilled, so we attacked immediately.
King Blueblood was thinking quickly and managed to blockade the door to his cell using his bed before the guards could get to him. Night’s Blessing quickly engaged the guard who was ordered to kill the king by the Baron. Her first blow clinked when hit the guard’s armor, but her second strike was true and struck a weak point. The Baron during the commotion focused all his attention on breaking down the barricade the king had placed in front of the door. Ordering his guards to keep us busy in the meantime, the two guards formed a shield wall to prevent us from getting through. I ordered my subordinates to reach the baron as quickly as possible before he could reach and kill the king. The guards attempted to hit Night’s Blessing, but she easily parried their blows and managed to land a counterattack in turn. Silverwing attacked the shield wall with his full ferocity but was unable to break through their heavy steel shields. Twilight fired a bolt of pure energy at the guards making up the shield wall and severely wounded one of them, while Sunset was able to finish them off with a bolt of fire. It was strange to see a goody two shoes like Sunset getting so used to killing. Earlier on when we first ended up in Taralos, she used to have trouble killing her enemies. Now she seemed to have accepted that sometimes it was just a fact of life and couldn’t be avoided, especially in war.
By this point the Baron was able to destroy to break down the door and make his way into the cell, he was just about to raise his weapon towards the king when I took the opportunity to act and uttered a lethal insult towards him:
“Get away from him you sack of lard.”
The enchantments on these words weren’t enough to land a lethal blow, but it was enough to distract him while Silverwing exploited the opening in the shield wall to get past it and attack the Baron with his heavy greatsword, a powerful blow left the Baron winded, and Twilight and Sunset exploited this opening to land the killing blow with a combination of arcane energy and holy fire.
The king was breathing heavily, probably thinking he was a goner, before he quickly collected himself and spoke with a regal tone.
“I, King Blueblood, I can hardly believe you killed Baron Cold Steel, he locked me up in this tower, intending to take the throne for himself. I am grateful you saved my life, but who are you? How did you get here? And how do you plan for us to get out?”
I tried to explain what I could to him, that I was Knight Commander Cozy Glow of Taralos and I was here to rescue him. We got up here in the tower using our wings and we planned to get him down the same way. I could hear the sound of hoofsteps coming from the stairs below, so I decided we needed to hurry up, so I told the king to climb on top of Silverwing and with that he hurried to the roof and took flight. The king appeared quite frightened when we first took flight, but quickly calmed down after we managed to get out of town and therefore we could afford to slow down. We met up with the pegasi from Mae-Mae’s Reach just before Twilight’s butterfly wings spell wore off, who promised they would take the king to his allies in the north of Arcys. Before he left, the king had a final few words left to say to his rescuers.
“This might be the first time we meet, Cozy Glow of Taralos, but I owe you and your companions my life. I have heard that the other renegade barons have amassed forces to attack Taralos, and therefore I hope we will be able to form an alliance between the forces of Taralos and the loyalists in Arcys in order to fight this common enemy. Maybe together we could defeat them and maybe you could help me reclaim my throne.”
I told him that this news would greatly please King Shining Horn, who needed all the help he could get.
Before we could return to Vil, Fazban once again contacted us telepathically and explained that he wanted to meet us in a small village in the outskirts of Taralos to give us more information about the Foundation Stone he asked us to rebury. We complied and upon reaching the small village, we could see that its people seemed quite worried about the approaching armies. I gave them a speech:
“Citizens of Taralos, now that the forces of the usurper Swift Blade approaches, I know that you are afraid, you may be thinking, why should we lay down our lives and die because of the squabbles of the upper classes? The answer is quite simple, Shining Horn is a benevolent king that will treat you fairly, Swift Blade is a ruthless tyrant who will not care if you starve or now. You shall also know this, as one of the knights of the realm, I promise you we will do whatever we can to defend the common people. I don’t know if the king will issue a draft, but if he doesn’t, we will be in need of volunteers. While these volunteers do risk death, know that every life lost will be in service of ensuring the prosperity of the rest of us. And you wouldn’t fight alone, but together with many of the greatest heroes in the realm, Night’s Blessing the Swift, the deadliest blade of the Black Hooves clan, Silverwing the Valorous, the strongest knight in all of Taralos, Twilight Sparkle the wise, the most powerful mage in the realm and Sunset Shimmer, the kind, who are capable of healing any wound. In addition to fighting together with all of these great heroes I, Cozy Glow the clever, whose strategies turned the table in the gem gnoll war, will personally command the forces of Taralos. Together I know we can win.”
The dour mood in the village changed, now many of them seemed hopeful and many even volunteered to sign up for the army. I realized that many of them would still die, but now they would at least die fighting, the numbers contributing to a greater chance of victory. Some would say that I was tricking them, leading them to the slaughter in the name of personal gain. They would be right to some extent, because I didn’t know if Swift Blade would really be all that much worse of a king than Shining Horn, I just knew I would support Shining Horn because I saw him as a friend. But I meant every word I said about wanting to minimize casualties among the common people, I had started to like being seen as a hero among the people. I loved their attention when I performed speeches like these, then I could see they saw me as someone important, someone worth listening to. I knew that I would eventually make speeches like this one in every town or village in order to gather an army for the king and I would enjoy every minute of it.
Fazban was found among the crowd that was listening to my speech, after I was finished, he congratulated me on the well performed speech before leading us to a nearby inn and up the stairs to the room he had rented. Once we were out of earshot. Fazban was finally willing to explain all he knew about the Foundation Stones. The Zebra did so in the form of retelling an ancient legend, one he had a surprising amount of knowledge about, it was the same legend he told us before, a few days ago, but with added detail.
Once upon a time the founders of Taralos made a pact with an unknown being in return for 5 Foundation Stones, 4 to be planted at the borders, one at the heart of the land, the city of Vil itself. The stones magic subtly encouraged loyalty towards the rightful monarch of the land and if they were ever destroyed, Taralos would fall. But there was more...
According to Fazban, over time the kingdom would become more and more dependent on the stones. And the magic of the stones wouldn't last forever. When the magic finally failed the entity that the Founders made the pact with would feast on the denizens of Taralos. It was here Fazban told us the real kicker, he suspected the entity that originally gave the Founders the Foundation Stones were none other than an ancient Archdemon of Chaos known as the Devourer of Nations, who he suspected dwelled somewhere below Everglow.
It was said the Devourer allowed civilization to form in the world only to sweep in to destroy it when it was ripe, feeding on the despair and misery as a nation falls in order to grow stronger in the process. There had been several civilizations before ponies on Everglow, including the ancient empire of the dwarves, allowed to grow by the demon to eventually serve as its feast. Fazban told us that according to his calculations, the magic of the stones would last a total of 338 years. This would mean we had about half a decade before the Devourer awakened to destroy Everglow, but because of the damage to the Emerald stone, this calamity might occur earlier than expected.
I have had earlier experience with demons, in fact I suspecedt that it was a demon that first put me on the dark path. A pact which price I didn't realize until it was too late. I lost my best friend in a pact for power. A pact that led me to eventually meet Tirek. I remember having a nightmare about Aurora some time back, twisted into a grotesque tree. This was before Night's Blessing taught me the prayers to the Moon Princess to ward off bad dreams. Considering listening to demons had always screws me over, listening to Solar Justice led to me losing my best friend and listening to Tirek led to me becoming a statue, I had since learned to be wary of demons.
But Fazban had a dream, a plan. There was a prophecy among ponykind about a Great Uniter who would come and unite the tribes of ponykind into a single great Empire. This uniter was said to have the horn of a unicorn, the wings of a pegasus and the strength of the earthbound. While I lacked the horn of a pegasus or the strength of an earthbound. Fazban had seen me unite Taralos with the Turves Clans, the King's Loyalists in Arcys and Mae-Mae's Reach. He thought that perhaps I was the Great Uniter the prophecy spoke of. If Taralos had to fall to the demon, perhaps a new and much better empire was destined to rise in its place. An Empire under my rule with the other Knights as my advisors.
When Fazban spoke the words, I was sure he was right, a newfound sense of purpose had come over me. Yes, I was destined to become the Great United and rule as the Empress of a United Empire of Ponykind. I had always known this to be my destiny. I just didn't predict I was destined to rule a world that wasn't my own. I just needed to figure out a way to become an alicorn once again. Yet there was a voice deep down that told me to be vary, for false promises of this nature had always managed to ensnare me in the past.